Is a Bad Deal Better Than No Deal?

Is a Bad Deal Better Than No Deal?

The Regional Implications of the U.S.-India Nuclear Agreement

Shehzad Nadeem | April 29, 2006

Foreign Policy In Focus

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3248

As the U.S. Senate begins debating the new nuclear agreement with India, far too little attention is being paid to the regional security implications of the deal. Instead of simply rubber stamping the deal, the Senate should examine its far reaching effects on security and nonproliferation efforts.

This past March, President George W. Bush reached a landmark agreement on nuclear cooperation with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Despite a terrorist attack in Karachi two days before his scheduled visit, Mr. Bush also traveled to Pakistan. Whereas his arrival in New Delhi was marked by glitz and pomp, Bush was met staidly by Pakistani President Musharraf's daughter in Islamabad under cover of darkness. This contrast was emblematic of what Bush was to accomplish on his South Asian tour.

The U.S.-India agreement, which must be approved by the Senate, gives India unprecedented access to U.S. civilian nuclear technology in exchange for the opening of its non-military facilities to international inspection. Pakistan's request for similar assistance was unequivocally rejected.

While in Pakistan, Bush issued a vague statement affirming the two countries' "strategic relationship" in the war on terrorism, urged democratic reforms, and tried his hand at cricket. Downplaying the special treatment for India, Bush said, "Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories. As we proceed forward, our strategy will take in those well-known differences."

The offer of nuclear assistance to India reverses decades of U.S. policy and lifts the moratorium on nuclear commerce with India. Although the Bush administration maintains that the greatest threat to U.S. and global security is nuclear proliferation, the agreement loosens export control laws and clears the way to provide nuclear assistance to a country that has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international agreement designed to stop the spread of deadly nuclear technology.

Critics of the deal are concerned that India's ability to purchase nuclear fuel and technology from the U.S. for civilian reactors will free up domestic supplies of uranium for use in its nuclear weapons program. And with the gaps in its program filled by U.S. nuclear technology, India can afford to be more ambitious and could pursue a far more expansive nuclear weapons program.

Secondly, as India gets to decide what facilities are to be classified as civilian--some 14 of 22 reactors--its military facilities will remain entirely outside the purview of international inspections. At the un-safeguarded reactors, it can vastly increase production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. And as the weapons program expands, there will be an increased threat of nuclear catastrophe at both the local level due to substandard nuclear safeguards and at the international level.

While India has imposed a moratorium on nuclear testing, the current deal does not require India to limit its fissile material production nor restrict the number of weapons it plans to produce. India also retains the right to develop future fast-breeder reactors. The guiding assumption behind the agreement seems to be that a bad deal is better than no deal.

According to the leading Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, what is "bothering" Pakistan about the deal is that although India, like Pakistan and Israel, has refused to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the deal amounts to de facto acceptance of India as a legitimate nuclear weapons state. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri declared the administration's refusal to offer Pakistan similar terms "discriminatory" and "unacceptable." He indicated that Pakistan wants equal treatment and will go elsewhere for nuclear support.

While Pakistan has forfeited any moral standing it may have had on the issue of nuclear proliferation upon the unraveling of A.Q. Khan's extensive black market network, the agreement gives fresh impetus to a nuclear arms race in the region. Should Pakistan wish to continue the race, it will likely receive the baton of nuclear assistance from China.

Shortly after the deal was announced, Pakistan expressed interest in purchasing nuclear reactors from China. As Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) points out, China has already assisted Pakistan's civilian program in the past and was named by the CIA as the "principal supplier" of the Pakistani weapons program. Were it not for China's assistance, Markey said, "Pakistan would not have acquired nuclear weapons...including provision of a tested nuclear weapons design, which A.Q. Khan distributed to Libya and perhaps other countries."

Beyond supporting its Pakistani proxy, China may also choose to fortify its nuclear arsenal, potentially prompting a regional arms rivalry. According to Samina Ahmed, a nonproliferation expert at the International Crisis Group, Pakistan will play catch-up with India "not only through expanded nuclear ties with China, but also by a more aggressive pursuit of nuclear technology from the global nuclear bazaar."

For the United States--the first country to develop nuclear weapons and the only to use them--to pursue a course that heightens tensions and increases the likelihood that they may be used again is deeply irresponsible. The U.S.-India nuclear deal increases proliferation risks in the region and is a step backwards for global nonproliferation efforts. Congress should take these dangerous side-effects into account and either require major changes in the agreement or reject it altogether.

Shehzad Nadeem is an analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego.

Tragedy in Sotuh Asia: The Earthquake and the U.S. Response

Tragedy in Sotuh Asia: The Earthquake and the U.S. Response

By Shehzad Nadeem | October 18, 2005

Foreign Policy In Focus

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2884

The massive earthquake of October 8, 2005 in South Asia has assumed truly horrific proportions, killing upwards of 40,000 people, leaving 50,000 injured, and affecting more than four million people.

