Analysis

Statement on NMD/TMD project
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), India, June 2001

• Executive summary
• Questions and answers about the NMD/TMDs

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. The National Missile Defence (NMD) system and Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) systems comprise an integrated US effort and plan to build a missile shield above all to protect its national territory and also its allies and regionally stationed US forces. The aim is to have interceptor missiles which can hit and destroy in flight the incoming nuclear-tipped missiles of any potential or actual rival before they can release their nuclear warheads. Eventually the aim is to have a full-fledged "Star Wars" weapons system equipped with space-based laser and radar-guidance systems (as well as interceptor missiles) for hitting and destroying not just targets in flight but also on the ground.
2. The US says it needs such a shield to protect itself and its allies from "rogue states" which might develop over the next two decades the capacity to hit the US mainland with a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. But this is an excuse and not the real reason behind the NMD-TMDs project.
3. The real reason is simple and obvious. After the end of the Cold War the US sees itself in a unique position of global dominance over all other countries and now wants to make this permanent. The NMD-TMDs project is an attempt to achieve for the US absolute security (even from the nuclear weapons of an opponent) and unilateral global dominance, specifically over Russia and China.
4. The US believes it can achieve both these goals by developing a mix of offensive and defensive nuclear war-fighting capacities. This, it believes, will give the US the capacity to 'win a nuclear war' and to threaten a nuclear exchange which it can then 'win', thus giving it what it believes will be a great political advantage over all other countries. Since the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the US and Russia specifically prohibits the development of such a national defence shield, the US must either abrogate this Treaty or 'modify' it with Russian assent. The word 'modification' is a face-saver for the Russians since the only modification acceptable to the US is one which repudiates the original purpose of the Treaty itself. Moreover, a full-scale Star Wars project will, it is believed, provide all the new technologies for monopolizing global space surveillance and for controlling in the future through space-based weapons, the 'battleground of space' itself. This space dominance will also make the US's conventional military power supreme as never before.
5. This US search for global dominance will only usher in a Second Nuclear Age. In the longer run, regardless of any temporary agreements between the US and Russia or China, the latter countries have to try and develop ways of countering US ambitions and plans. They will try and build their own defence shields and to overload and disrupt the US shield by building more missiles, more and bigger nuclear warheads, decoy systems, etc. The end result will be another nuclear arms race in even more lethal and destabilizing weaponry, as well as the emergence of a new arena of militarisation, nuclearisation and arms racing - space itself. This means more nuclear rivalries and tensions, more dangers than ever before and a world moving even further away from the goal of total nuclear disarmament.
6. The building of such a shield is far from inevitable. Though technological difficulties will not in themselves prevent the US from moving ahead, these difficulties are very real and formidable. There is a lot of time for political opposition in the US itself and worldwide to organize, grow and successfully oppose the Star Wars project. This opposition will grow in civil societies and among many governments.
7. The Indian government, however, has very unfortunately endorsed the NMD-TMDs project. While the US is playing for very high stakes - seeking world dominance, the Indian government is playing for very low stakes - seeking more recognition from the US of its nuclear status, earlier lifting of sanctions, support for India's claim for a permanent UN Security Council seat, more dual-use technologies, etc. The Indian government is desperately seeking to persuade the US that it will be a 'faithful' ally of the US in its future global designs.
8. India's thoughtless endorsement of the NMD will push China to regard India as a strategic opponent. This does not enhance India's regional security. Furthermore, India's relationship with the US is inherently one-sided. The US can pressurize India to do what it wants but not vice versa. It is India that is losing 'strategic autonomy' and the US whose 'options are enhanced' by growing Indian subordination and dependence on it. The NMD-TMDs project will force China to expand its nuclear arsenal which will be taken as an excuse for India to do the same which in turn will push Pakistan to expand its arsenal, i.e. the regional nuclear arms race is further exacerbated by the NMD-TMDs project.
9. The NMD-TMDs project expresses even more clearly the fundamental insanity of seeking security through nuclear weapons. The very countries with such excessive levels of nuclear weapons still feel so insecure that they, either like the US are taking nuclear developments to altogether newer and more dangerous heights than ever before, or are getting caught in the absurd 'follow-the-leader' dynamic of constant nuclear preparations and development. The end result is that neither these nuclear weapons states, nor the world as a whole, is made safer but made more unsafe, more insecure and tension-filled, and more nuclearised than ever before.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE NMD/TMDs

