international nuclear relations after the indian and pakistani test explosions

International nuclear relations after the Indian

and Pakistani test explosions

After India’s refusal to endorse the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty(CTBT) in August , the possibility that it might test nuclear warheads waswidely discussed, especially in light of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) longadvocacy of the ‘Hindu bomb’. The explosions on and May neverthe-less came as a great shock. Although no legal undertakings had been broken,there was a palpable sense of violation, of hard-won and cherished norms beingtrampled by an exultant India, and of neighbours being threatened with intim-idation.The sense of crisis was accentuated by the after-shock of Pakistan’s owntests in late May, and by the coincidence of these events with upheavals inIndonesia and elsewhere in Asia.Anxious questions are now being asked.Whatkind of India, and what kind of Asia, are emerging in these late years of the cen-tury? Are we threatened by a renewed militarization—and nuclearization—ofinterstate relations?

Nuclear history can be seen as a history of shocks, of the illuminations thatthey have provided, and of reactions to both the shocks and the illuminations.In their effects on currents in international relations, some have been largelypositive (the Cuban missile crisis), others both positive and negative (the reve-lations about Iraq’s nuclear weapon programme), and others largely negative(perhaps controversially, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Althoughshocks are always sui generis, outcomes are shaped by their natures and contexts,by prior developments in the international system (including developments innorms and institutions), by great powers’ contemporary relations, interests andcapacities, and by expectations of what may lie ahead.

International Affairs , () –

WILLIAM WALKER*

* I am very grateful to Frans Berkhout, Ian Hall, Mark Imber, James Manor, Kevin O’Neill, GeorgePerkovich, Nick Rengger, Ben Sanders,Annette Schaper, Fiona Simpson and John Simpson for theircomments and assistance. I would also like to thank government officials with whom I havecommunicated in a number of countries whose names cannot be mentioned.

See J. Cherian, ‘The BJP and the bomb’, Frontline, April , pp. –. International relations theorists have given surprisingly little attention to the dynamic effects of shocks,

except in regard to wars and major systemic changes like the end of the Cold War. John Muelleraddresses some of the issues in Quiet cataclysm: reflections on the recent transformation of world politics (NewYork: HarperCollins, ).

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On each of these counts, the Indian and Pakistani explosions present excep-tional dangers. Relations in South Asia are highly conflictual and volatile,deterrence is unlikely to be stable given India’s and Pakistan’s proximity andcommon borders, the history of efforts by the United States and other powersto bring peace to the region is a depressing one, China’s involvement in theregion adds numerous complications, and there are risks that other states (Iranis often mentioned) might try to emulate India and Pakistan. Furthermore,there have been some signs of growing uneasiness in relations between greatpowers, in the UN Security Council and other contexts, and there are manyconcerns over political stability in the wake of economic setbacks in the formerSoviet Union, East Asia and elsewhere.

To make matters still worse, international nuclear relations had alreadysuffered a marked deterioration which began in the mid-s after the greatadvances that followed the end of the Cold War. Negotiated treaties were notratified, proposals for new treaties lay dormant, and the air was again filled withrecrimination. Just two days before India’s first test explosions, a meeting inGeneva of states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) hadended in disarray. The full implications of the events in South Asia can onlybe grasped if we understand why so little went right in –.The explana-tion will be found partly in the renewed military and political utility attachedto nuclear weapons by key states, partly in a complacent attitude towards thenon-proliferation regime that took root in some capitals after the successfulNPT extension conference, and partly in a set of problems that began to besetdiplomacy as the nuclearized world was reduced to a ‘hard core’ of eight states.

It is easy to lapse into pessimism over the outlook. In the main body of thisarticle, I wish to stress the opportunities for arms control that can now beopened up in the aftermath of the crisis in South Asia. Indeed, governmentshave to seize these opportunities if a fatal descent into an international orderbased on nuclear threat and counterthreat is to be averted. They have to re-dedicate themselves to implementing the set of agreements reached at the extension conference of the NPT. But their responsibilities go further than this.They have to make a deliberate effort to transform the climate and processes ofinternational nuclear relations, and to clear a path to the establishment of newnorms and institutions (including treaties). Above all, they have to react posi-tively and creatively.

William Walker

This was the second Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the review conference of the NPT whichwill be held in (the first PrepCom was held a year previously). Under the NPT’s strengthenedreview process agreed in , the PrepCom was given an enhanced role, including rights to addressissues of substance.As Rebecca Johnson noted in her summary of proceedings, the PrepCom ‘endedafter midnight on May with no agreement on substance, recommendations or rules of procedure’. SeeRebecca Johnson, ‘The NPT Review Process’, http://www.apc.org/acronym, May .


The great advance, –

The greatest of all periods in nuclear arms control (broadly defined) openedwith the meeting of Gorbachev and Reagan at Reykjavik in October which marked the end of the nuclear Cold War. In the years that followed, adeeply conflictual relationship was replaced by one that was essentially cooper-ative; strategic doctrines and military practices were revised; nuclear forces werewithdrawn from central and eastern Europe; and huge programmes toeliminate the bulk of the nuclear hardware assembled during the Cold Warwere initiated, guided by treaties and other agreements.

Contemporaneously, equally significant advances occurred in the non-proliferation regime, which acquired new instruments and attracted many moreadherents. Two particular trends lay behind these advances. One was therecasting of many states’ external relations in the s and s, partly as theyfreed themselves from Cold War allegiances, partly as they gave emphasis toeconomic and political modernization through liberal economic policies and,in some contexts, democratization. In the countries and regions that followedthis course (Latin America prominent among them), efforts to acquire nuclearweapons or the options to produce them came to be regarded as costlydistractions. Alongside the advances in conventional weapons technology thatwere so vividly demonstrated in the Persian Gulf War of , nuclear weaponsbegan to appear anachronistic and irrelevant to many states.

Among the states that reshaped their attitudes towards the non-proliferationregime in this period, none was more important than China. Its accession tothe NPT in , its tightening of controls on exports of nuclear and missiletechnology, and its increasingly active participation in the UN SecurityCouncil and in the discussions among the five permanent members (P) onnuclear and other security issues—all of these developments were rooted inChina’s pressing interest in modernizing its economy through access to foreignmarkets, capital and technology.

International nuclear relations

There is a narrow and a broad definition of nuclear arms control.The former refers to the efforts byweapon states (especially the United States and Soviet Union/Russia in the past) to regulate theirstrategic and political relationships.The latter refers to the above activity plus non-proliferation anddisarmament policies.

Under the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties(START), the tens of thousands of deployed strategic warheads would be reduced to a few thousandapiece, with the components and materials from dismantled weapons being destroyed or removed fromthe military cycle. See J. Goldblat, Arms control: a guide to negotiations and agreements (London: Sage, ).For an analysis of the end of the Cold War, see J. L. Gaddis, The United States and the end of the Cold War:implications, reconsiderations and provocations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ).

For an overview of developments in non-proliferation policy up to the mid-s, see J. Simpson,‘Nuclear non-proliferation in the post-Cold War era’, International Affairs : , January , pp. –.

Such attitudes were reinforced by speculation that warfare itself was becoming anachronistic in a ‘global-izing’ and ‘democratizing’ world. On the democratic peace, see M. Doyle, ‘Liberalism and world politics’,American Political Science Review : , December , pp. –; B. Russett, Grasping the democraticpeace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ).The recent aggressive actions of India, the world’slargest democracy, and the vehement popular support for those actions, should give exponents of thedemocratic peace pause for thought.


The other source of advance in the non-proliferation regime was thedeliberate effort by states, led by the United States, to strengthen the regime inorder to increase security in the complex political order emerging out of theend of the Cold War. Some realist theorists (most famously Mearsheimer)predicted that the replacement of a bipolar by a multipolar order would lead toa rush by states to acquire nuclear arms. Fearful that this might indeed occur,states instead cooperated to bind the international community still more tightlyto the norms and institutions of non-proliferation.The urgency of this task wasbrought home by revelations in the early s of Iraq’s and North Korea’snuclear weapon programmes, and by the realization that a number of nuclear-armed states could emerge from the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

In retrospect, the requirement to hold a conference in to considerwhether and how to extend the lifetime of the NPT was also fortunate.

