Nuclear Favouritism: Bush, India, and Pakistan

Raju G. C. Thomas is the Allis Chalmers Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Marquette University, Wisconsin, and Visiting Fulbright Professor at Belgrade University, Serbia-Montenegro.

The joint statement on 2 March 2025 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and President George W. Bush of the United States appears to have legitimised the Indian nuclear fait accompli of May 1998, but not that of Pakistan. In early May 1998, India conducted five atomic and nuclear tests. Pakistan responded with six atomic tests at the end of May. Despite the reality of these tests, neither country was recognised as a nuclear-weapon state. Both were subjected immediately to severe international economic and technological sanctions, especially by the United States. Although the economic sanctions soon dissipated, the technological sanctions remained in force, preventing any transfer of technology that could aid the two countries’ nuclear and missile programmes, directly or indirectly. In the case of India, this meant that there would be no US technological assistance for its civilian nuclear-energy and space programmes.

Accepting a Nuclear India

The Singh–Bush declaration of March 2006, which finalised a July 2005 “landmark” agreement between the two leaders, ended these sanctions on India’s civilian nuclear-energy programme. The United States will assist India in the development of its nuclear-energy capabilities, which hitherto had expanded on indigenous technology and resources. The agreement remains within the framework of Articles III and IV of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which urges nuclear-weapon states to provide non-nuclear-weapon states with nuclear technology “for peaceful purposes”. Since nuclear-energy technology and resources can assist in the development of nuclear-weapon capabilities, Articles III and IV have remained a standing contradiction of Articles I and II, which prohibit nuclear-weapon states from transferring nuclear-weapons technology to non-nuclear-weapon states.

 

The March 2006 agreement, concluded during a three-day visit to India by President Bush, will have to clear the US Congress, which in 1978 had passed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act (NNPA) in response to India’s first atomic test in 1974. The NNPA prohibits US aid to states seeking nuclear weapons. It was disregarded by the Reagan administration following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Pakistan was documented as a state acquiring nuclear-weapon capabilities, but now that it had become a front-line state in the US war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the NNPA was ignored by the Reagan administration and successive administrations.

 

Critics have argued that the Singh–Bush agreement formally recognises India as a nuclear-weapon state and amounts to a flagrant violation of the NNPA. They say it will encourage other states such as Iran and North Korea to conduct nuclear tests in the expectation that the reality of such actions will become legitimised over time. This in turn will set off a domino effect in the Middle East and East Asia, thereby demolishing the prevailing global nuclear non-proliferation regime. The NPT will be dead.

 

India, especially under the earlier Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government which conducted the 1998 tests, had pursued an ambitious plan to build a major nuclear-weapons and missile capability that would make the country a great power. India has the capacity to assemble some forty-five to ninety-five nuclear bombs at short notice. Its short-range Prithvi missile delivery system can hit Pakistan, and its medium-range Agni missiles can reach major Chinese cities. Its space programme provides it with the potential for an intercontinental ballistic missile system. Pakistan has similar potential capabilities. If Pakistan proceeds along the same path, then will not Iran, Syria, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan do so as well? It would become difficult to stop the nuclear proliferation chain.

 

Supporters of the Singh–Bush agreement argue that it will strengthen the non-proliferation regime. The agreement pledges India not to build up its nuclear-weapon capabilities, nor to conduct further nuclear tests, and gives India a stake with the global community in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. India will join the United States, Britain and France in the club of stable and responsible democratic nuclear-weapon states. Whereas in earlier decades proliferation was perceived as beginning with the Indian atomic test of May 1974 and continuing with the series of Indian nuclear tests in early May 1998, proliferation is now redefined in terms of states going nuclear after India. The line in the sand has been shifted.

 

In particular, supporters of the agreement postulate a global economic rationale. By assisting India’s nuclear-energy programme, the agreement will help reduce the total demand for fossil fuels. The rapidly growing economies of China and India are expected to place enormous pressure on the world’s scarce oil, coal and natural-gas resources. China has embarked on a major nuclear-energy programme, with plans to build over one hundred nuclear reactors. Nuclear power is expected to provide about 50 per cent of energy needs in the European Union, Japan and South Korea. More than 80 per cent of France’s energy requirements comes from nuclear power. Allowing China and India to advance their nuclear-energy programmes would alleviate the pressure on the world’s declining oil and coal resources.