1. What is the National Missile Defense (NMD) system?

The NMD as conceived by this Bush administration of the US is a "multi-layered" shield comprising a system of radars to detect and track the incoming ballistic missiles of an 'enemy' and to guide the US's own interceptor missiles which are also an integral part of this defence system. These interceptors aim to knock out an opponent's missiles by hitting, and therefore destroying them, before they can release their nuclear warheads. It is like trying to hit a bullet (the incoming missile) with your own bullet (your interceptor missile).

The purpose of the NMD is to protect the US mainland. The system is multi-layered because it proposes to develop the capacity to knock out incoming missiles as early as possible and should this fail to still have chances of doing so later on in the flight path and pattern of the incoming missile. So the shield aims to have interceptors which can be launched from ships on sea near the borders of the 'enemy' so that it can knock out the missiles in their 'boost' phase (before it enters space), and if this fails, then to do so in space through other ground- or air- launched interceptors, or even after an incoming missile re-enters the earth's atmosphere. The US intends to go on to try and develop an ever more sophisticated system using technologies that are currently on paper only, such as ground, air, and space-based laser systems and particle beam weapons. The eventual aim is literally a "Star Wars" programme of a combination of 'kill' techniques (projectiles, lasers, beams, pulses, etc.) to knock out incoming missiles and even (once laser systems are sufficiently developed) to attack ground targets from space itself.

2. What are Theater Missile Defenses (TMDs)?

TMDs do not aim to protect the US mainland directly but indirectly. They aim to do what the NMD does not do - to counter the non-strategic 'tactical' nuclear missiles of a presumed enemy, opponent or rival. The TMDs represent a system of sea-launched, air-launched and ground-based (on the territory of the US's regional allies) interceptors and radars that would be positioned in certain regions where certain non-nuclear but nuclear-capable 'enemies' or potential enemies of the US are said to exist. The US currently identifies these as Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea. The TMDs will be sold to the US's regional allies by the claim that these are shields for protecting their territories from attack by 'rogue' or 'enemy' states as well as US forces stationed in the region. Thus the US is aiming to set up TMDs in East Asia (with the help of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan) explicitly against North Korea and implicitly against China; in the Middle East (with the help of Israel) explicitly against Iran, Iraq and Libya; in Europe (with the help of its NATO allies) explicitly against possible targeting of this area by 'rogue' states, implicitly seeking to reassure allies against possible tactical strikes by Russia.

However, the main purpose of the TMDs is not protection of allies and regionally stationed US forces but to integrate these with the NMD so as to provide the most comprehensive possible missile defence system which will remain under US control and command even though parts of the overall system (the TMDs) will be situated outside the US mainland. It is precisely because this Bush administration has such an integrated system in mind and at the same time wishes to delude others into thinking this is not part of a system which above all else aims to protect the US mainland, that it refuses to call it a 'national' missile defence but wishes to refer to it as simply a 'missile defence' system.

3. Why does the US want the NMD?

The US says it wants to protect itself from what it abusively and dishonestly labels as 'rogue' states. [If a rogue state is one which repeatedly flouts international laws and norms or carries out the greatest human rights abuses outside its own borders then an objective, unemotional and scrupulously honest assessment of reality would have to declare that the worst rogue state of all ever since the Second World War ended, is the United States itself. No other country has killed more civilians outside its own territories or supported more dictatorships since 1945 than the US.]. According to the US these 'rogue' states could over time develop missiles that could reach the US mainland, and though these are self-declared non-nuclear states and members of the NPT, they could develop nuclear capability and therefore represent a threat to the US that it must address.