Concerns that the treaty might lapse or be destabilized gave impetus toachieving the denuclearization of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine by , tonegotiating the CTBT, and to expanding the number of states signing andratifying the NPT.

When considering subsequent events, it is important to recognize the immen-sity of the change, and of the achievement, that occurred in nuclear politicsbetween and .The period was crowned by the NPT’s indefinite exten-sion in May . Furthermore, the Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament which formed part of the extension conference’sdecision gave expression to an expectation of more to come.The mood of opti-mism was evident in the flurry of attention given to complete nuclear disarma-ment in the mid-s, culminating in the publication in August of theCanberra Commission’s Report on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

The great frustration, ‒

Progress in nuclear arms control did not cease in .Various initiatives con-tinued to be pursued in the following years, including the CTBT’s negotiation(concluded in August ), the IAEA safeguards reforms (concluded in May), and the negotiation of nuclear weapon-free zones (notably in Africa).One can also point to the continuing success in dismantling Iraq’s weaponsprogramme and to the intermittent but genuine progress in implementing theAgreed Framework between the United States and North Korea.

William Walker

J. Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the future: instability in Europe after the Cold War’, International Security : ,, pp. –.

Article X. of the NPT requires that in ‘a conference shall be convened to decide whether theTreaty shall continue in force indefinitely, or shall be extended for an extended fixed period or periods’.

Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan also came to regard the conference as an opportunity to demonstratetheir credentials as trustworthy members of the international community.

The Canberra Commission was appointed by the Australian government. The Agreed Framework provided for the phased dismantlement of North Korea’s weapon facilities, and

the submission of its facilities and materials to international safeguards, in return for the supply of fueloil and the construction of two nuclear power stations. See K. D. Kapur, Nuclear diplomacy in east Asia:US and the Korean crisis management (New Delhi: Lancers Books, ).


There are also limits to the administrative and diplomatic resources availableto states. In the months and years after the NPT extension conference, muchtime and energy was devoted to the implementation and ratification of theChemical Weapons Convention (it had been concluded in January ), thenegotiation of verification provisions for the Biological Weapons Convention,and the achievement of a ban on anti-personnel landmines. In many countries,particularly at senior levels in government, less time was made available toattend to nuclear issues than in previous years.

Even taking this into account, however, the period – was marked by agradual deterioration in the climate and achievement of international nuclearrelations, and by mounting frustration over the inability to take matters forwardon a number of fronts.This was exemplified by the Russian government’s con-tinuing failure to ratify START II and by its difficulties in implementing the‘transparency and irreversibility’ agreements with the United States; byIndia’s refusal to join the CTBT and thereby to allow it to enter into force;

by the inability to open negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on aFissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT); by slow progress in implementing plu-tonium and highly enriched uranium disposition programmes; and mostrecently and dramatically, by the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests.

The reasons for this change of fortunes are complex and are to be found inboth the internal politics and the external relations of states. Two broadexplanations can be offered.One is that increased utility came to be attached (andwas allowed to be attached) to nuclear weapons in most if not all of the eightstates with active nuclear weapon programmes. Nuclear Weapons did not regainthe central roles ascribed to them during the Cold War—this was not back tosquare one—but they began to gain fresh importance in certain political andmilitary contexts. In consequence, some arms control measures that entailedfurther restraint on nuclear powers became more elusive. The second broadexplanation is that nuclear arms control objectives and processes became tangledand confused, partly out of deliberate intent and partly because states foundthemselves confronted with dilemmas to which there were no ready solutions.

Changing perceptions of the utility of nuclear weapons

A renewed attachment to nuclear arms was evident in three political arenas.The first was Russia, where there was increasing awareness of the serious lossof political, economic and military power that had been suffered in the s,a loss that appeared more grievous when set against the reinvigoration of boththe United States and China. In particular, NATO expansion gave nuclear


See J. D.Willis and T. Perry, ‘Nunn-Lugar’s unfinished agenda’, Arms Control Today : , October ,pp. –.

The CTBT’s entry into force clause was deliberately drafted to require India, Pakistan and Israel to signand ratify the treaty before it could come into effect. Israel has subsequently signed the treaty.

walker 8/6/98 4:18 pm 09

weapons fresh prestige in Russian eyes. They became the only unassailableemblem of Russian power. It is also worth noting that Russian attachment tonuclear arms was more openly expressed after commitments had finally beensecured from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to renounce them and returntheir inventories to Russia.Thereafter, Russia cared less about reactions to itsnuclear rhetoric in its near abroad.

Although trends in Russian politics provoked concerns in Washington, the USgovernment reacted mainly by pressing for further arms reductions,and by seekingways of softening the impact of NATO expansion, in the justified expectation thatRussia would be forced by economic circumstances to return to the negotiatingtable. Indeed, the Russian government showed its eagerness by proposing thatSTART III negotiations should begin before START II was ratified.

Throughout,Washington appeared more concerned by the risks of leaks (of bothmaterials and expertise) from Russia’s decaying nuclear infrastructure than by anyrevival of the strategic threat posed by Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

Events in the Middle East arguably provided the more important driver ofreassessments in US strategic nuclear policies. In , an Israeli government hadstated for the first time that it might contemplate abandoning its nucleardeterrent. However, Israel’s subsequent retreat from the regional peace processincreased its psychological reliance on military power and entrenched itsdetermination to avoid restraint on its nuclear arms and to negate any attemptby another regional power to threaten it with weapons of mass destruction.Israel became increasingly alarmed by the prospect that Iran (or Iraq) might gainthe capacity to attack it with missiles armed with chemical or biologicalwarheads. Its alarm was infectious in the United States, and indeed maydeliberately have been relayed to Washington in an attempt to bind America intothe protection of the Israeli government’s political and security agendas.

In response to these and other pressures, the US government strengthened itscommitment to theatre missile defences (TMD), and began to elevate the roleof nuclear weapons as deterrents against attacks from chemical and biologicalweapons. In turn, these developments provoked negative reactions in Russiaand China which foresaw that effective TMD programmes, and the ABMsystems that might emerge out of them, could swing the strategic balance infavour of the United States. In addition, threats to use nuclear against chemicaland biological weapons were interpreted by many NPT parties as retreats from

William Walker

See J. Mendelsohn, ‘The US–Russian strategic arms control agenda’, Arms Control Today : ,November/December , pp. –.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres stated in that Israel would ‘begin negotiation of a Middle EastNuclear Weapon-Free Zone two years after bilateral peace agreements are signed with all states, includ-ing Iran’. See G. M. Steinberg, ‘Middle East peace and the NPT extension decision’, The NonproliferationReview : , Fall , pp. –.

I have heard it said that, prior to April , threats from missile-launched chemical and biologicalweapons occupied more time in the bilateral meetings between President Clinton and Prime MinisterNetanyahu than the peace process.


the negative security assurances that the five nuclear weapon states (NWS) hadissued in April .

The third arena in which attachment to nuclear weapons hardened after was South Asia.The Indo-Pakistani conflict began at the same time as the ColdWar and has now outlasted it. The end of the Cold War has brought noamelioration. On the contrary, the dispute has intensified, partly in reaction toevents in Kashmir. Although neither Pakistan nor India deployed nuclearweapons before the recent tests, a vigorous ‘capability race’ involving missiles,warhead design and fissile materials has been under way over many years.