 

There are some potential perils in the Bush administration’s decision to lift technological sanctions and assist India in developing its nuclear-energy capabilities. Despite formal promises by India in the Singh–Bush agreement to separate its civilian and military nuclear programmes, there is no technological fix that guarantees such a separation. India’s heavy-water reactors provide it with plutonium, and promised US technology for the building of light-water reactors will give India access to enriched uranium; both substances can be used for weapons purposes.

Eisenhower to Blame?

The fertile global conditions for nuclear proliferation were probably set in 1953 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced his “Atoms for Peace” plan. This entailed the United States sharing the benefits of the peaceful atom with the rest of the world. At the time, this meant that the industrialised countries with nuclear technology would be willing to sell nuclear reactors to the rest of the world, or at least to countries which could afford to buy them. The United States sold light-water reactors to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Iran, setting up their nuclear power base. Germany and France sold reactors to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, South Africa and Iraq.

 

Canada sold and set up two 220-megawatt heavy-water reactors in Rajasthan in India (the Rajasthan Atomic Power Plant—RAPP I and II), and provided a small research reactor called “Cirus”, installed at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Bombay. Canada also supplied a small 125-megawatt heavy-water reactor to Pakistan, installed in Karachi. In 1961, the United States provided India with two 4,200-megawatt light-water reactors, which were stationed in Trombay, a suburb of Bombay (the Tarapur Atomic Power Plant—TAPP I and II). When India conducted its “peaceful nuclear explosion” in 1974, the plutonium was alleged to have come from the Canadian-supplied Cirus research reactor, from RAPP, and from the US-supplied TAPP. India denied these allegations, since it had already developed and established its own heavy-water reactors based on the CANDU design at Kalpakkam, a suburb of Madras.

 

India has since set up other indigenously built nuclear reactors in many other states, and also an experimental fast breeder reactor in Madras. While India has allowed the Canadian- and US-supplied RAPP and TAPP to be placed under safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), none of the Indian-built reactors is under international safeguard. Two Russian-supplied 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors installed at Koodanakulum in Tamil Nadu are also under mutually agreed IAEA safeguards. This leaves a dozen Indian-built heavy-water reactors that are capable of diverting to weapons purposes the plutonium extracted from the reprocessing of waste fuel.

 

Following India’s “peaceful nuclear explosion” in 1974, Pakistan tried to buy a reprocessing plant from France. When that failed because of US pressure on Paris, Pakistan sought to piece together a uranium-enrichment plant at Kahuta through a variety of clandestine transfers of materials and technology from Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Canada and the United States.

 

Thus, India and Pakistan took two separate routes to nuclear-weapons capability. The Indian nuclear tests of 1998 were based on plutonium technology, and the Pakistani nuclear tests were based on enriched-uranium technology.

 

Perhaps Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace programme was at least partially to blame for this chain of events. The ability of not just India but also South Korea, Taiwan, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil to make nuclear weapons may be traced to the Atoms for Peace initiative. On the other hand, Israel would probably have been determined to acquire its two hundred “bombs in the basement” (if Seymour Hersh’s assessments and claims are credible) regardless of whether it pursued a nuclear-energy programme or not. However, back in 1953 it would have been difficult for the United States and other Western industrialised countries to refuse to share the anticipated wonders of the peaceful atom. Nuclear power was then perceived as the energy of the future, promising salvation for all countries. There was no NPT in existence at the time, and no restriction on the transfer of “peaceful” nuclear technology. Competition for the lucrative nuclear-reactor market would have meant that France, Germany and the Soviet Union sold reactors anyway. And the United States would then have been compelled to join in, to share in the profits and to attempt to secure US control over possible diversions to military purposes.

Sticks and Carrots

President Carter attempted to use the economic sanctions stick against both India and Pakistan. President Reagan attempted to use the military aid carrot with Pakistan. Neither approach worked. Just before and during the Carter administration, a series of US measures was passed to stem the proliferation tide in southern Asia. In 1976 and 1977, the Symington and Glenn amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act prohibited US economic and military aid to countries attempting to acquire nuclear reprocessing and enrichment capabilities for weapons purposes. Both amendments were essentially directed at Pakistan.

