The systemic bases of india’s challenge to the global nuclear order

Nonproliferation Review

Volumn 6, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 1-11

  Paul, T V ^a  

^a MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85010618388     PISSN: 10736700     EISSN: 17461766     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10736709808436731     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. Etel Solingen, “The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint,” International Security 19 (Fall 1994), pp. 126-69.
2. For a domestic politics explanation, see Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 54-86.
3. For a decisionmaker-level explanation, see Peter Lavoy, “NuclearMyths and the Causes of Nuclear Proliferation,” Security Studies 2 (Spring/Sum- mer 1993), pp. 192-212.
4. Fot an elaboration of these arguments, see T.V. Paul, “The NPT and Power Transitions in the International System,” in Raju G.C. Thomas, ed., The Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime: Prospects for the 21 Century (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 56-74.
5. Robert Jervis, “Systems Theories and Diplomatic History,” in Paul Gordon Lauren, ed., Diplomacy (New York: Free Press, 1979), pp. 212-44.
6. Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
7. See also Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 64.
8. A regional sub-system emerges as a result of regular interactions among two or more proximate states in a given region William R. Thompson, “The Regional Sub-System: A Conceptual Explication and a Propositional Inventory,” International Studies Quarterly 17 [March 1973], (pp. 89-117).
9. David Lake, “Regional Security Complexes: A System Approach,” in David Lake and Patrick M. Morgan, eds., Regional Orders (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), pp. 45-67.
10. On a comparison between the inter-war naval treaties and the NPT, see Paul, “The NPT and Power Transitions in the International System.” A natural question arises why India has not adopted a trading state strategy similar to Japan and Germany. The major difference between the two defeated powers of World War II and India is that the United States, especially through the nuclear umbrella, guarantees their security, while India has no serious ally to rely on. Following their defeat, Germany and Japan were also forced to adopt a low-profile military policy by the victors, i.e., the allied powers. India initially followed a low-profile military policy, but the conflicts with Pakistan and China, especially the defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian War, changed the Indian defense policy to a more assertive one. India also chose a non-aligned policy and an autarkic economic policy largely for systemic reasons, i.e. out of desire to maintain as much autonomy as possible in an international system that Indian leaders generally view as unequal and adversarial. For an excellent account of India’s strategic dilemma, see Ashok Kapur, “Indian Strategy: The Dilemmas about Enmities, the Nature of Power and the Pattern of Relations,” in Yogendra K. Malik and Ashok Kapur, eds., In-dia: Fifty Years of Democracy and Development (New Delhi: APH Publishing, 1998), pp. 341-71.
11. India is yet to induct the missiles into its forces, as it needs at least two dozen more tests. Only three tests had been conducted through June 1998 (Far Eastern Economic Review, June 11, 1998, p. 20).
12. The Times of India, June 15, 1998, p. 10.
13. World Bank, World Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 188.
14. Jas want Singh, “Against Nuclear Apartheid, ” Foreign Affairs 77 (September/October 1998), pp. 41-52.
15. “In the last three decades, the global nuclear order kept punishing India through an ever expanding regimen of sanctions and technology denial, because it was considered a proliferation risk. Unwilling to make up its mind about nuclear weapons and clearly define its status, India had to relentlessly oppose every single international nuclear arms control agreement” C. Raja Mohan, “Nuclear Politics-Ill: Signalling Nuclear Moderation,” The Hindu, May 27, 1998, (p. 13).
16. On the limitations of nuclear weapons as a source of power, see T.V. Paul, “Power, Influ-ence and Nuclear Weapons: A Reassessment,” in T.V. Paul, Richard J. Harknett, and James J. Wirtz, eds., The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1988), pp. 19-46.
17. Former Indian Army Chief, General K. Sundaiji, has been a strong advocate of the vi-ability of nuclear deterrence in India-Pakistan relationship. See his “India’s Nuclear Weapons Policy,” in Jom Gjelstad and Olav Njolstad, eds., Nuclear Rivalry and International Order (London: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 176-81.
18. Devin T. Hagerty, “Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: The 1990 Indo-Pakistani Crisis,” In-temational Security 20 (Winter 1995/96), pp. 79114.
19. On these earlier negotiations, see Alva Myrdal, The Game of Disarmament (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982).
20. On India’s early disarmament efforts, see J. P. Jain, India and Disarmament: Nehru Era, Vol. 1 (New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 1974).
21. Shyam Bhatia, India’s Nuclear Bomb (Sahibabad: Vikas, 1979), pp. 54-69.
22. For the early nuclear debate, sec also Ashok Kapur, India’s Nuclear Option: Atomic Diplomacy and Decisionmaking (New York: Praeger, 1976).
23. T.T. Poulose, ed., Perspectives of India’s Nuclear Policy (New Delhi: Young Asia, 1978).
24. “Debate on Foreign Affairs,” Lok Sabha, New Delhi, 5 April 1968, reprinted in India and Disarmament: An Anthology of Selected Writings and Speeches (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, 1988), pp. 176-77.
25. William Epstein, The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control (New York: The Free Press, 1976), p. 285.
26. Gaurav Kampani, “From Existential to Minimum Deterrence: Explaining India’s Decision to Test,” The Nonproliferation Review 6 (Fall 1998).