It is a mistake to view India’s actions just as reactions to Pakistan, or even toChina, without whose assistance Pakistan could not have established itscapabilities. Perversely, India’s deepening affection for nuclear weapons has alsobeen propelled by its hatred (this is not too strong a word) of the non-proliferation regime—by its intense grievance over being locked into what itsees as an inferior status due to the regime’s politico-legal stratification. Theterm ‘nuclear apartheid’ which India has promulgated in recent years givesaccurate expression to this grievance: Indians perceive themselves as victims ofan immoral order and as being held in a position of inferiority by structures ofpower over which they have little influence.

These sentiments were aggravated by the great strides in arms control takenafter the end of the Cold War. India’s fury was aroused especially by the decisionto grant an indefinite extension to the NPT (interpreted as giving the NWSan eternal legal right to hold nuclear weapons), and by the negotiation of theCTBT (which would have affected India’s ability more than that of the NWSto deploy nuclear arms). In addition, India’s sense of disadvantaged isolation washeightened by the rapprochement between Russia and the United States, and byChina’s political and economic expansion and its increasing absorption into theinstitutions and practices of collective security.Whereas open-door policies andeconomic liberalization appeared to be accompanied by a genuine Chineseembrace of internationalism, this did not happen to the same extent in India.


On security assurances, see G. Bunn and R.Timerbaev, ‘Security assurances to non-nuclear-weaponstates: possible options for change’, PPNN Issue Review , Mountbatten Centre for InternationalStudies, University of Southampton, September . Negative security assurances granted by NWS toNNWS states parties to the NPT provide the latter with guarantees that they will not be threatened orattacked with nuclear weapons unless they breach their treaty undertakings or themselves attack the saidNWS in alliance with another NWS. On nuclear security assurances and chemical and biologicalweapons, see V.A. Utgoff, Nuclear weapons and the deterrence of biological and chemical warfare, OccasionalPaper , Henry L. Stimson Center,Washington, DC, October ;A. Kelle, Security in a nuclear weaponsfree world—how to cope with the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons threat, PRIF Report , PeaceResearch Institute, Frankfurt,April .

A summary of the events and decisions that led to India’s nuclear tests in May has been providedby K. Subrahmanyam, ‘Politics of Shakti: new whine in an old bomb’, Times of India, May . Heasserts that the decision to launch a weaponization programme was taken by Rajiv Gandhi in . Formore detailed, but less up to date histories of the Indian nuclear programme see R. G. C.Thomas, Indiansecurity policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ); Z. Moshaver, Nuclear weapons in the Indiansubcontinent (London: Macmillan, ); and C. Smith, India’s ad hoc arsenal (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress/SIPRI, ).An excellent discussion of the interplay between Indian domestic politics anddecision-making in nuclear and other security fields is S. Gupta, India redefines its role,Adelphi Paper (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, ).

See W.Walker, ‘India’s nuclear labyrinth’, The Nonproliferation Review : , Fall , pp. –.


India’s nuclear tests on and May can therefore be seen as a lashing out—against Pakistan, against China, against the nuclear weapon states, against thenon-proliferation regime. India’s nuclear weapon programme has always beendeeply motivated by the thirst for prestige. The Indian Prime Minister, MrVajpayee, proclaimed with evident emotion on television on May that ‘Indiais now a nuclear weapon state’. Hence the dilemma now facing the interna-tional community: there may be no end to India’s defiance if this status is notgranted; yet it is impossible to grant this favour within existing structures ofinternational law and without creating serious problems elsewhere (forinstance, in the Middle East over Israel).

It is tempting to seek general causes of the increased utility that came to beattached to nuclear weapons in these three arenas. One common factor is therise of nationalism (including the distinctive US brand) together with, in Israeland India, the rise of parties with religious agendas. Both tend to increaseinterest in representative symbols of power and encourage an uncompromisingreliance upon that power.

But one should not press such generalizations too far. It is more correct totreat developments in the three arenas as being largely sui generis. It is alsopossible to regard the policy developments in Russia and even in the MiddleEast as temporary phenomena, driven by certain events (NATO expansion) andgovernments (that of Prime Minister Netanyahu). In more propitious circum-stances, one can imagine nuclear weapons again losing salience in both contexts.

However, developments in the three arenas have all interacted and been influ-ential at the systemic level.They have had significant implications, singly and incombination, for arms control regimes: for the political and normative debatesconducted within them; for the ability to develop new multilateral instrumentsand use them as remedies in troubled regions; and for political relationsbetween leading powers.

Normative and procedural dilemmas in nuclear arms control

At the regime level, arms control was also increasingly bedevilled in – bytwo linked problems, one concerning the rights of, and relations between, dif-ferent categories of states, the other concerning objectives and the processes bywhich those objectives might be attained.

The first might be termed the ‘ + + + ’ problem. Hitherto, nucleararms control among the eight states with current nuclear weapon programmes

William Walker

I have been influenced in the observations that follow by a presentation given on ‘The future of nucleararms control’ by Andrew Barlow at King’s College, London on February (unpublished mimeo).The numbers refer to the United States and Russia, plus China, France and Britain, plus India, Pakistanand Israel, plus the non-nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT (as of May ) together with Braziland Cuba.These last two states have not joined the NPT (Brazil is expected to do so soon), but arebound to legal renunciations of nuclear weapons by the Treaty of Tlatelolco which has established anuclear-weapon-free zone in Latin America.


has largely been conducted bilaterally by the United States and USSR/Russia,with China, France and the UK as onlookers and Israel, India and Pakistanoutside the frame. However, as US and Russian arsenals were reduced, and asattempts were made to construct universal norms and treaties that wouldeverywhere stem the development and production of nuclear weapons, sopressures rose to involve all eight states and have them bound by the sameconstraints. These pressures were increased by desires of the non-nuclearweapon states (NNWS) parties to the NPT to have more say over the armscontrol agenda and to promote measures that would assist disarmament.Thesepressures and interests came together in the CTBT negotiations held between and .

However, the situations faced by the eight states were different and highlyasymmetrical, especially in regard to the scale, qualities and deployment ofcapabilities. Thus the US and Russian arsenals were an order of magnitudelarger than the British, French and Chinese arsenals; these five states (and Israel)had deployed nuclear weapons and had integrated them into military strategies,while India and Pakistan had not yet done so; and stocks of weapons materialpossessed by the eight states were very different in kind and scale. Moreover,India, Pakistan and Israel had come to ascribe special political and strategicvalue to nuclear weapons and were thus the least prepared to accept restraint.India’s and Pakistan’s more limited capabilities and experience also meant thatconstraints on production and testing might push them in the direction ofdisarmament. This concern underpinned the Indian claim that the CTBTwould remain fundamentally discriminatory unless the NWS themselvesembraced disarmament.

The situations facing each state were thus distinctive. Common approacheseasily became bogged down in suspicion and complexity and became vulner-able to the veto of any one of the eight states.Weighing against this were theundoubted advantages of multilateral approaches in terms of simplicity, univer-sality and regional stability, not least in the capping of India’s and Pakistan’scapabilities.

‘ + + + ’ represented only one cut of the cake. It intersected with aset of politico-strategic relations defined more accurately by ‘ + + + ’(USA/Russia/France/UK + USA/China/Russia + China/India/Pakistan +Israel) with the non-nuclear weapon states being variously arranged amongthese groupings (such as Germany and Poland with the four, and Egypt andIran with the one).Taking these two categorizations together, the implicationwas that arms control processes had to be pursued at many levels and in manygeometries; but that universal approaches built around common norms andinstruments have great merits as they could consensually cut across all of thepolitical and symbolic boundaries.


For details on these stocks, see D.Albright, F. Berkhout and W.Walker, Plutonium and highly enriched urani-um : world inventories, capabilities and policies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ). Updated assess-ments on India and Pakistan are available from David Albright and Kevin O’Neill, Institute for Scienceand International Security,Washington DC.


It was in the period after that these problems began to confront theinternational community in a serious way. In some degree, they wereconsequences of the great successes in arms reduction and non-proliferationwhich were focusing attention on the remaining eight states and on theirinterrelationships. They were also consequences of the increasing urgencyattached to addressing the security risks posed by the comparativelyunconstrained weapon programmes of the three states outside the main armscontrol regimes—Israel, India and Pakistan.

