HVK Archives: Self-interest is the name of the game
Self-interest is the name of the game - The Sunday Observer
Varsha Bhosle
()
May 24-30, 1998
Title: Self-interest is the name of the game
Author: Varsha Bhosle
Publication: The Sunday Observer
Date: May 24-30, 1998
The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the
enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him: not
on the chance of his not attacking but rather on the fact that
u)e have made our position unassailable.
- Sun Tzu
Much is being bandied by our peaceniks about India's necessity to
do the nuclear tests. It's evident that not one of them has ever
paid any attention to what the five nuclear powers have been
doing since decades, confirming to me that only Western might is
right. The discrepancies in what the West says and what it does
is so blatantly unfair as to be comical. And it's this that's
shaped India's resistance to signing the NPT and CTBT and forced
her to exercise the nuclear option.
On 6 August 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, then the new leader of the
Communist Party of the USSR, declared a moratorium on all nuclear
tests on the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. He
invited the US to join in the moratorium. The, US continued to
test.
In April-May 1992, the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and
Extension Conference (called for in the Treaty to decide whether
the Treaty should be extended indefinitely or for a fixed
period), was held at the UN. Four of the five declared nuclear-
weapons states argued for indefinite extension of the Treaty. You
see, with indefinite extension, other states would remain
indefinitely obligated not to develop nuclear arsenals, while the
nuclear states could continue to possess them.
The NPT entered into force in 1970, but during the following 25-
year period, the nuclear states increased the size of their
arsenals as well as improved them qualitatively. Ergo, an
indefinite extension of the Treaty was like giving a carte
blanche to states that hadn't fulfilled their past promises.
Within days of making these commitments, China conducted a
nuclear test, and just over a month later, President Chirac
announced that France would conduct a series of 8 nuclear tests
in the South Pacific which it did.
The nuclear states are comfortable with their privileges in the
two-tier system of nuclear haves and have-nots. The haves appear
willing to cut back their arsenals, to eliminate underground
nuclear tests (but not laboratory testing), and to make promises
about "the ultimate goal" of eliminating nukes. But, they are
unwilling to make a commitment to eliminate their nukes within a
time-bound frame. In essence, these states refuse to give up what
they perceive to be their privileged status.
Few are familiar with Article 26 of the UN Charter. Thus, the UN
Security Council has been able to ignore one of its most
important responsibilities for more than 50 years: Under the
Article, the regulation of armaments is not optional for the
Security Council; it clearly states that the Security Council
"shall" formulate such a plan. Since the non-permanent members
rotate at two-year intervals, they can't be held responsible for
failing to meet this obligation. It is the 5 permanent members
of the Council - the 5 nuclear states - that have been violating
the Article 26 obligation for over 50 years.
The reason why the permanent members haven't fulfilled their
obligation isn't difficult to discern. After all, these states
have been the greatest developers, producers, promoters, and
sellers of arms. They have profited enormously by the sale of
arms throughout the world and they continue to do so. To fulfil
their obligation by formulating plans for the regulation of
armaments would wreck them economically.
Between 1945 and 1996 when the CTBT was signed, there had been
over 2,000 nuclear tests in the world - of which India had
conducted only one. We argued that as long as we were confronted
by states with nuclear weapons capabilities, it didn't make sense
for us to agree not to test - a capability we might desire for
reasons akin to those that motivated the nuclear haves to conduct
tests all throughout. India made her position very clear and
tried to convince. the Big Five to tie the CTBT to a promise of
complete nuclear disarmament.
The nuclear states refused to accede to India's demand, and when
agreement couldn't be reached in Geneva at the Conference on
Disarmament, the CTBT was introduced by Australia to the UN
General Assembly. There, it received overwhelming support and was
adopted by a vote of 158 to 3 (India, Bhutan, and Libya). The
nuclear states and their allies and dependants were successful in
characterising India as a "spoiler" and isolating her in that
position.
Through its Ghauri missile test, Pakistan called the American
bluff and stole a march over India. The Ghauri test came in the
wake of Sino-US discussions in Beijing on arms control issues,
and just a few days before the visit of two senior American
officials to New Delhi. The missile isn't indigenous but was
obtained by Pakistan from North Korea (the liquid-fuelled missile
is an enhanced version of the Rodong Missile, which is a fancy
version of the Scud missile developed in the '60s). The test sent
out a loud and clear message that the US has no capability to
stop nuclear proliferation to Pakistan.
Gary Milholin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms
Control, said that the US knew before the Ghauri test that North
Korea had smuggled the missile technology into Pakistan. While
Washington tried to "buy" the test with the F-16 carrot, it's not
known if it used any stick for the consequences of testing. He
added that US officials claim that North Korea has previously
supplied such technology to Iran, Syria and Egypt....
The Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996 by the International Court of
Justice demonstrates the illegality of NATO's nuclear policy so
far: NATO retains the option of using nuclear weapons first. In
paragraph 94 of the Opinion, the ICJ challenged the nuclear
states that they had neither specified any legal circumstance for
use, nor convinced it that "limited use would, not tend to
escalate into the all-out use of high-yield nuclear weapons".
The US, UK, and Prance have plans to threaten to use nuclear
weapons against even non-nuclear "rogue" states to counter the
proliferation of nuclear weapons, or to protect their so-called
"vital interests" anywhere in the world. For such so-called
substrategic use, some of the missiles in the UK's Trident
submarine are fitted with a single, variable lower-yield warhead
- because six 100 kiloton warheads on a missile are not a
credible deterrent threat to "rogue" regimes.
The NATO nuclear states deploy at least some of their nuclear
warheads on behalf of the alliance, and are willing to use them
in collective self-defence. Although some of these warheads might
be relatively small, the majority are far larger in their yield
than the Hiroshima bomb.
To date, there's no evidence that the NATO Nuclear Planning Group
has responded to the implications of the ICJ's Opinion. The onus
has always been on NATO to demonstrate that its nuclear plans
would fit the criteria of "extreme circumstance" and not violate
the humanitarian laws of warfare. Expert assessment is that NATO
should urgently review its nuclear policy in order to comply with
the ICJ's opinion.
Until there Is a commitment by the Big Five to reduce their
nuclear weapons to zero, India is justified in stockpiling
nuclear arms to protect herself against China and Pakistan.
Pakistan, in turn, will justify its nuclear arsenal to protect
itself against India....
David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
asks, "How can the rest of the world, and particularly the
nuclear-weapons states, be convinced to accept the logic of the
Indian position, and make firm commitments to the prohibition and
elimination of all nuclear weapons? The Indians have been much
maligned for their position, but they are fundamentally
correct..... So long as some states maintain, nuclear arsenals,
other states will justify their own possession of these weapons.
On the other hand, in a world where all nuclear weapons are
prohibited and eliminated, the Indian argument disappears; it is
no longer valid. " Well said.
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