 

In 1978, Congress passed the NNPA, which called on the US government to withhold co-operation on peaceful nuclear programmes from countries that would not allow IAEA inspection of their nuclear facilities. This act was expected to be enforced retroactively, the target clearly being the Indo-US agreement of 1963 that had assured the supply of enriched uranium to the two General Electric light-water nuclear reactors set up near Bombay. In accordance with the NNPA, the supply of enriched uranium was withheld by the Carter administration. India claimed that the United States had violated an international agreement. The United States claimed violation of the peaceful nuclear uses clause of the 1963 agreement because US heavy water was allegedly used in the Canadian-supplied Cirus research reactor from which India had obtained the plutonium for its 1974 atomic test. Subsequently, to circumvent the NNPA and congressional pressures, and to fulfil the contractual obligations arising from the 1963 agreement, the Carter administration allowed India to obtain the enriched uranium from France, and later Germany.

 

The Reagan administration took a laissez-faire approach to the proliferation issue in order to maintain Pakistan’s co-operation and goodwill in the US policy of assisting the Afghan mujahideen in their war against Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan. The reward for such co-operation was large-scale economic and military aid, making Pakistan the third-largest recipient of US aid after Israel and Egypt. The United States also minimised the seriousness of Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear-weapons programme. The Reagan policy succeeded enormously on the Afghan front, but contributed heavily to the shambles that is now the non-proliferation regime in southern Asia. Whereas India had ended its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons after its 1974 test, Pakistan had accelerated its own nuclear-weapons programme, leading to a decade of nuclear brinkmanship by both countries, and eventually the tests of 1998.

 

However, there was an effort on the part of the Senate to link US economic and military aid to Pakistan with US non-proliferation policy in the region. The passage of the Pressler amendment in the Senate in 1984 required the US government to certify every year that Pakistan was not attempting to acquire a nuclear-weapons capability. The Pressler amendment was Pakistan-specific and did not apply to India. But India had already been denied a variety of economic and technological assistance following its 1974 atomic test. Thus, if the US intelligence services were to indicate that Pakistan was pursuing a nuclear-weapons capability, then the US government would be compelled by law to cut off all economic and military aid to it. In 1991, basing its claims on clear evidence, the George H. W. Bush administration declared that it could no longer certify that Pakistan was complying with its non-proliferation requirements and the terms of the Pressler amendment. Economic and military aid was cut off, including the transfer of some forty F-16 fighter planes that Pakistan had already paid for. But these actions were too little and too late. During the Reagan presidency, from 1981 to 1988, Pakistan had acquired the materials and technology to put together uranium-enriched bombs.

Wanting the Bomb

Besides international conditions such as the failure of the nuclear-weapon states to move towards nuclear disarmament as required by the NPT, and the proliferation tendencies in East Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, domestic conditions were also decisive in propelling Indian and Pakistani nuclear-weapon programmes. These domestic factors include autonomous technological growth, economic capacity, inter- and intra-party politics, and the search for international status and recognition.

 

Thus, India’s nuclear decisions may be viewed as the outcome of the technological and economic ability to develop and sustain a nuclear-weapons programme, and of how other states reacted to this capability. Economic and technological growth that made nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems possible also made them strategically desirable, thereby compelling opposing states to respond in kind. This would appear to have been the case in May 1998, when India’s testing of nuclear weapons and missile systems was immediately countered by similar tests by Pakistan.

 

Motivations to acquire nuclear weapons and missiles also arose from the growth of technology in the nuclear-energy and space programmes. Moreover, the Indian educational system continued to churn out an abundance of scientists and engineers capable of developing bombs and rockets who needed to be employed. If not, they would be lost to the West, or remain within India as an unemployed or underemployed disgruntled and underprivileged class of workers.

 

One author, Itty Abraham, has argued that the evolution of India’s nuclear capabilities arose from an unusual mix of autonomous scientific growth within a highly protected domestic strategic enclave that was not subject to public political scrutiny.¹ Various scientific personalities and egos ran India’s atomic establishment, especially Homi Bhabha and Raja Ramana, the “grandfather” and “father” respectively of the Indian atomic bomb. The idiosyncrasies and inconsistent beliefs on the role and nature of nuclear weapons of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors contributed to the sense of infallibility among the scientists and engineers working within this protected strategic nuclear and missile enclave.