The second issue that bedevilled arms control was disarmament. After thegreat successes of –, what should be the fundamental objective ofnuclear arms control (broadly defined)? Should it be complete nucleardisarmament, or a ‘low-salience’ nuclear environment, or something else? Ifnuclear disarmament were rejected, how could any alternative be reconciledwith the NPT commitment to pursue disarmament? If disarmament wereaccepted as the objective, how should the processes leading to it be managed?

Contemporary debates about disarmament have been conducted almostentirely within expert communities comprising government officials and rep-resentatives of international organizations and NGOs. There has thereforebeen no preparation of the domestic political ground for disarmament in anyof the eight states possessing nuclear weapon programmes; and the elite groupsthat determine weapons policies have shown little desire to promote it.

Indeed, it is unlikely that the US and Soviet/Russian governments could havemade such progress after if they had been required to agree on a finaldestination, not least because they would have faced punishing internal debates.Advocacy of nuclear disarmament has therefore mainly come from withinepistemic communities, and intragovernmental debates before and after largely took place out of the need to respond to international pressure.

But the NPT’s fundamental aspiration (some would say obligation) is com-plete disarmament. This aspiration has gained fresh life in the s and was

William Walker

See e.g. R. C. Karp, ed., Security without nuclear weapons? Different perspectives on non-nuclear security(Oxford: Oxford University Press/SIPRI, ); J. Rotblat, J. Steinberger and B. Udgaonkar, eds, Anuclear-free world: Desirable? Feasible? (Boulder, CO, Oxford:Westview for Pugwash, ); M. MccGwire,‘Nuclear weapons revisited’, International Affairs : ,April , pp. –; M. Quinlan, ‘The future ofnuclear weapons in world affairs’, Bulletin of the Atlantic Council : , November ; S. Fetter, Verifyingnuclear disarmament, Occasional Paper , Henry L. Stimson Center,Washington, DC, October .

As I have suggested elsewhere, the main reason (inertia aside) why policy elites in the NWS have so farresisted disarmament is that satisfactory answers have yet to be given to three fundamental questions.Would nuclear disarmament increase or decrease regional and global security? What exactly is entailedby nuclear disarmament—what is being disarmed, and when has whatever is being disarmed finally beendisarmed? And how can states get from here to there safely and securely, and once disarmament hasbeen achieved how can they collectively ensure that they all stay there? (That is, how can they guardagainst the possibility of ‘break-out’?) See W.Walker, ‘Evolutionary versus planned approaches to nucleardisarmament’, Disarmament Diplomacy , May , pp. –.

On epistemic communities, see Peter Haas, guest ed., ‘Knowledge, power and international policy co-ordination’ International Organization : , .


strongly endorsed at the NPT extension conference.The NWS thereforefaced a dilemma: how to support disarmament without tying themselves to itsrealization. The result was constant ambiguity, often leading to accusations ofbad faith.

The NWS’ justified or unjustified reluctance to embrace disarmament helpednurture a politics of grievance within the non-proliferation regime, especiallyamong states belonging to the non-aligned movement. However, completedisarmament also became a mantra for the promotion of special interests. ForArab states, disarmament was code for the disarmament of Israel, while forIndia it was code for the disempowerment of China and the other NWS.Together, these interests and grievances gave rise to the adoption by a coalitionof states of an increasingly uncompromising stance on disarmament.

One can go further. In the s, the NPT’s normative concentration on dis-armament, and the political games that states played around it, inhibited thedevelopment and enunciation of a coherent set of nuclear arms controlobjectives and of a process for achieving those objectives. Within expertcommunities there may now be a broad consensus on the superiority of anevolutionary, step-by-step, open-ended approach to disarmament over the‘time-limited’ approach advocated by the Indian government; but itsadoption has not yet proved possible at an intergovernmental level.

The costs of disagreements over disarmament showed up especially after in bitter disputes over the CTBT’s final text, in the failure to initiate negotia-tions of the FMCT in the Conference on Disarmament (CD), and in damagewrought to the climate of relations among NPT parties. In the CD, which actsunder consensus rules, India—backed by some non-aligned states—made itsparticipation in FMCT negotiations conditional upon the formation of an adhoc committee on nuclear disarmament, a condition that the NWS refused tomeet. At the PrepCom meeting in Geneva in early , Canada and SouthAfrica led efforts to win agreement on establishment of a committee that couldat least discuss disarmament.These efforts were thwarted especially, in the eyesof many participants, by the United States.

This has been a dispute about rights as well as commitments.The NWS haveworried that their rights to determine nuclear weapon policies, including thetiming, purpose and contents of arms control negotiations, would be eroded ifdisarmament were to be formally addressed in an intergovernmental setting.They have also worried lest negotiations (for instance, within the STARTprocess) on sensitive issues pertaining to nuclear arms be blighted if conductedunder the gaze of a wider community of states. For their part, the NNWS


As in the s, the NWS’ possession of nuclear arms has in the s also come to symbolize broaderinequalities in the international system.

See e.g. H. Müller, ‘An incremental strategy for nuclear disarmament: rationale and practical considera-tions’, PPNN Issue Review , Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University ofSouthampton,April .

Sensitive issues pertaining to nuclear weapon designs and production processes could not, in any case, bediscussed with NNWS without breaching Article I of the NPT.


have understandably been reluctant to concede that they have no rights in suchmatters, given the global nature of nuclear threats and the rights that they havethemselves ceded by renouncing nuclear weapons.

Progress in multilateral arms control was therefore greatly complicated by the‘ + + + ’ problems and the disputes over disarmament in –, andby their frequent entanglement. On the positive side, these were symptoms ofsuccess and were bound to emerge, albeit not necessarily with such debilitat-ing consequences, as attention became focused on the eight states that com-prised the nuclear world’s hard core. On the negative side, they have left a pileof unresolved problems and unfinished business—an unfortunate backgroundagainst which to face the challenges posed by events in South Asia.

Dangers and opportunities arising from the Indian and Pakistani testexplosions

This article is being written in the second half of May, soon after the Indian(and then Pakistani) test explosions. Although many states delivered strongrebukes, and many took steps to implement economic sanctions, the initialreaction was highly variable and generally indecisive. Governments faced anextremely complex and volatile situation that did not lend itself to simpleremedies. In late May, there are signs of increasing resolution and coordinationas the gravity of the situation becomes apparent.

At one level, one can sympathize with India’s inherited predicament.Here wasa proud and ambitious nation-state, the world’s largest democracy, founded intraumatic circumstances after generations of foreign domination, surrounded byanxious and unfriendly states, but with pretensions to become a modern andrespected international power.Yet its nuclear pretensions were thwarted by theNPT’s restriction of the number of ‘legitimate’ weapon states, it had to look onas the five anointed states enjoyed wide privileges under the treaty, it wassubjected to the indignity of trade embargoes over many years, and it wasconstantly being pressed to join the NPT and other treaties against its will.

William Walker

The G issued the following statement on May: ‘We condemn the nuclear tests which were carriedout by India on and May. Such action runs counter to the will expressed by signatories to theCTBT to cease nuclear testing, to efforts to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime and to stepsto enhance regional and international peace and security...We underline our full commitment to theNon-Proliferation Treaty and to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as the cornerstones of the globalnon-proliferation regime and the essential foundations for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament.Weexpress our grave concern about the increased risk of nuclear and missile proliferation in South Asia andelsewhere.We urge India and other states in the region to refrain from further tests and the deploymentof nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles.We call upon India to rejoin the mainstream of internationalopinion, to adhere unconditionally to the NPT and the CTBT and to enter into negotiations on aglobal treaty to stop the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. India’s relationship with eachof us has been affected by these developments.We are making this clear in our own direct exchangesand dealings with the Indian Government and we call upon other states similarly to address their con-cerns to India.We call upon and encourage Pakistan to exercise maximum restraint in the face of thesetests and to adhere to international non-proliferation norms.’

