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A Shameful Reaction
Achin Vanaik
The Hindu, 2 November 1999
In a longer historical retrospect, the Senate non-ratification of the CTBT
(unless this is rectified by the next US President and administration) may
well turn out to be the crucial point after which the post-Cold War 'window
of opportunity' in the pursuit of progressive nuclear restraint and
disarmament was finally closed. The CTBT may continue for some time as a
political-moral norm but subject now to the real likelihood of a future
collapse, if for example, a Republican regime in the US or some other
nuclear power decides to resume testing. Since the CTBT doesn't enter into
force, the first ever genuinely multilateral and independent monitoring and
verification system over a vital form of nuclear behaviour cannot (and may
not ever) be fully and properly put into place. This would have set a
crucial organizational and political precedent for the establishment of
precisely those international structures that override some
national-sovereign powers. This has to happen if a truly nuclear free world
is to be established and maintained.
Republican criticism of the CTBT's verification regime for its
ineffectiveness because it is not intrusive enough is as much of a
motivated red herring as the Indian anti-CTBT argument that the proposed
verification regime is too intrusive. What the US rightwing bitterly
opposes is the surrendering of any 'sovereign' powers and rights as would
be embodied in the very setting up of such an independent and multilateral
regime that is not and cannot be under US control. The negative effects of
non-ratification of the CTBT on the existing course of disarmament and
restraint activities will be very great. It will cast a deep shadow of
gloom over the prospects of the Fissile Materials Treaty (FMT), not simply
over the production cut-off issue but also the efforts to reduce and
eliminate stockpiles of fissile materials held by actual and potential
nuclear weapons states; and to the efforts to institutionalize an Ad Hoc
Committee on Global Disarmament via the give-and-take of FMT negotiations.
Duma ratification of START II has been made even more difficult, as indeed
progress towards START III. The ongoing efforts - not just to weaken the
1972 ABM Treaty by reducing some of its constraints but to scupper it
completely - will now become stronger. Clinton wants the first, the most
hardline Republicans the second.
better nuclear weapons and delivery systems has become stronger. In short,
arms racing of a kind between the 'defensive' capacities of the US and the
'offensive' capacities of China and Russia, is now more likely than before
to commence in the foreseeable future. China understands this full well and
is deeply disturbed by the emergence of this altogether more dangerous
overall political dynamic. That is why it has openly regretted the Senate
non-ratification of the CTBT. But trust some of our home-grown anti-CTBT
proponents to concoct other interpretations of Chinese attitudes and
behaviour. Since the CTBT was, they claim, primarily aimed at restraining
Chinese efforts at weapons advancement, Beijing as a whole (not just its
most extreme nuclear hawks) must be secretly happy that the CTBT looks like
collapsing and therefore its public displays of deep disappointment are
really hogwash to fool everybody but the brilliantly insightful Indians who
alone, outside the five nuclear powers, understood the true meaning and
purpose of the CTBT!
There were two dominant reactions in India to Senate non-ratification of
the CTBT. The first was a sense of relief that diplomatic pressure from the
US government on India would now be considerably eased, possibly
eliminated. India can sign but not ratify the CTBT. Or better, it can stall
matters for a year and if in November next year there is a Republican
president in the White House, the CTBT as an Indian foreign policy issue is
finally dead. The other most common reaction has been a sense of
self-righteous, almost gloating, vindication. See, the US doesn't want or
believe in it itself so we were right all along not to want the CTBT! How
this is a vindication is beyond comprehension. Few and far between have
been the Indian voices that have expressed dismay and concern over the fact
that non-ratification will now seriously weaken the international regime of
not just arms control but the whole post-Cold War momentum of nuclear
restraint and disarmament.
But then how could Indian reactions in the main be otherwise? The outcome
of the post 1994-CTBT debate in India represented simply the most shameful,
deceitful and dishonestly arrived at elite consensus on almost any single
issue since Independence. The CTBT was continuously attacked not merely
because it was against India's 'national interests' but because it was
portrayed as, in reality, an anti-restraint and anti-disarmament measure.
India was thus also defending the honour of the 'genuine' global process of
nuclear disarmament and restraint! The CTBT was portrayed as a deep,
calculated Machiavellian ploy by the US to consolidate its 'nuclear
hegemony' or 'nuclear imperialism'. That the most extreme pro-nuclear
elements in the defence labs, the armed forces and in the political set-up
as represented through the Republican party were always bitterly opposed to
the CTBT was either ignored or dismissed by Indian opponents of the CTBT in
their determination to paint a picture of a monolithic US out to 'trap' and
'fool' the rest of the world. And while the rest of the world, including
some of the most bitterly anti-American and strongly anti-imperialist
non-nuclear weapons states (NNWSs) like Iran and Vietnam, were prepared to
be so fooled, India virtually alone stood defiant against, and fully
perceptive about, the 'danger' of the CTBT! The great irony revealing the
falsehood of this argument - that it has taken the most gung-ho
nationalists and ultra-imperialists in the US to scupper this 'terrible
pro-imperialist' measure - even today continues to escape the large
majority of Indian opponents of the CTBT.
Those favouring the CTBT in the US wanted some measure of arms moderation
and reduction in the post-Cold War era rather than uncontrolled arms
racing, and also because it would promote non-proliferation. The
Republicans shared the second motive not the first, but disputed the
Democratic contention that the CTBT was the best route for this because the
Treaty involved a major price tag on the US - despite allowing
sub-criticals, computer simulation and research into direct fusion weapons,
a ban on explosive testing does seriously restrain the US ability to
develop ever more advanced nuclear weaponry. This fact is understood by
everyone from the Chinese and Russian governments to outstanding physicists
in the worldwide anti-nuclear movement to the most technically
sophisticated and extreme militarists backing the Republican rejection. The
exception, of course, are Indian opponents who repeatedly claimed that the
restraining effects of the CTBT on the US are insignificant or worthless.
Both Democrats and Republicans united in promoting the indefinite extension
of the NPT but were divided over the CTBT because the latter is not a
simple corollary of the former. The Republicans were simply not prepared to
pay the price of restraint demanded. The NNWSs realized that what is most
important is not the mix of motives of various parties to a multilateral
treaty like the CTBT but its objective impact. One of the silliest
arguments against the CTBT has been that it would have locked in the US's
nuclear technological advantages over the rest of the world. That advantage
was not caused by the CTBT but preceded it. Does anyone in their right mind
think that a world now freer than before to resume testing and arms racing
will be a world in which the technological advantage of the US will somehow
be reduced? Are the negative political-psychological, diplomatic, military,
health and environmental effects of a world free to carry out explosive
testing not obvious to even the most recalcitrant opponent of the CTBT? If
the non-ratification of the CTBT represents the triumph of the most
degenerate form of American rightwing conservatism what does the dominant
reaction to the Senate rejection of the CTBT say about India?
Copyright 1999 The Hindu
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