Neutering Non-Proliferation

On March 2, a historical visit by a U.S. president to the largest democratic country in the world climaxed when President Bush and Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, signed a deal many have called “a welcome for India to the world’s nuclear family.” The deal, which needs the approval of the U.S. Congress, would grant India the civilian nuclear technologies currently given to members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) who eschew military nuclear technologies. While one would be remiss to ignore the strategic importance of cultivating an ally in India, the current deal comes at too high a cost: the legitimacy of a worldwide nonproliferation regime and the U.S.'s leadership of it.

In the treaty, the U.S. single-handedly elevates India to the status of a legitimate nuclear power, thus showing no respect for cornerstone non-proliferation treaties such as the 1968 NPT. Importantly, the Bush administration failed to establish or describe any objective criteria by which other countries can aspire to achieve this type of legitimacy. Bush’s decision, instead, sends an ambiguous message to the international community. The U.S., it seems, is prepared to grant nuclear legitimacy to those it likes and condemn those it does not, and that will determine the legitimacy of a nuclear power. This type of unilateral hubris will continue to push the U.S. further apart from the international community, whose support it needs.

Furthermore, the treaty bestows unilateral benefits on India without asking for much in return. India gets technology and approval from the U.S. (and the international community), but they give up almost nothing. First, they reserve the right to keep facilities away from international controls. Second, this deal paves the way for American and French companies to sell services that can be used for peaceful purposes…or others. Third, India rejected any cap on their “strategic” (read: military) arsenals, allowing them to build around fifty bombs a year spawning from their unchecked fast-breeder reactors.

On the most basic level, the treaty rewards India despite its poor record over the last several decades—including its first nuclear test in 1974, the detonations that spawned sanctions from the U.S. in 1998, and the fact that they never adhered to the NPT. India became a nuclear power acting alone, failing to join or adhere to a pact aimed at ensuring peaceful nuclear development. Through this agreement, the U.S. is tacitly but effectively aiding India, despite its longstanding defiance of the NPT, to develop a better and stronger military nuclear program. Iran and North Korea could not have asked for a better occurrence to defend their respective nuclear ambitions—not to mention the Bush administration’s now-hypocritical stance on Pakistan’s nuclear technologies.

The U.S. will be hard-pressed to find a leg to stand on in its criticisms of Iran—unlike India, a signatory of the NPT—when it attempts to do so in this month’s United Nations Security Council hearing. We hope the U.S. Senate roundly rejects this treaty, thereby reaffirming America’s moral legitimacy in global affairs.