The NPT’s restriction on the number of NWS parties arises from the stipulation in Article IX. that ‘anuclear weapon State is one which has manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclearexplosive device prior to January ’.


But this predicament cannot condone the acts of aggression committed byIndia on and May, acts which involved both the explosive tests and thelanguage in which they were presented to Indians and to the world. Let therebe no equivocation: these were acts of aggression—against India’s neighbours,against the emerging Asian international society, and against the normsembedded in the CTBT and the non-proliferation regime. One can go further.They were acts of aggression against the whole post-Cold War presumptionthat social and economic development should take priority over militaryprowess, that states should cooperate rather than confront one another andstrive together to resolve conflicts, build international institutions and extendthe rule of law. If decisions were taken primarily for the BJP’s domestic politi-cal gain, the Indian government will be perceived as having acted with evengreater irresponsibility.

In this sense, the international community, together with political elites in bothIndia and Pakistan, face two challenges in South Asia. One is to address theimmediate dangers arising from political and military confrontation between twohighly armed states, and to bring new energy and ideas to the task of resolvingthe long-standing sources of conflict between them (notably Kashmir).Withoutexcusing Pakistan’s actions (including its provocative test launch of the Ghaurimissile), the other challenge is to address the threats posed by this particularIndian government, and to draw the Indian political establishment back towardsthe more consensual and internationalist course followed by its predecessors.What will especially be sought is a return to the spirit of the Gujral doctrinewhereby states should be magnanimous towards their less powerful neighbours inthe expectation that all will end up benefiting.

It is pointless to try to predict outcomes. Instead, I wish to offer three mainobservations—on strategic relations, on political status and on arms control. Iwish to underline the gravity of the situation now facing the international com-munity. But I also wish to suggest that new opportunities may emerge out ofthe mess for making real progress in arms control. Provided India and Pakistanbegin to show restraint, and show a new willingness to cooperate with eachother and with the international community, interesting solutions may begin toemerge to the difficulties that beset nuclear relations in –. Indeed, therecent events contain within them the seeds of a transformation in the mannerin which the whole problematic of international nuclear relations is conceived.

Strategic relations in South Asia

By conducting its nuclear tests, and by the tenor of its announcements, India isthe first state to have overtly proclaimed itself a nuclear power since China


Particular concerns were aroused when Lal Krishna Advani, India’s Home Minister, was quoted in The Hindu on May as calling on Islamabad ‘to realize the change in the geostrategic situation in theregion and the world’ created by India’s tests.

This doctrine was enunciated by Gujral when he was Foreign Minister in –.


made its move in . It has therefore crossed a political threshold, followedby Pakistan, that most people hoped would never be crossed again.

In fact, the high emotions aroused by India’s actions have quickly led Indiaand Pakistan to cross not one but two thresholds: from an ambiguous to anunambiguous commitment to nuclear arms; and from non-weaponized toweaponized deterrence. Even if nuclear-armed delivery vehicles are not fullydeployed (and deployment seems increasingly likely), the preparatory steps havebeen taken and nuclear deterrence is being visibly integrated into militarystrategies. On May, the Indian government provocatively asserted that‘India has a proven capability for a weaponized nuclear programme’. On May, the Pakistani government even more provocatively asserted that ‘the long-range Ghauri missile is already being capped with the nuclear warhead [sic] togive a befitting reply to any misadventure by the enemy’. The dynamics ofweaponization may soon become entrenched.

The nuclear relationship between China, India and Pakistan has long beenasymmetrical. Nevertheless, China’s strategic superiority over India, and India’sover Pakistan, brought a certain stability to their relations provided China didnot deploy weapons against India, and provided India and Pakistan held to theirpolicies of ‘non-weaponized deterrence’. In retrospect, the seeds of destabi-lization may have been sown by China’s ill-judged support for Pakistan’snuclear and missile programmes, and by Pakistan’s consequent rapid progress inclosing the gap with India.This induced a psychological reaction in India akinto that experienced in the United States in the late s when faced withrapid advances in the Soviet Union’s strategic capabilities. One reading of theIndian government’s recent actions is that it was trying to re-establish an earlierpecking order in the expectation that Pakistan could not respond. If this wasthe case, the tactic misfired.

The question now is whether India is prepared to accept the rough parity(especially psychological parity) that has now been established by Pakistan.

Will the Indian government again try to assert supremacy through further testsand large deployments? Might it even try, with the United States and EuropeanUnion as unwitting accomplices, to break Pakistan through the economic stressthat it thereby induces? Again, the situation is redolent of US–Soviet

William Walker

On non-weaponized or ‘virtual’ deterrence, see G. Perkovich, ‘A nuclear third way in south Asia’, ForeignPolicy , Summer , pp. –.Weaponization refers to the insertion of warheads in operationaldelivery systems.

Not since , when the United States immediately weaponized after the Trinity test, has there beensuch a rush to turn a capability into an operational nuclear force.

China’s long commitment to a ‘no first use’ policy on nuclear weapons may also have been adoptedpartly to avoid provoking India.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ’s reference to ‘settling the score with India’ (at six all, includingIndia’s test at Pokhran in ) on May expressed this parity. It is still possible that India may react withanother one or two tests, bringing a matching Pakistani response, but the testing would probably peter outwith honour satisfied on both sides.

Under the Nuclear Proliferation Act of , the United States is obliged to impose economic sanctionson any non-nuclear weapon state which conducts nuclear explosive tests.As Pakistan is much moredependent on US aid and trade than India, the affects of the sanctions will not be equal.


relations, this time in the early s when the United States under PresidentReagan tried to cow the Soviet Union into submission by invigorating thearms race.At the time of writing, there are signs that India may henceforth bemore restrained. But the temptations will remain.

Despite its size, India risks a deep political isolation after its actions—more thanRussia in the s and s (Russia had allies), and more even than China,whose isolation was soon ended by its quasi-alliance with the United Statesagainst the Soviet Union.This last memory invites speculation, which one hopesis unfounded, that Indian strategic analysts may anticipate that an approachingconflict between the United States and China, of which India might partly be anagent, would end India’s isolation and turn it into a valued partner of the UnitedStates, and possibly Russia, against the great Chinese threat. The risk that theconflict between India and China could poison wider geopolitical relations addsto the enormous importance of cooperation between the United States, Chinaand Russia in dealing with the situation in South Asia.

Political status

In a seemingly well-rehearsed article in the Times of India on May, K.Subrahmanyam asserted that ‘by conducting three underground nuclear testssimultaneously, India has formally joined the club of nuclear weapon states...India has become an irreversible nuclear weapon state and the other nuclearpowers have to reconcile themselves to it.’ As a declaration of strategic intent,this and other like statements will be taken at face value. States will take what-ever political and military actions are deemed necessary to protect their andtheir allies’ interests.As a declaration of political aspiration, of a desire for recog-nition as one of the world’s most influential powers, it cannot but be rejected.Legally, India cannot accede to the NPT as a nuclear weapon state (nor canPakistan). Politically, it has by its actions further weakened its moral claims forrecognition, whether through attainment of permanent membership of theUN Security Council or by other means. In so far as India today craves pres-tige above all else, we are therefore in danger of entrapment. If India does notshow willingness to compromise, the politico-strategic reality is that states willbe encouraged to take up arms against it, while the politico-legal reality is thatIndia will face increasing ostracism, possibly deepening its grievances.

Writing in the midst of these extraordinary events, my intuition is that India’sproblems over prestige, and indeed the whole array of politico-legal difficulties


If India accelerated its testing and deployment programmes, one fears that the primary Chinese responsewould be deterrence leading, possibly, to a Sino-Indian arms race. Such a development would havewider repercussions for China’s engagement in multilateral arms control, including its ratification of theCTBT, for China’s relations with the United States, and for the whole course of interstate relations inAsia. So far, China has been very restrained in its reactions to the Indian tests.

