Reams have been written on the India–US Nuclear deal and we
reproduce a piece from the June issue of Asian Military Review on
the criticality of the deal. There are those in
India who support
it like Raja Menon (who spent three months at Sandia Labs) and
Ashley Tellis (who helped craft the deal) and those who oppose it
like nuclear specialists Bharat Karnad, Homi Sethna and PK Iyengar.
The question is not whether it will go thorough –– because it will,
but whether once again we Indians will be lulled into believing that
nuclear power will come tomorrow and we get taken in by the business
interests of USA.
This is what Vishnu Bhagwat seems to be warning us about in
his latest book. Both
India and USA think
they have got the better of the other, but maybe our security
interests are jeopardized and our nuclear capabilities and ability
to test are capped. Some say we have been castrated ––with news of
huge intelligence leaks from NSC by Paul and Cdr Mukesh Saini, who
TOI reports was a RAW operative in USA. It is certain that USA knows
all about our nuclear capability and thinking. In India the Official
Secrets Act 1923 is outdated but our operational abilities and
thinking is our secret which seems out now. If true this is serious
and we are not sure how good this deal will be for
India
at this juncture and inputs will be welcome. But how we went about
the deal is written in the article below
THE INDIA–AMERICA
NUCLEAR DEAL –– A NEW BEGINNING FOR A CRITICAL RELATIONSHIP
By Ranjit B Rai
Preamble
In the last decade there has been a marked shift in India’s
foreign policy to shed the burden of its long professed non
alignment policy of over four decades, that consumed the energies of
India’s diplomats and leaders who churned out reams on the subject,
and delivered convincing speeches world wide, extolling the virtues
of non alignment, well aware that India was entrapped in the Soviet
camp. It kept
India’s Armed
Forces isolated from the world’s Armed Forces, till recently.
India’s tilt towards USSR of yore, was part ideology driven to
please the masses and India’s vote bank, but more it was for
military security, driven by the fact that USA had tilted to
Pakistan. It culminated in India signing a 20 year treaty of Peace,
Collaboration and Friendship with
Moscow
on 9th August 1971 –– Clause 9 of which read as follows:
“In the event of an attack or a threat thereof the two(India
and USSR) would immediately enter into mutual consultations in order
to remove such threat and to take appropriate effective measures to
ensure the peace and security of their countries”.
Many say it was a master stroke by Mrs Indira Gandhi goaded
by General, later Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the then Chairman
Chiefs of Staff Committee and Army Chief, who was tasked to prepare
for the inevitable winter war with Pakistan in 1971, to make sure
the millions of refugees camping in India returned to East Pakistan,
and repressions against the East Bengalis by the Pakistani military
were halted. Manekshaw wanted insurance against possible Chinese and
American intervention. The 14 day December war did come, and the
treaty ensured that the Chinese did not intervene and
USA’s Task Force
consisting of USS Enterprise, Decateur and Parsons entered and left
the Bay of Bengal peacefully and without interfering. A new nation,
Bangladesh
was born and for the next 20 years till the break up of the
Soviet Union,
USSR provided India arms, ships, submarines and aircraft in large
quantities and on easy credit terms, engaged in barter trade, and
supplied oil in emergencies and regularly through Iraq. Russia also
helped India start a nuclear submarine programme in 1983 called ATV,
and supplied a Charlie class nuclear submarine on lease in 1987 for
4 years. In return India invariably voted with USSR in the UN, and
even turned a blind eye to
Russia’s
incursion into Afghanistan and Viet Nam. That is now history.