27. The Action Plan called for nuclear weapon states to cease the production of nuclear weap-ons and weapon-grade fissile materials, the conclusion of a comprehensive test ban treaty and a convention outlawing the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, and a halt to transfers of weapons, delivery systems, and weapon-grade fissionable materials. In return, non-nuclear weapon states woul d promise not to acquire nuclear weapons. Further, multilateral negotiations were to be initiated for the conclusion of a new treaty, which would eliminate all nuclear weapons within a time period of22 years. See Rajiv Gandhi, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Proposal Presented at the U.N. General Assembly, Third Special Session on Disarmament, New York, June 9, 1988, reprinted in India and Disarmament, pp. 280-94.
28. T.V. Paul, “Influence Through Arms Transfers: Lessons from the U.S.-Pakistani Relation-ship,” Asian Survey 32 (December 1992), pp. 1078-92.
29. K. Subrahmanyam, “Politics of Shakti: New Wine in an Old Bomb,” Times of India, May 26, 1998, p. 4.
30. On the negotiations, see Tariq Rauf and Rebecca Johnson, “After the NPT’s Indefinite Extension: The Future of the Global Nonproliferation Regime,” The Nonproliferation Review 3 (Fall 1995), pp. 28-41.
31. Joseph F. Pilat and Charles W. Nakhleh, “A Treaty Reborn? The NPT after Extension,” in Thomas, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime, pp. 41-55.
32. “It was not just the indefinite extension of an unequal treaty that troubled India, but also the fact that no real balance was struck to bind the nuclear weapon states in the way the non-nuclear weapon states were bound. …More serious was the international reaction to the NPT extension: anger on the part of many leading non-aligned countries and the obvious triumphalism of some of the nuclear weapon states, which appeared to believe that the conference had secured their positions in power for the foreseeable future” Arundhati Ghose, “Negotiating the CTBT: -India’s Security Concerns and Nuclear Disarmament,” Journal of International Affairs 51 [Summer 1997], pp 247-48.
33. For a comprehensive discussion, see T.T. Poulose, The CTBT and the Rise of Nuclear Na-tionalism in India (New Delhi: Lancers Books, 1996).
34. On the Indian objections to the treaty, see Ghose, “Negotiating the CTBT,” pp. 239-61.
35. Dinshaw Mistry, “Domestic-International Linkages: India and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” The Nonproliferation Review 6 (Fall 1998).
36. According to Indian analysts, the 1974 tests produced only limited data and further tests were necessary to prove beyond doubt the reliability of the nuclear weapons force Amitabh Mattoo, “Enough Scientific Reasons Seen for Conducting Tests,” India Abroad, May 15, 1998, p. 10.
37. Vajpayee, who was a member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament, Rajya Sabha, had declared in 1964: “The answer to an atom bomb is an atom bomb; nothing else” (quoted in Manoj Joshi, “Nuclear Shock Wave,” India Today, May 25, 1998, p. 14).
38. The New York Times, May 25, 1998, p. A3.
39. Raj Chengappa, “The Bomb Makers,” India Today Webpage, June 22, 1998 (http://www.india-today.com/itoday/22061998/cover.html).
40. Joshi, “Nuclear Shockwave,” p. 16.
41. The Hindu, May 28,1998, p. 1.
42. Singh, “Against Nuclear Apartheid,” pp. 4445.
43. A.R. Lakshmanan, “New Delhi’s View: A Push for Respect,” Boston Globe, May 13, 1998, p. A1.
44. The Times of India, June 6, 1998, p. 13.
45. Tim Weiner, “U.S. And China Helped Pakistan Build Its Bomb,” The New York Times, June 1, 1998, p.A6.
46. Defence Minister George Fernandes in an interview in May 1998 cited China’s activities in Burma’s Coco Islands off the coast of India and expansion of military airfields in Tibet as evidence of the emerging treat Manoj Joshi “George in the China Shop,” India Today International, May 18, 1998, p. 12.
47. C. Raja Mohan, “China Takes the Hard Line,” The Hindu, June 4, 1998, p. 11.
48. In response to the statement by the P-5 in Geneva on June 4,1998, asking India and Paki-stan to forgo their nuclear weapons, an Indian Foreign Ministry statement said that the five nations “are not unaware that one of the most serious threats to our security has arisen because of the non-observance of the obligations they have undertaken under the NPT,” and they have declined to take any action to address a serious “violation of a treaty provision to which all of them were a party” (Kenneth J. Cooper, “India Accuses Powers of Nuclear Transfers,” The Washington Post, June 6,1998, p. A14).
49. Kenneth J. Cooper and Steve Mufson, “Nuclear Cloud is Cast Over India’s Relations with China,” The Washington Post, June 1, 1998, p. A14.
50. K. Subhramanyam, “Understanding China: Sun Tzu and Shakti,” The Times of India, June 5, 1998, p. 7.
51. For die resolutions of these meetings, see Craig R. Whitney, “Top U.N. Members Urge India and Pakistan to End Arms Race,” The New York Times, June 5,1998, p. A8. At the Geneva meeting on June 4,1998, foreign ministers of the five permanent members called on India and Pakistan to end all further tests, adhere to the CTBT unconditionally, negotiate the FMCT, and not weaponize or deploy nuclear weapons and missiles.
52. George Liska, “The Third World: Regional Sys- terns and Global Order,” in Robert E. Osgood et al., eds., Retreat From Empire? (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), p. 226.
53. Baldev Raj Nayar, “A World Role: The Dialectics of Purpose and Power,” in John W. Mellor, ed., India: A Rising Middle Power (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979), p. 119.
54. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 50.
55. T.V. Paul, “Great Equalizers or Agents of Chaos? Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Emerging International Order,” in T.V. Paul and John A. Hall, eds., International Order and the Future of World Politics (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 1999).
56. Ashok Kapur, “New Nuclear States and the International Nuclear Order,” in Paul, Harknett, and Wirtz, The Absolute Weapon Revisited, pp. 23761.
57. As Robert Jervis contends, security regimes tend to emerge and persist only if the great powers want them (“Security Regimes,” in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983], p. 176).