The joint communiqué issued by the Russian government and NATO is highly symbolic in this regard. K. Subrahmanyam was formerly Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New

Delhi, and remains an influential voice in India.


presented by the status of India, Israel and Pakistan outside the NPT, may beeased in an interesting way.

The chain of thought runs like this.There are now essentially three classes ofstate: the ‘legal’ NWS (five members); the ‘extra-legal’ NWS (three members);and the NNWS ( members). In terms of prestige, the recent developmentshave two contrasting effects. One effect is to dissolve the distinction, in the per-ceptions of the and of many citizens of the eight, between the eight statesthat have acquired nuclear weapons. In politico-strategic terms, differencesbetween the eight ‘legal’ and ‘extra-legal’ NWS have now been diminished.

They have all acquired and activated nuclear weapons, albeit at different timesand in different quantities, and have integrated them into military strategies.Furthermore, by demonstrating so vividly the great dangers of nuclear armsand the affronts they represent to the Zeitgeist, recent events will tend to dimin-ish the prestige of nuclear weapons in international politics and, one stronglysuspects, in the politics of the established (‘legal’) NWS. As a result, myconjecture is that the political and psychological, if not the military, prestigeattached to nuclear weapons will be levelled downwards rather than upwards byrecent events. Legality will no longer confer prestige. In this regard, ‘ + ’replaces ‘ + + + ’ as the main architecture in the perceptions ofinternational society.The attitude of the will be—a pox on them all.

In another respect, however, the stratification between the ‘legal’ and ‘extra-legal’ NWS is increased by recent events.A perceptual difference has opened upin terms of the responsibility with which states deploy their weapons andapproach arms control, and in terms of the trust and esteem in which they arethereby held by the international community. In this respect, India andPakistan, far from increasing their status, have suffered a huge loss of prestige,absolute and relative, as a consequence of their actions.This will quickly dawnon political elites. In Pakistan, as in Israel in another context, they may not care.They certainly will care in India. If it is to attain the prestige that it craves, Indiawill have to begin to exhibit great responsibility in the manner in which ithenceforth handles its nuclear policies. In my view, this will become one ofthe most powerful forces acting in the direction of moderation and conciliationin Indian political and strategic thinking as it considers its position. It gives theinternational community a powerful card to play, provided it conveys itsdispleasure in clear and unambiguous messages to India. It implies that Indiawill be pushing towards—and can be pulled towards—a much morecooperative stance on international nuclear relations.

William Walker

This applies to Israel, which has long had a weaponized nuclear armament, as much as to the other states. In a ‘Paper laid on the table of the House on evolution of India’s nuclear policy’ on May ,

paragraph , the Indian government asserts that ‘India is a nuclear weapon state.This is a reality thatcannot be denied. It is not a conferment that we seek; nor is it a status for others to grant. It is anendowment to the nation by our scientists and engineers. It is India’s due, the right of one-sixth ofhuman-kind. Our strengthened capability adds to our sense of responsibility; the responsibility andobligation of power.’The sentiments in this last sentence are to be welcomed, but India’s actions andrhetoric in recent weeks have not encouraged the international community to take them seriously.


Nuclear arms control

The above observations on strategic relations and arms control have twoimportant implications for nuclear arms control, broadly defined, always withthe proviso that India and Pakistan begin to act with greater restraint. I take itfor granted that there must be parallel attempts at conflict resolution, whichcannot be addressed here.

First, an exercise in bridge-building between states, and of attempted inte-gration into or reconciliation with the institutions of arms control, now liesahead. It has to be conducted on a number of levels:

South Asia.A major effort now has to be initiated to construct an arms controlprocess in South Asia (virtually none has existed to date).The situation is rem-iniscent of that pertaining in East–West relations in the late s and earlys when arms control measures began to be negotiated against a back-ground of potential strategic parity.The measures and processes can almost beplucked off the shelf, including the dialogue and summitry, the connection ofhotlines, and the limitation of missile deployments. In this instance, there is theadvantage of being able to draw upon experience.There is also the possibilityof establishing a dialogue on technical and other matters with the five ‘legal’NWS. While it is difficult to envisage the formation of a group of the eight,various lines of communication might now be opened.

CTBT and FMCT. As has been widely recognized, the Indian and Pakistanitests create possibilities for both countries to join the CTBT, enabling this uni-versal treaty to be fully established under international law.The Indian govern-ment stated on May that it was ‘prepared to consider being an adherent tosome of the undertakings in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’. This isunacceptable: states have to join the whole of the treaty or none of it.Therewill now be heavy pressure on both states to accede to the CTBT uncondi-tionally, and for states that have not ratified it (including the United States,Russia, China and Israel) to ratify it without further hesitation.

The FMCT now becomes an enormously important measure. The CTBTquells testing and thus experimentation with warhead technology; the FMCT


However, any transfers of expertise would have to be consistent with Article I of the NPT which oblig-es NWS parties ‘not in anyway to assist...any non-nuclear weapon State to manipulate or otherwiseacquire nuclear weapons’.

The statement went on to say: ‘But this cannot obviously be done in a vacuum. It would necessarily bean evolutionary process from concept to commitment and would depend on a number of reciprocalactivities.’

Opponents of this and other arms control treaties in the US Congress will no doubt try to derail theCTBT when it comes to the Senate for ratification.They should not be allowed to succeed. For a pro-ponent’s view, see Paul Warnke, ‘The unratified treaty’, New York Times, May ; for an opponent’sview, see Mac Thornberry, ‘Test of our deterrence’, Washington Times, May .There is also needfor confidence-building measures to provide assurance that computer simulation and other techniquesare not being used to develop new warhead designs.

For discussions of the FMCT, see Albright et al., Plutonium and highly enriched uranium , ch. ;A. Schaper, ‘A treaty on the cutoff of fissile material for nuclear weapons:What to cover? How to veri-fy?’, PRIF Report , Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt, July .


places limits on the number of warheads that can be produced by ending theproduction of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for weapons. TheFMCT has other benefits. It could provide an alternative framework for tradingwith states outside the NPT without requiring full-scope safeguards, therebyallowing India and Pakistan to be reintegrated into the civil nuclear tradingsystem. In addition, it would help drive much-needed innovations inverification and other regulatory measures in the NWS, and particularly inRussia and the United States with their vast inherited infrastructures andinventories of fissile materials. Elsewhere, colleagues and I have written aboutthe difficult and sensitive issue of excess stocks. Suffice it to say that this issuecannot be evaded, as the United States and other NWS have tried to evade it,but must be addressed through a separate negotiating process.

The NPT. The NPT Principles and Objectives open with a call for universaladherence to the treaty.Although India’s and Pakistan’s actions have made thisambition seem even harder to achieve, the treaty’s normative foundationswould be damaged if the commitment to universality were discarded. Offencewould also be caused to the many states that joined the treaty expecting thatthe number of nuclear powers would be held at five. Persuading India andPakistan to join the NPT (as non-nuclear weapon states) is therefore bound toremain central to the diplomatic stance adopted by the international commu-nity. India’s accession to the treaty would, however, entail its abandonment of along and passionately held position. Its response will probably be the usual one:to tie its accession to disarmament by the five ‘legal’ NWS.

While necessary, attaching high priority to NPT membership carries risks ofpinning diplomacy to an unachievable objective and of rekindling India’s sense ofvictimization. A more realistic current objective might be to gain transitionalpledges from India and Pakistan that they would henceforth behave as if they wereNPT parties, following the example set by France years ago, and that theywould embrace the NPT’s ambition to achieve their own and all other states’ dis-armament.Although such an approach might be difficult for many governmentsto accept, and would have to be thought through with great care, it would at least

William Walker

The reason is that all facilities for producing or separating fissile materials would have to be placedunder IAEA safeguards, thereby ending the production of additional unsafeguarded material.The draw-back is that existing unsafeguarded materials would still escape safeguards, a situation that full-scope safe-guards are intended to avoid. However, the political reality is that a pool of unsafeguarded material isgoing to be kept in military cycle in India and Pakistan.An FMCT would also help equalize the tradingconditions faced by the ‘legal’ and ‘extra-legal’ NWS, since the former are legally entitled to hold mater-ial stocks outside IAEA safeguards.