With globalisation as an imperative, and the demise of
USSR, India began
to make overtures to USA in the 90s for its dire needs of
technology, energy and economy which were reciprocated with
investments, till India exploded its second set of nuclear bombs in
May 1998 called Shakti (power) and relations thawed. Sanctions were
imposed on
India
and Pakistan. Concurrent Pakistan history is replete with America’s
tilt towards that nation and generous aid including large military
supplies to Pakistan. But when India exploded a nuclear device in
Pokhran in May 1974 under the euphemism called peaceful nuclear
device –– PNE, it did not fool many nations. Pakistan was smarting
over its 1971 defeat. Even though 95,000 soldiers and officers taken
as POWs in East Pakistan by India’s Army were amicably repatriated
to West Pakistan, Pakistan decided to assemble nuclear uranium bombs
as insurance against India’s conventional strength at any cost, and
undertook to even to eat grass if they had to, in the words of the
late PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto father of Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto was
later sentenced to death by Gen Zia Ul Haq who overthrew him.
Pakistan achieved bomb capability by the early 90s and announced it
through an Indian media personality. USA’s intelligence knew about
Pakistan’s surreptitious acquisition of bomb designs from
China
and uranium centrifuges from the West, and should have applied the
Pressler amendment but successive Presidents of USA turned blind
eyes.
The Changes Post 9/11
Post 9/11 sanctions were lifted and
USA and India moved
ahead in graduated steps of cooperation covered in a document termed
NSSP standing for Next Steps in Strategic Partnership. On the legs
of closer military to military relations, and
USA’s
industry needing to do business with
India,
relations moved close, but also faltered because Colin Powell as the
Secretary of State displayed a marked tilt towards
Pakistan
and was untrusting of India. When he vacated office, successor
Secretary Condelezza Rice who had been working with India as NSA,
worked with Donald Rumsfeld, and ensured that Defence Minister
Pranab Mukherjee signed a wide ranging Defence Framework agreement
in the fall of 2004, in Washington DC. This was a prelude to bigger
things, as
USA’s
military industrial complex eyed India as a potential market. On
18th July 2005, India’s Prime Minster Dr Manmohan Singh visited
Washington DC and agreed with President Bush to work towards
consummating an Indo–US nuclear deal which enjoined India to
separate its civil and military nuclear facilities, work towards the
FMCT and in return US Congress would be canvassed to amend USA’s
atomic energy laws to allow India to import nuclear technology and
badly needed uranium. Bush also agreed to canvass the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) to waive its rules to favour India.
Indian scientists began work on the separation programme
which was hotly debated in
India’s media and
Parliament. India’s nuclear scientists moved ahead to assure IAEA
about the safeguards that India would implement. The final
separation agreement was achieved in New Delhi on 2nd March during
President Bush’s historic visit, when Condelezza Rice uttered the
words, “Mr President we have a deal”, after some hard overnight
negotiations. The joint statement read, ‘‘The two leaders today
expressed satisfaction with the great progress the United States and
India have made in advancing our strategic partnership to meet the
global challenges of the 21st century’’. This underscored efforts to
prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and India
joined the big five to ensure no more proliferation, and its vote to
tame Iran’s uranium aspirations, need to be viewed in that light.
India’s PM stated to the nation that the deal partially addressed
the needs of India’s energy security, without overly affecting its
sovereign control over India’s strategic nuclear programme.
The Separation Plan and Military Implications
The
US legislators have long wished to see
India cap its fissile material programme and that posture
continues.
USA
has strong infrastructure and expertise spanning seven decades, in
segregating nuclear facilities and detecting segregation violations.
India does not, and has mixed uranium and plutonium based power and
research reactors, and its current weapons programme is nascent and
plutonium based. India’s proposed plan which is being debated in the
US Congress is to put 14 out of its total 22, and all future nuclear
reactors, under IAEA safe guards. India has two small uranium
fuelled research reactors, the Canadian Cirrus and indigenous Dhurva,
at Bhabha Atomic Research Center BARC, where India’s bomb cores are
stored. These two reactors can produce fissile plutonium. India has
agreed to shut Cirrus by 2010, and shift Dhurva out. An American
specialist recently was given access to BARC.