 

Again, nuclear compulsions may be seen as the outcome of nationalism, national self-images, and national pride. Thus, if India could not compete for international recognition as a major economic power such as Japan, perhaps the clout of nuclear weapons would provide compensation in the form of recognition as a military power. After all, nuclear China in the 1960s was recognised as a major world player long before its rise as a global economic giant in the late 1990s.

 

India has complained repeatedly that it does not get enough respect compared especially with China. Until the mid-1980s, before China forged ahead with sustained economic growth rates of between 8 to 12 per cent of its GNP, the per capita incomes of India and China were between $300 and $400. The population sizes of the two countries also put them in the same bracket. But the West, and particularly the United States, equated India with Pakistan, a country one-fifth the size of India before the separation of Bangladesh in 1971, and now only one-eighth the size of India. A nuclear India was expected to resolve this discrepancy. But it failed to do so when Pakistan matched India in the tests of bombs and missiles.

 

The demand for nuclear weapons thus became intertwined with Indian and especially Hindu nationalism. The demand that India acquire nuclear weapons was initially and forcefully made by the Hindu nationalist Jan Sangh party, following China’s first atomic test in 1964. The promise to turn India into a nuclear-weapons power was sustained for nearly four decades by this party and its successor, the BJP. It was part of the BJP’s political platform during its election campaign of February 1998, and the promise was fulfilled within three months of its taking office as the leader of the coalition government. Yet it is important to note that when the BJP leadership of the ruling National Democratic Alliance coalition decided to turn India into a formal nuclear power in May 1998, the decision was acclaimed enthusiastically by all parties within and outside the coalition government, including the opposition Congress party led by Sonia Gandhi. The BJP decision generated national support and solidarity. Thus, it would seem that the Hindu nationalist BJP gave expression to the national political will.

 

In Pakistan, the domestic situation was much more straightforward. There has always been a near national consensus that if India had the bomb, then Pakistan must have it too. This was given expression by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto prior to the Indian atomic test of May 1974: “If India acquires the bomb, Pakistanis will eat grass to acquire the bomb.” Pakistanis indeed came close to having to eat grass a year after their tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998, when the Pakistani economy stood on the brink of collapse. Religious nationalism and nuclear weapons are inseparable in Pakistan. Pakistan’s nuclear ambition was often referred to as the search for a “Muslim bomb” or an “Islamic bomb”, which implied that the bomb would serve as a deterrent for like-minded Muslim countries in general. The Islamic bomb would deter both India and Israel, and perhaps the United States and the erstwhile Soviet Union as well. These states were perceived by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as being in possession of the Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Marxist bombs.

 

Noting that nations often look to the past to authenticate themselves, Itty Abraham draws the following French parallel with how Indians viewed their own civilian nuclear programme:

 

The contrasts of modernity and tradition, however defined, find frequent mention in France … where reference would be made to nuclear reactors in terms of past technological marvels like the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and even the Cathedral of Notre Dame … One can easily see in both [countries] a similar aesthetic of triumphant rationalism in which atomic energy was the proof of the relative superiority of their own ideology.²

 

Nehru in particular linked Indian history and culture with the concepts of science and nation, “where modern science is appropriated to authenticate the Indian nation”, and conversely, “where science makes the Indian nation modern”.³ The result was an unusual mix in Indian rhetoric that combined Sanskritic Vedic verse and the need for nuclear energy and weapons.

