During an official visit to Washington in March, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Special Envoy on nuclear issues and Climate Change, Mr. Shyam Saran linked India’s accession to the Comprehensive Test Ban to disarmament. This piece makes the case for India to sign the CTBT, if not ratify it immediately. Rather it conditions ratification of the CTBT by India to New Delhi’s immediate accession to the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
There are three crucial reasons why India should accede to the CTBT. The first is political tied to the Indian leadership’s aversion to taking risks. Secondly, the degree of operational value from additional nuclear testing accruing to the quality of India’s nuclear arsenal will at best be marginal. Renewed testing within the next one or two years would potentially mean the loss of gains made through the NSG waiver that enabled the revival of nuclear commerce with India. Finally, India’s earlier objections to any arms control measure was premised on the fact that New Delhi did not secure the benefits of the nonproliferation regime, but thanks to the NSG waiver India gets to have its cake and eat it too. This begs the question is India going to perpetually reject any legally binding constraint on its strategic capability?
The first reason for India’s accession to the CTBT ties into two sets of issues. New Delhi first tested a nuclear device in 1974 dubbing it a Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE). It waited another twenty-four years before it went for a renewed set of five tests, eleven years have elapsed since then. Is India going to wait another thirteen years before it goes in for another round of five tests? A countervailing view to this would be that India can pursue an open-ended strategy on testing. India’s size and strategic heft are sufficient to ward off any international pressure. But this view sidesteps whether India’s leadership is capable of taking risks and the consequences that come with it. The gap between the first test and the second round of tests only exemplifies this caution. If anything, the more India waited the nonproliferation system progressively tightened its noose around India’s neck.
The second reason for India’s accession to the CTBT relates to the extent to which a renewed round of testing improves India’s existing capabilities. Would another round of five tests generate a qualitative improvement in its existing capabilities? The gains most likely would at best be marginal. If advocates of renewed testing contend that even incremental gains to the quality of India’s arsenal is worth the candle they better think again, because testing comes with reciprocal costs. In the absence of India’s presence in a regulatory body such as the NSG which controls nuclear trade, the NSG led by the United States, if not out rightly reversing last September’s NSG waiver for India would at least try intensively to choke New Delhi’s access to fuel and nuclear technologies to its civilian power programme. India’s political leadership cannot primarily emphasize the quality of the country’s strategic programme, attention has to be given to the quality of its civilian nuclear power sector as well, to secure its energy needs and developmental objectives. Given the political and diplomatic investment India made in securing a clean waiver from the NSG it would be imprudent to pursue additional testing.
Finally, New Delhi’s posture on testing since 1998 reflects tacit restraint through its unilateral moratorium. The conversion of this moratorium into a legally binding commitment necessitates making a conceptual shift by accepting some constraint on its capabilities. Achieving this goal will be hard because codified or legally binding international agreements tend to distort a country’s self-perception of its interests and priorities and this is particularly pronounced in the case of India. Yet the obverse of this is an open-ended testing policy which only pits India against the international community. An eternally frictional relationship with the international community and particularly the United States over every nuclear arms control measure is simply unsustainable. India cannot assume only we have interests and others do not. Whatever New Delhi’s historic objections to the discriminatory nature of the NPT, the fact is that a 180-odd other countries are members of the regime making it is an immutable reality of the international system and a vital piece of international architecture. Unless the non-proliferation regime entropies, an unlikely development, the NPT will remain a key fixture of the international system for the foreseeable future. The CTBT is perceived by many countries despite our opposition to be an important arms control measure that advances the goals of non-proliferation and disarmament. India has to find some way of constructively engaging the regime.
Given President Barack Obama’s active efforts to secure the United States’ Senate ratification of the CTBT, it makes little sense on the part of India to link its accession to the treaty to the far-fetched goal of disarmament. US ratification of the treaty would mean Chinese ratification, leading to substantial pressure being brought to bear on India. During the forthcoming G-8 Summit, member states have indicated that making ratification of the CTBT will be a key priority. A better way out of India’s neuralgia towards the CTBT is by linking this arm control stricture to India’s expeditious membership to the NSG. Making India’s membership to the NSG as a concomitant measure to CTBT accession potentially obviates domestic pressures on the Manmohan Singh government that it is compromising India’s strategic capabilities. Finally, the government of India ought to begin the process of making a concerted effort to forge a consensus across party lines on India’s accession to the CTBT.
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