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DIPLOMACY: US NUCLEAR STRATEGY
Fuzzy Logic
Key nations including India are briefed by aides of
Bush on the new nuclear doctrine he proposes but find that there are more
questions than answers
By Raj Chengappa
In diplomacy, symbolism
and timing matter. That US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
chose May 11 to confer with Union Minister of External Affairs Jaswant
Singh on the new nuclear order for the world that America was proposing
may have just been out of convenience. But the irony of it also being
the third anniversary of the 1998 Pokhran tests did not go unnoticed.
Nor did the fact that Delhi was being treated on a par with the most important
capitals in the world where US President George W. Bush thought it fit
to send his key representatives to explain his new security paradigm.
Despite the surprisingly enthusiastic initial
reaction with which the Indian Government greeted Bush's proposal, Singh
and his team of officials had lined up a whole list of questions for Armitage
to clarify. For although some of the text did meet Delhi's approval-including
parts that talked of deep cutbacks in nuclear arsenals and moving away
from hair-trigger systems-much of the radically new concept was, to use
the US President's favourite word, "fuzzy". It was apparent
to the Indian side that the US thinking was still at a nascent stage as
was the technology being contemplated for the new nuclear defence systems.
But, as a senior official said, they appreciated Armitage's "Look
guys we are going to write the fine print with your help" approach
on the issue. From the discussions with Armitage it was apparent that
Bush was proposing more than just a National Missile Defence (NMD) system
to provide a shield from a nuclear missile attack by a "rogue"
nation like Iraq or North Korea in the near future. The American president
was "rethinking the unthinkable" and finding new ways that would
irrevocably alter existing nuclear equations.
That Bush was not mad about MAD, or Mutual Assured
Destruction, a concept that dominated the Cold War era, was clear even
during his campaign. MAD worked on the "balance of terror" logic
that neither the Soviet Union nor the US could fire nuclear weapons at
each other because doing so would destroy both nations. In 1972, the two
countries had signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty that forbade
them from developing systems which could destroy incoming missiles. Bush
now proposes to push the treaty aside and develop a defensive shield consisting
of hi-tech systems to detect incoming enemy ballistic missiles and destroy
them in flight itself to protect the US and its allies against "a
dangerous world, a less certain and less predictable one".
To reassure the world that he was not as reckless
as was believed Bush made some significant concessions. He talked of the
US' willingness to make some unilateral reductions in its own nuclear
arsenal of 7,500 warheads down to below 2,000. (Some cynics dismiss it
as a clever move to get rid of obsolete weapons and build better ones.)
Bush then called for getting away from hair-trigger alert systems where
aircraft are constantly on standby to launch a nuclear offensive to a
state of "de-alert".
More importantly, Bush indicated that rather
than ramming the proposals down the allies throats and presenting a fait
accompli to countries such as Russia and China, he was willing to enter
into a dialogue to work out the emerging security architecture. For Bush
it was his biggest foreign policy initiative since he took charge early
this year. Unlike the incremental approach practised by his predecessor
Bill Clinton, Bush wants to show that he is capable
of making big, bold moves rapidly.
Across the world the reaction was mixed. Russia
welcomed the proposal for a dialogue but indicated it wasn't happy with
any unilateral abrogation of the ABM treaty. US allies France and UK made
the right noises but there were others in Europe that expressed concern.
India's quick endorsement did bring criticism from the opposition parties
like the Congress but a senior official explained, "If we showed
approval after the rest of the world did we would be accused of tailism.
And if we agreed after Armitage came down, we would be charged with selling
out to the US." It also seemed to be in line with the bonhomie that
Singh built up with top US officials, including the "NMD man",
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfield, who became quite "chummy"
with the Indian foreign minister during his US visit. There was also hope
that it would mean the lifting of US sanctions and possibly military co-operation.
A senior mea official hotly denied that "there was any quid pro quo
in our qualified endorsement of the NMD".
As expected, China, which had always expressed
its opposition to such a system, was unhappy. With around 20 ICBMs in
its arsenal, China was concerned that its capability to strike at the
US would be completely degraded making it vulnerable to American interventionism.
In an interview to the New York Times Sha Zukang, China's top arms control
official, said, "Once the US believes it has both a strong spear
and a strong shield, it could lead them to conclude that nobody can harm
it and they can harm anyone they like anywhere in the world." For
India, China's initial hostile reaction was not good news, which was what
its interlocutors expressed to Armitage. For if China went about upgrading
its nuclear defence capability to counter the NMD then India too would
have to alter its "credible nuclear deterrent". In simple terms,
it could result in another expensive arms race that India and the world
could ill afford.
Another concern of India echoed by many other
countries including Russia is whether Bush is using NMD as a backdoor
to build a kind of son of "Star Wars" system in space. So far
nations had agreed to keep outer space free from military weapons. Now
Bush threatens to cross that Lakshman rekha. Also with Bush indicating
that the US may unilaterally abrogate the ABM treaty it has raised fears
that he may go in for a round of "treaty bashing" in international
agreements which he thinks have not helped the US. For the moment, many
of those fears seem far away. So little of the technology to build the
NMD has been validated that it would take decades and billions of dollars
before a viable system could be evolved. With the Democrats opposing an
expensive security system, Bush's ambitious proposal may get watered down.
The next few months would show whether he would be able to fashion a brave
new world or confirm the worst fears of his opponents: that a cowboy rules
the White House.
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