 

Indian attitudes of national pride and resentment at perceived unfair treatment on the nuclear question have been revealingly expressed by Bharat Karnad, formerly a member of India’s National Security Advisory Board. Arguing in 1999 against India signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty under US pressure, Karnad declared:

 

Nothing is better appreciated and better guaranteed to create respect … than a country that stands up for itself and its national interests whatever anybody else may think or do. China is respected and allowed every consideration. India is badgered and asked to behave because Washington is convinced that the threat of punitive actions is enough to turn Indian resolve to jelly. Or, it is tempted by offers of freer access to high technology … because it is believed that India (and Indians) can be bought off or won over with blandishments. That is the principal difference in the US treatment of China and India.⁴

Kashmir as Nuclear Flashpoint

Forebodings of an impending Indo-Pakistani nuclear war intensified after the tit-for-tat tests of 1998. These forebodings may appear overblown, but precautionary measures to avoid such an eventuality are necessary. The periodic warnings by the West that India and Pakistan are on the brink of nuclear war may compound the dangers of such a conflict and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, the frequency of US government and media claims that the two countries are on the verge of nuclear war is such as to sound like the expression of wishful thinking.

 

While the Indian government disagrees with these dire predictions, Pakistan and its Kashmiri separatist allies support this thesis of imminent nuclear war. Kashmiri raising of the spectre of nuclear war is intended to bring about US intervention while the world’s attention remains focused on southern Asia. Meanwhile, there continues to be no basis for a solution on Kashmir. Islamabad will not give up its goal to make Indian-held Kashmir part of Pakistan. New Delhi insists on the territorial status quo.

 

US claims that nuclear southern Asia is the “most dangerous place on earth” are based on a scenario of escalation from insurgency and cross-border terrorism in Kashmir to conventional war and catastrophic nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Indian frustration with fighting an indefinite war against insurgents and terrorists operating from Pakistan and Afghanistan may tempt New Delhi to escalate the situation by conducting a conventional war against Pakistan to destroy the bases of the mujahideen across the border.

 

Following the terrorist attack on India’s parliament in New Delhi on 13 December 2024 by the Kashmiri separatist Lashkar-e-Tayeba organisation, calls intensified among Indian politicians and the Indian public to attack terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan. If the United States could use massive conventional force to eliminate terrorist bases in faraway Afghanistan from which the 11 September 2024 attacks were planned, then why cannot India launch attacks on terrorist bases in Pakistan and further afield across the Hindu Kush?

 

The acquisition of nuclear weapons has not alleviated India’s difficulties in dealing with the Kashmir conflict. Nuclear weapons did not prevent a limited conventional border war in Kashmir along the ceasefire line in the Kargil sector in mid-1999. India has no relative advantage in fighting a conventional war that is confined to Kashmir. In the 1999 Kargil war, Indian forces suffered heavy losses before eventually pushing back Pakistani forces that had seized the sector within the Indian line of control.

 

However, because of the threat of Pakistani nuclear retaliation, India in 1999 could not consider an all-out conventional war that would have compelled Islamabad to defend the whole of Pakistan against India’s superior conventional forces. In 1965 and 1971, when Pakistan attempted to seize Kashmir by force, India had been able to launch such a war.

 

There are several factors that reduce the likelihood of escalation to nuclear war. First, decision-makers in India and Pakistan have generally remained quite rational and responsible during crises. Indo-Pakistani wars hitherto have essentially been “gentlemanly” wars. Cities and other civilian targets were never attacked; prisoners-of-war were treated humanely and returned after the cessation of hostilities.

 

Second, the geographical proximity of the two countries and the interrelated nature of their societies may in themselves constitute a deterrent. A nuclear attack by India on Pakistan may cause radioactive fallout in India, and vice versa. Even if Pakistan were to attack distant targets in India with intermediate-range ballistic missiles, it would inflict death and destruction on millions of Indian Muslims, for whose protection Pakistan was created in 1947.

 

Third, the relationship between Indians and Pakistanis is unlike that of, say, Israelis and Arabs, who come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and do not share a common centuries-old historical experience. There is still an overarching “curry–salwarkamiz–cricket” unity to the subcontinent based on shared history, language, cuisine, music and culture. This cultural consanguinity may constitute an element of mutual understanding and tolerance that impedes progression towards nuclear war.

 

One of the more plausible Western scenarios of nuclear war on the subcontinent involves the prospect of radical Islamists gaining power in Pakistan. A coup against the Pakistani military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, could result in such a situation. Pakistani threats to use nuclear weapons against India if New Delhi failed to comply with Islamabad’s demands on Kashmir would then be no bluff. In turn, India would feel compelled to pre-empt a Pakistani nuclear attack, or to retaliate after the attack had taken place. Another persuasive scenario is that of unintended nuclear war caused by a failure of communications, or by accidental missile launches. Command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) are not reliable in southern Asia, as they generally were with the superpowers during the Cold War, making the probability of nuclear war higher on the subcontinent.
This remains the US nightmare. Two weeks after the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States, there were fears in the Bush administration that a war in Afghanistan and instability in Pakistan could result in the loss of control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal of some thirty to fifty nuclear weapons.