While the destruction wrought by the quake was most pronounced in north-east Pakistan, including Pakistan-administered Kashmir, more than 1,400 people also died in Indian Kashmir. Schoolchildren lay crushed under mounds of rubble, while many survivors sleep in the open, eating grass, dirt and ice. Rotting corpses litter streets and fields, giving off a pungent and harrowing stench. Stranded villagers have begun speaking about a "second earthquake"--the failure of the relief to get through in time.

Given the immensity of the disaster the world community has responded with an outpouring of aid. Pakistan has thus far received $350 million in aid pledges and the United Nations has launched an emergency appeal for $272 million to help victims.

In contrast to the U.S., which rejected Cuba's aid offer after Hurricane Katrina, the Pakistani government has openly accepted assistance from nuclear rival India and the cooperation between the two countries is said to be unprecedented. While India turned down foreign aid for both the Asian tsunami and the earthquake claiming that it has adequate resources to assist victims.

In keeping with its slow and lackluster response to the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government initially offered a paltry $100,000 in aid to earthquake victims in Pakistan--the same amount of aid Afghanistan sent to the U.S. after Katrina. But since then, U.S. aid for rescue and reconstruction has been ratcheted up to $50 million. With this increase, the U.S. is behind only Kuwait and the UAE, who have pledged $100 million each.

In addition to the financial support, eight U.S. military helicopters were diverted from operations in Afghanistan to deliver aid and evacuate the wounded. But helicopters are often the only means of search and rescue and they remain in desperately short supply. As writer Tariq Ali argues, "A few miles to the north of the disaster zone there is a large fleet of helicopters belonging to the western armies occupying parts of Afghanistan....Three days after the earthquake, the U.S. released eight helicopters from 'war duty' to help transport food and water to isolated villages. Too little, too late."

Despite the lack of a stronger response from the U.S., some commentators tried tO find a silver lining to the disaster and argued, at least implicitly, that some good might have resulted from the calamity. The Wall Street Journal ran a telling piece on how the earthquake's devastation posed a major setback to Islamist groups in the region, killing scores of their number, which, however, constitutes only a small portion of the wounded, displaced, and deceased. In its callous disregard for the human toll exacted by the quake, the Washington Times opined: "The highly visible U.S. role in Pakistan's earthquake-relief efforts could improve popular attitudes toward America in the region, just as U.S. aid after the tsunami produced a sharp pro-U.S. swing in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries."

These sentiments are of a piece with the wholesale reorientation of domestic security policy from disaster preparedness to terrorism prevention following the tragedy of 9/11--the effects of which were on vivid display in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While it is true that enlightened self-interest may have inspired the Bush administration to increase its aid offering to Pakistan, what is needed now more than ever is a recasting of global security in human terms; a recognition that the human implications of such tragedies impinge directly upon the political consequences and cannot be neatly separated.

A key ally in the struggle against al-Qaeda, the Bush administration has lent critical diplomatic, military, and financial support to the Pakistani government of Pervez Musharraf. But for those who see in the military-led government a last bulwark against religious extremism and civil strife, the regime's lack of capacity was tragically exposed in the deficiency of emergency resources that left many victims without food, medicine, and shelter for days. As the death toll continues to mount, so too does public anger toward the Pakistani Army. Reports from Pakistan indicate that Islamist organizations, by providing relief quickly and efficiently, are taking advantage of the vacuum created by continued government delays.

As with most international aid, the U.S. has provided Pakistan with too much military aid and too little economic and social assistance. Instead the U.S. should seek to strengthen Pakistan's social infrastructure and its political and civilian institutions to improve disaster preparedness as well as to diminish the appeal of those who choose to exploit such tragedies for political ends.

Additionally, the U.S. can play an important role for building long term stability in the region by actively encouraging the ongoing yet fragile peace process between India and Pakistan. A primary reason the two countries were able to cooperate so readily after the earthquake has a good deal to do with the fact that peace efforts were underway beforehand.

Finally, the earthquake reinforces the pressing need to muster political and financial support for a UN-administered global disaster relief fund from which money can be drawn immediately after a disaster strikes, as suggested by Hansjoerg Strohmeyer, Chief of the UN Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

While Asia recovers from the tsunami, New Orleans is being pumped dry, and Pakistan mourns and rebuilds, we owe it to the victims of these tragedies to learn from past mistakes.

Shehzad Nadeem is an analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego.

Progressive Response

Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the International Relations Center (IRC, formerly the Interhemispheric Resource Center, online at www.irc-online.org) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2005. All rights reserved.

Recommended citation:

Shehzad Nadeem, "Tragedy in South Asia: The Earthquake and the U.S. Response," (Silver City, NM & Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, October 19, 2005).

Web location:

http://www.fpif.org/pdf/gac/0510earthquake.pdf

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