The fundamental reason why the US wants an NMD is not because of the so-called threat posed by 'rogue' states. The US has mainly two other purposes in mind. 1) The US wants to acquire a decisive military-nuclear advantage over all other nuclear rivals, particularly Russia and China. It believes that having the NMD-TMDs in place will give it the capacity to actually 'win' and, certainly, to threaten to 'win' even a nuclear exchange or war with rivals. Thus the new policy represents a shift from the view that nuclear security between rivals, say US and Russia, means reliance on mutual deterrence (what was called mutual assured destruction or MAD) to the policy of preparing for 'winnable' nuclear wars and exchanges. 2) Through the various technologies that will be promoted by the development of the NMD the US wishes to prepare itself for the military domination of space. This is to be accomplished by using space for global surveillance while denying rivals a similar capacity (winning the all-important battle of information-knowledge control) and establishing its superiority over the 'battleground of space' itself by developing space-based weaponry of various kinds. Control over space will give the US domination not just on the nuclear front but even for the exercise of conventional forms of warfare. An additional consideration no doubt, particularly important for the current Bush presidency, is that among its principal political and financial backers are the various vested interests connected to the military-industrial complex whose profits and influence would be greatly enhanced from going full-steam ahead with the NMD-TMDs project.

4. But what about 'Rogue' states?

The idea that these states pose or could pose a nuclear threat to the US is utterly ludicrous. There is no evidence that any of them are clearly determined or definitely intend to betray their existing non-nuclear status, or that they intend to nuclearly confront the US in the future, or that they could somehow secretly acquire the capacities to do so without the international community becoming aware of such efforts long before they are actually achieved. The US is simply citing a purely abstract, hypothetical and artificially constructed 'threat' to justify and cover up what it anyway wants to do for other more fundamental and important reasons.

By claiming that these states constitute a nuclear threat although the US has an overwhelming capacity to nuclearly annihilate any such state that attacked it with nuclear weapons, the US is effectively saying that nuclear deterrence cannot give it nuclear security. This is in the larger sense quite true. The search for security through the operation of nuclear deterrence only leads to greater insecurity. But the attempt to achieve security through the NMD/TMDs only makes matters worse.

As for the US claim that it must protect itself from a terrorist nuclear threat, and therefore, needs to build a missile shield, this is also a subterfuge. It is much easier and less costlier for a terrorist organization to use a suitcase bomb or to 'underfly' any missile shield (NMD or TMD) through a nuclear tipped short-range missile (sea- or air-launched) missile or torpedo against whichever target it might choose. It would also be much more difficult to trace which state (if any) was responsible for such an attack.

5. What will be the impact of NMD/TMDs?

Building such systems gives the US a new mix of offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities. What this means is that the US can come to believe that it has a decisive political 'advantage' over any nuclear rival because it can launch a massive first-strike on an 'enemy' destroying most or all of the warheads/missiles/launchers of that country and then rely on its shield (which even if it is not functioning at optimal levels but works at say 50% efficiency or less) to 'mop up' any remaining missiles that the 'enemy' might launch in retaliation. Even if a few warheads got through the damage might be considered to be within 'acceptable' limits.

To nullify this sought for 'advantage' the US's rivals will try to develop the capacities to overload the NMD/TMDs. This can be done in five ways and almost certainly all will be used. a) By developing various counter-measures like decoy targets, jamming radar functioning, 'masking' nuclear warheads, etc. to confuse the system. b) By producing and deploying an increased number of missiles so that the chances of enough getting through become greater. c) By producing more warheads per missile (what is called MIRVing or 'multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles', i.e. having multiple warheads on a missile which can separately aim at and hit as many as twelve or even more different targets after separating from the 'mother' missile). d) By having even more explosive power per warhead, so that even if a few warheads get through they can do more damage when they do get through and land. e) By promoting the development of anti-satellite warfare systems to destroy the 'eyes' and 'ears' and 'nervous system' (communications network) of the NMD system.