See Albright et al., Plutonium and highly enriched uranium , ch. ;W.Walker, ‘Irreversibility, the cutofftreaty and fissile material stocks’, presentation given at workshop sponsored by the Canadian Mission tothe UN and the Institute for Science and International Security, Palais des Nations, Geneva, April, p. (unpublished mimeo).

In explaining the abstention of France from voting in the UN General Assembly on the resolutioncommending the NPT in , the French delegate stated officially that ‘France...will behave in thefuture in this field exactly as the States adhering to the treaty’. See M. Shaker, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: origin and implementation, – (New York: Oceana Publications Inc., ), vol. II,p. .


have the attraction of gaining India’s and Pakistan’s (and Israel’s?) recognition ofthe NPT’s status and norms. It might also allow their governments more politicaland psychological freedom with which to embrace other arms control measures.

Trade controls. In the statement issued on May, the Indian government ‘reaffirmedcategorically that [it] will continue to exercise the most stringent control on theexport of sensitive technologies, equipment and commodities especially thoserelated to weapons of mass destruction’. India and Pakistan have always beenscrupulous in their application of trade controls (more scrupulous than have severalNPT members). One can therefore envisage an easier accommodation with theinstitutions of multilateral trade control than with the NPT.

Second, consequences arise for attitudes towards, and the prospects for, nucleardisarmament. Here again, important and subtle changes can be envisaged. One isan easing of the confusion between nuclear non-proliferation and disarmamentobjectives. During the debates about the CTBT and FMCT, claims were madeby governments of the five NWS parties to the NPT that the benefits of thosetreaties should be measured mainly in terms of non-proliferation (through their‘capture’ of India, Israel and Pakistan) and in terms of arms control, narrowlydefined. Others claimed that the benefits had to be assessed in terms of theircontributions to non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament. In animportant sense, the division of the world now into eight NWS (five legal andthree extra-legal) and NNWS removes non-proliferation from the agenda,or at least transforms it into an issue of compliance with treaties. One is left withissues of arms control and disarmament (for the eight) and compliance withstates’ renunciations of nuclear weapons (the ).Another implication is that theeight NWS will henceforth be ‘in it together’: the five will no longer be able toshelter behind the three, and vice versa. Here again, however, one should notethat the standing of Israel becomes a particular concern for Arab states, for whichIsrael remains a ‘proliferation problem’.

The other change wrought by recent events is that complete disarmament hasbecome less attainable but more desirable and, indeed, unavoidable as a politicalobjective. It has become less attainable because the actions of India and Pakistanhave increased the significance of nuclear deterrence in their eyes and in the eyesof other states. For reasons discussed above (with regard to the utility of nuclearweapons), this increased significance has not needed much encouragement, espe-cially among right-wing and nationalist constituencies in the United States andRussia (and France). Complete disarmament now becomes more desirable


This includes the Nuclear Suppliers’ Guidelines and the Missile Technology Control Regime. For a dis-cussion of trade controls, see H. Müller, ‘National and international export control systems and supplierstates’ commitments under the NPT’, PPNN Issue Review , Mountbatten Centre for InternationalStudies, University of Southampton, September . In January 1998, the Indian government issued fordomestic users an impressive set of ‘Briefing notes on the system of control of exports from India’ relat-ing to all weapons of mass destruction.

I recall a Swedish diplomat saying to me years ago that ‘the nuclear weapon states need the thresholdstates’ (as they were then called).There has been a lot of truth in that remark.


because the enormous dangers of nuclear weapons, dangers which may be greatereven than in the Cold War, have again been demonstrated. And disarmamentbecomes less avoidable as an objective because the NNWS will be moredetermined than ever to proclaim its advantages and to hold the NWS to theirobligations under Article VI of the NPT. A rising tide of anger can already besensed among the NNWS parties to the NPT, including loyal supporters of thetreaty such as Canada,Egypt,Germany, Japan and now Argentina,South Africa andUkraine, against the five ‘legal’ NWS and their obstructive behaviour on this issueafter . The NNWS will now be looking for a real commitment to pursuedisarmament—not necessarily a commitment to time-bound disarmament, butone that genuinely binds all states into exploring how a nuclear-weapon-freeworld that enhances regional and global security might be constructed.

It follows from this that the convening of an assembly of states to addressdisarmament, whether inside or outside the CD, is now not an option but anecessity if the NWS wish to maintain faith with the NPT. In my view, its centralmandate should be to explore the processes and stages by which completedisarmament might be achieved.But such an assembly could only be effective andtrusted if governments of NWS established parallel domestic processes, especiallywithin governmental bureaucracies, and parallel collective processes (e.g. in the P)to consider how nuclear disarmament might be brought about, and how theforeign and security policies of the NWS and their allies might be adaptedaccordingly. Hitherto, such debates have not been allowed to take place in any ofthe NWS. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the government declared at thestart of its current Strategic Defence Review that the future of Trident was notopen to discussion,despite its manifesto commitment to pursue disarmament.Thisattitude of the NWS must surely change if belief that they are acting in good faithis to be restored not only among states but also among their citizens.

That said, it is incumbent upon all parties to appreciate the complexities ofnuclear disarmament, and to realize that it could destabilize geopolitical structuresif handled carelessly. Nuclear deterrence cannot be discarded simply.

Rededication to the implementation of the NPT extensionconference agreements

In considering the tasks ahead, one must not overlook the vital necessity thatNNWS parties to the NPT should remain faithful to their obligations. Therehave been various warnings that other states in Asia, including Iran and NorthKorea which are both NPT parties, might try (again) to attain nuclear weapons.Nor should one overlook the importance of moving the START processforwards, or of beginning to include China, France and the UK in discussionson arms reductions.

William Walker

This includes remaining faithful to their obligations to conclude agreements with the IAEA on applica-tion of the reformed safeguards approaches concluded in May .


All the initiatives discussed in the above paragraphs are consistent with theagreements that concluded the NPT extension conference. Theseinitiatives are therefore best approached through those agreements. Indeed, thereneeds to be an urgent rededication to those agreements, especially after theunhappy experiences at the NPT PrepCom.This would entail endorse-ment of the NPT as the immovable foundation of international nuclearrelations; commitment to making a success of the strengthened NPT reviewprocess; and a serious commitment to pursuing the objectives enunciated in theresolution on the Middle East.Above all, it entails a renewed dedication to therealization of the Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation andDisarmament which provide the strongest available normative framework,including injunctions to pursue the CTBT, FMCT and other measures.

Some reprioritization and reinterpretation of the Principles and Objectivesmay be inevitable in light of recent developments. But they provide the cen-tral text to which governments have to refer.

Two questions remain to be asked.First,what happens if India and Pakistan willnot cooperate, and if they become obsessively committed to the expansion andelaboration of their nuclear arms beyond all restraint? In that case, theopportunities—indeed, the transformations—discussed above could not occur toanything like the same extent, if at all. The Principles and Objectives wouldremain the central point of reference for NPT parties, but their realization wouldbe much more difficult and contentious. Fortification of the existing non-proliferation regime, in the face of incipient arms races and non-compliance,would then become the primary issue.

This would imply giving special attention to building greater irreversibilityinto arms control structures: ensuring the irreversibility of established measuresand institutions, and of commitments to the completion of unfinished business(START, CTBT and so on). Unfortunately, one cannot be optimistic that thiswill succeed, not least because treaty ratification will become more difficult ifstates are faced with the prospect of nuclear arms races and proliferation in Asiaand around its fringes.There is therefore a very real sense in which there is noalternative to the pursuit of the kinds of approaches discussed above, and toexerting the greatest possible pressure on India and Pakistan to exercise restraintand to begin cooperating with the institutions of arms control.