India’s other power reactors have to burn at slow rate and
produce less power, if they are employed to make fissile plutonium
with is then reprocessed for its bombs. The stumbling block in
negotiations has been
India’s home grown
Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) technology which Indian scientists wish
to keep out of safeguards. They believe the FBR’s long term fuel
cycle has the capability to operate with plutonium, and then uranium
mix, and finally thorium which India has in plenty. The FBR will
then produce more fuel than it consumes and Uranium U 233 which will
be bomb grade. There is ongoing research to see if nuclear
submarines can run with thorium rectors. A prototype 40 MW FBR has
been running at Kalapakam near Chennai since
23rd October 2004 and on that confidence
India’s Larsen and
Tubro Engineers are constructing the facilities for the large FBR
there. The military is supportive of the scientists’ stances.
Most sources suggest
India has less than
800 kgs of fissile weapon grade plutonium for some 80 nuclear
warheads. Mathematical calculus in dealing with this complicated
subject of second strike by survivable war heads that will be needed
after paralysis of some bombs by an enemy’s first strike, leads the
military to ask for 200 triad based bombs. Hence in due course more
fissile Pu 235 will be needed, and it is anticipated the FBR will
provide that, and possibly U 233 another unique byproduct for bombs.
India will also need enriched uranium fuel for its nuclear submarine
fleet. India is woefully short of energy and when the FBR employs
Thorium as fuel in India’s FBR, it ultimately promises to satisfy
India’s
power needs.
India under Dr
Manmohan Singh and his team has taken that gamble. A large Navy
contingent involved in the ATV nuclear submarine construction
programme at New Delhi (Aakanshka, meaning Hope), Vishakapatnam (SBC
for construction), Kalpakam (mini reactor and training) and
Hyderabad (with
BHEL for the propulsion) will need to use enriched uranium as
fuel and the enrichment plant at Ratehale near Mysore forms a
critical military facility. Media had recently reported that in 2000
Russia
supplied two 180 MW (possibly old ice breaker) nuclear reactors
without fuel to India with clearcut obligation not to use on ships,
some claim for training, and supports India’s nuclear submarine
programmes. Russia has since, also supplied 60 metric tons of
uranium to India soon after President’s Bush’s visit in March and
India
is not easily budging from its proposed separation plan. USA is
working levers to negotiate further and see what other side benefits
it can get from the deal like getting India to come on board and
join the Proliferation Security Initiative PSI.
Conclusion
Finally it is essential to recall that the “conventional”
civilian power reactors typically utilize a “once through” fuel
cycle using Pu (plutonium) or enriched Uranium (Eu). After about
five years of operation, the resulting “spent” fuel rods contain
high-level waste (HLW), typically with a half-life of about 10,000
years. This lethal waste in spent fuel rods is cooled, typically in
outdoor water ponds, next to the reactor, for about eighteen months
before they can be encased for transportation, albeit hazardous, to
a waste repository. Currently encasement materials cannot be
guaranteed to be leak-proof beyond 250 years and may also require
active cooling in the repository. Incidentally, these spent fuel
rods are sought by terrorists, to fabricate dirty devices.
Once the India–USA nuclear deal is inked
India will be able
to look into its waste challenges more openly with USA’s assistance
as USA is even helping Russia out. The prognosis of success of the
final outcome are high, but as the deal is also seen as USA pitting
India against China, the jury is still not out as to how China will
react. President Bush has for mutual benefits, supported India’s
entry into the exclusive five nation nuclear club, and still awaits
US Congress clearance to balance India’s foreseeable civilian
nuclear power generation benefits, with India being asked to forsake
its long-term unproven nuclear power strategies that hold the
promise of self-sufficiency. Today both India and Pakistan are
nuclear powers and the chances of ‘all out war’ between them has
receded. USA recognizes the need to shift goal posts and side up
with India for the strategic and economic potential such action
would afford. Yet it needs Pakistan’s support in its fight on
terror, but the tilt towards India has begun.
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