 

On the other hand, nuclear tensions might ease if southern Asia were subjected to a policy of benign neglect by the United States, and especially by its media. Without Western attention and the prospect of military or diplomatic intervention, the continuation of the insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir by Islamic militants could appear futile in the face of the sustained and prolonged resolve of India to thwart Pakistan’s war by proxy against it.

Nuclear Energy and Proliferation

Today, there is renewed interest in nuclear power in Europe, Japan and the United States, the main guardians of the non-proliferation regime. As the Chernobyl disaster recedes into the past, as concern grows that fossil fuels may be nearing exhaustion, and as alarm intensifies over global warming, nuclear power is increasingly being described as a safe, dependable and environmentally clean energy source. Taken collectively, the European Union’s nuclear industry is the biggest in the world, with more than 140 nuclear reactors in operation producing one-third of the total electricity generated globally. France obtains 80 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power plants. Japan has embarked on a major nuclear-energy programme and expects to obtain almost 50 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power plants.

 

India has always claimed that nuclear power is essential to its development needs. Because of the location of coal resources and the costs and security risks of transportation in India, and because hydroelectric power projects need to be located along major rivers, some of India’s biggest cities, such as Bombay and Madras, do not have ready and reliable access to electricity. Nuclear power plants, however, can be located right next to India’s major cities. Nuclear power is also clean and non-polluting compared to coal-fired thermal plants. Admittedly, there is always the risk of nuclear meltdowns and accidental leakages of radioactive materials, but major accidents such as those at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are unlikely to recur as technology and safety standards have advanced.

 

After shunning nuclear energy for more than two decades, especially following the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, the United States is now seeking salvation for its energy crisis in nuclear power. As atomic-bomb historian Richard Rhodes has noted,

 

the population of the United States is growing, adding the equivalent of one California every 10 years. Demand has caught up with supply even with significant improvements in energy efficiency and conservation, and the United States has become the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. These factors make a renewal of nuclear power likely.⁵

 

Arguments for nuclear power in the face of growing energy needs worldwide have raised concern among those seeking to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based non-proliferation watchdog, has argued that

 

A rapid expansion of nuclear power would compound the existing dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation. International inspections of nuclear facilities provide uncertain protection; Iran, for example, has pledged to put the reactors it will build under inspection but is still suspected of using civilian nuclear power as a cover for a nascent nuclear weapons program.

George Perkovich, in his book “India’s Nuclear Bomb,” reports that a bomb tested by India in 1998 was made from the grade of plutonium produced in its 10 uninspected power reactors.⁶

 

If nuclear energy is the energy of the future, and if the West perceives this as a vital resource, then there will be limits to the United States’ ability to contain further nuclear proliferation in the future.

 

The Singh–Bush agreement has conceded this dilemma. Assisting major energy-consuming states to acquire nuclear-energy capabilities may alleviate the impending global energy crisis, but will do so at the price of relying largely on moral constraints to prevent nuclear-weapons proliferation. Such expectations may be misguided. Legitimising the Indian nuclear fait accompli will require recognising the reality of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons capability and its nuclear-energy needs. It may encourage other potential nuclear-weapon states such as North Korea and Iran to follow the same track. Resolving global shortages in fossil fuels by expanding nuclear-energy facilities could lead to the collapse of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Endnotes

1. Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Postcolonial State (London: Zed Books, 1998).

 

2. Abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb, pp. 9–10.

 

3. Ibid., p. 28.

 

4. Bharat Karnad, “Policy on CTBT”, Hindustan Times, 4 November 1999.

 

5. Richard Rhodes, “Nuclear Power’s New Day”, New York Times, 7 May 2001.

 

6. Paul L. Leventhal, “More Nuclear Power Means More Risk”, New York Times, 17 May 2001.