The Principles and Objectives consist of a preamble and twenty paragraphs grouped under seven head-ings.The seven headings are Universality, Non-proliferation, Nuclear Disarmament, Nuclear-weapon-free Zones, Security Assurances, Safeguards and Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy.The CTBT andFMCT are advocated in their own sub-paragraphs under the heading Nuclear Disarmament.

In view of the earlier discussion, the paragraph on universality may need reinterpretation, as will theparagraph on full-scope safeguards if the FMCT is promoted inter alia as a measure for enabling trade tobe conducted with the extra-legal NWS.

The situation would then be reminiscent of the late s rather than the late s in respect ofUS–Soviet relations.


Second,what happens if the United States,Russia,Britain,France and China alsowill not work constructively among themselves or with other states?

The attitude of the United States may be decisive. In the past two to three years, ifone is blunt, its international reputation as the responsible overseer of nuclear armscontrol has been damaged.The US government has been seen as treating too lightlyits obligations after achieving the NPT’s indefinite extension in , as being tooquick to give concessions to right-wing constituencies inside and outside Congress,and as failing to respond constructively to justifiable concerns of other states, notleast in regard to security assurances and to Israel’s stance on nuclear weapons in theMiddle East.This may be considered unfair: others may be equally or more guilty,and hegemons often face the most difficult choices. But as the world’s most pow-erful and creative nation-state, and as the progenitor of nuclear arms control, it mustalways face high expectations. One hopes that the US government will now beprepared to take an imaginative lead—and some political risks.

Conclusion

The recent events in South Asia invite comparison with the Cuban missilecrisis of in terms of how close they have brought nation-states to nuclearwar and the alarm they have caused around the world. In some respects, theevents in Asia have been less dangerous than the Cuban crisis in that the scaleof armament has been lesser, and the confrontation between India and Pakistanhas not seemed to threaten global catastrophe. In other respects, they havebeen more dangerous in that the conflict between India and Pakistan is evenmore intense, the two countries face each other across contested borders andzones, and neither has established a second-strike capability, thereby makingIslamabad and New Delhi more fearful of pre-emptive attacks.

While shocks of this magnitude can be highly destructive of internationalrelations and institutions, they can also be highly illuminating and constructive.The Cuban missile crisis marked the true beginnings of nuclear arms controlincluding regular intergovernmental dialogue, arms limitation treaties and thenon-proliferation regime. It therefore instigated a broad search, involvingmany actors, for the political and regulatory structures and processes that wouldreduce the risks of nuclear war and build trust between adversaries.

One consequence of these and subsequent developments in arms control isthat much greater experience and many more tools can now be brought to bear

William Walker

This article does not consider the roles and policies of France and the UK because they seem secondaryin the situation that has developed.This is not to deny that they can play both constructive—andobstructive—parts in addressing the situation in South Asia and the broader developments in interna-tional nuclear relations.

It is important to note the near-absence of concern that a nuclear war between India and Pakistanmight escalate into a war between other nuclear powers.This may be taken as an indication both ofSouth Asia’s still peripheral position in geopolitical structures and the essentially non-conflictual relationsthat currently exist among the five acknowledged NWS.

Other factors besides the Cuban crisis were of course influential, including the Chinese test in andthe debates over whether the United States might share control over missiles sited in western Europewith Germany and other members of NATO.


on the situation in South Asia. However, the crisis there has occurred at a timewhen broad international nuclear relations are again in poor shape, and whenserious difficulties have emerged over how to make further progress after thegreat advances that followed the end of the Cold War.

Like the Cuban missile crisis, the recent events could become the catalysts foranother period of innovation in nuclear arms control, and even in the widerprocesses of interstate relations. If opportunities are grasped, one can envisagethe development of an arms control process in South Asia where none existedbefore; intensification of cooperation among the P and among widergroupings of states; the working out of accommodations between India,Pakistan and the global institutions of arms control, including the NPT; and thedevelopment of new norms and practices through such treaties as the CTBTand FMCT.

The events in South Asia also have implications for the other arenas wherenuclear relations have been problematic in the past few years. My instinct is thatUS/NATO–Russian relations, and thus the START process, will not beadversely affected by these developments. On the contrary, the crisis in SouthAsia may strengthen those relations and bring renewed cooperation, forinstance on the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia,which now becomes a priority. In the Middle East, the consequences are likelyto be both more profound and more difficult to address. Events in South Asia,and international responses to them, may heighten sensitivities in the MiddleEast and increase the urgency of finding solutions in that region also. Indeed,there is likely to be strong linkage between nuclear politics in the two regions,and between those regional politics and global nuclear politics. Threeobservations are worth making.

First, the NPT PrepCom broke down on May over the issue of Israel andthe refusal of the US government to allow it to be addressed within the NPTreview process. In the view of Arab states, this violated undertakings made byall NPT parties in May when they signed up to the NPT Resolution onthe Middle East.

Second, the lessons drawn from Pakistan’s recent experiences by Arab states,and possibly by Islamic countries more widely, may be that states have to standup to opponents, and that to do so they have to establish nuclear capabilities sothat they can achieve, or threaten to achieve, some degree of political andstrategic parity with their adversaries.As states would have to leave the NPT toachieve this end, they may feel that this is an option that now has to be seriouslyconsidered.

Third, any de facto recognition of Pakistan and India as nuclear weapon statespresents acute difficulties with regard to Israel and its neighbours.To date, thenon-recognition and non-declaration of the Israeli nuclear capability haveserved the interests of both Israel and the Arab states, and of the broaderinternational community.



The implication is that the nuclear status and policies of Israel will also haveto be addressed if broad progress is to be made. Israel’s ratification of the CTBTand participation in FMCT negotiations would be important steps towards itsengagement with arms control. However, I suspect that deeper changes, inIsraeli and Arab policy approaches as in the approaches of the United States andother external powers, involving a willingness by all parties to compromise, willbe necessary if there is to be a real sense that these problems are being resolved.

In the end,however,one has to return to India.What does India want to achieve,and how does it wish to be regarded by the international community? Does itwish to be regarded as a nation-state bent on self-assertion and expansion that willhave to be isolated and confronted? Or as a nation-state that wishes to modernizeand play a full part in international society? As a wrecker or builder of global armscontrol? Prime Minister Vajpayee says that India is now a nuclear weapon state.Rather than take their cue from nuclear scientists and strategic analysts, India’spolitical elite should understand that they now have an opportunity—and aresponsibility—to play a prestigious role in transforming international nuclearrelations. Furthermore, they should seek fresh and coldly calculated answers toa simple question:how can a nuclear arms race in South Asia, and the opprobriumof the international community, bring India security and prosperity?

June

William Walker

In the Economic Times on May , the Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, R.Chidambaram, asserted that ‘India needs to build up its own industrial–military complex which canassure security on the one hand and catalyse development on the other.The greatest advantage of rec-ognized strength is that you don’t have to use it, and the greatest disadvantage of perceived weakness isthat an enemy may become adventurist.’Add xenophobia, and this is but a short walk from Bismark’sspeech to the Prussian House of Deputies in January : ‘Place in the hands of the King of Prussia thestrongest possible military power, then he will be able to carry out the policy you wish; this policycannot succeed through speeches, and shooting-matches, and songs; it can only be carried out throughblood and iron.’This sentiment led Germany, and the Soviet Union, to perpetrate the twentieth centu-ry’s greatest disasters.The notion that a competitive and dynamic economy can best be established todaythrough military programmes, and through ‘the national laboratory system’ as Dr Chidambaram calls it,is also profoundly mistaken, as well as self-serving.


international nuclear relations after the indian and pakistani test explosions

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