In short, building the NMD/TMDs will guarantee an acceleration of the nuclear arms race, even if, to begin with, it is accompanied by some reductions in the numbers of ballistic missiles by the US and/or Russia. Furthermore, the NMD means the introduction of an arms race into a completely new area - space itself, which is now going to be militarized and nuclearised as never before. The overall result then is a dramatic worsening of global tensions and insecurities between nuclear rivals, the emergence of a new and more dangerous kind of nuclear arms race. All this means a terrible setback to the existing efforts to bring about total global nuclear disarmament.

6. What is the ABM Treaty? Why is it important?

This stands for the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty which was bilaterally agreed upon between USSR/Russia and the US on May 26, 1972. The Treaty outlaws the building of missile defences to protect the national territory of either country. By leaving both countries vulnerable to each other's attacks it sought to remove the much stronger temptation that either country would have (if it had a defence system) to launch a first-strike in the belief that its shield could then take care of any retaliatory missiles by one's opponent.

The ABM Treaty by establishing agreed rules for the conduct of the 'competitive nuclear game' paved the way for reductions in the numbers of offensive missiles of the US and Russia/USSR because of their enormous 'overkill' capacities. Reductions through Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties (SALT-I and II), and through Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START-I and II) only became possible because of the prior 1972 ABM Treaty. The two countries came down from having arsenals which could destroy each other many times over to levels where they could 'only' destroy each other a few times over (i.e., "mutual assured destruction" or MAD at a somewhat lower level). In other words, the ABM Treaty didn't eliminate the existing arms race nor weaken the factors that drove it, but derived its rationale from the fact that it prevented a new direction and impetus being given to the arms race which would have made the situation even worse and more dangerous in the absence of such an ABM Treaty.

By the late sixties it was clear to both the US and USSR/Russia that there was a rough nuclear 'parity' between the two sides, each possessing grossly redundant 'overkill' capacities. The ABM Treaty was itself the prime embodiment and expression of this accepted parity and therefore of the futility of either country striving for a nuclear 'advantage' over the other. It is not surprising, however, that now that the US believes it can gain a decisive 'advantage' through going ahead with its Star Wars project, it wants to either jettison the Treaty or have it 'modified' in a manner that would destroy its original purpose - preventing national missile defences.

The ABM Treaty allowed each country to set up very limited defence systems (comprising fixed radars and interceptors) which were so designed and situated as to allow each country to defend two sites - their capital city and one other ICBM complex. A 1974 protocol to the Treaty reduced this to one site each with Russia deciding to defend Moscow and the US its ICBM complex at Grand Forks, North Dakota. The Treaty banned all other land-based as well as sea-based, air-based, space-based and mobile land-based interceptor systems. It also outlawed the stationing of NMD-related radar systems outside the US mainland. These are all strictures which the currently planned NMD system aims to override and defy. Tactical TMD systems, however, are not banned under the ABM Treaty. But there are bilateral agreements between the US and Russia which aim to maintain the spirit and purpose of the ABM Treaty and thus seek to prevent TMDs from developing NMD-type capacities, e.g. radars and interceptors which can operate in an NMD mode.

7. Is the NMD technologically feasible?

There is no definite answer to this. Building a reliable system of interceptors is itself an extremely complex matter. Going beyond this to build laser systems, etc. is to enter the field of as yet untried techniques and of incomplete and uncertain experimental efforts. Furthermore, the counter-technologies and techniques which can make the shield extremely 'leaky' and inefficient are very much easier to develop. A technology regime that is not viable now however, may become viable later. Moreover, even if technological 'advances' are slow in coming and do not make the shield foolproof, as long as limited accumulative advances do take place, vested interests will make sure that the project of Star Wars remains in place despite whatever cost and time-overruns there may be.

In other words, whether or not the technology works well enough is not going to be the decisive factor in determining whether or not the Star Wars programme survives and expands. The rejection of Star Wars has to be a political decision determined above all by political and ethical considerations, not by technological considerations or economic ones. That the project can cost trillions of dollars only makes it a mouth-watering prospect for the US arms industry and its supporting networks. Also, countries seeking to counter Star Wars technologies will have to assume a big economic burden on themselves, and this many believe will also work to the US's advantage.

8. Why has the Indian government shifted its stand from opposing to supporting the NMD?

The government of India through its statement of May 2, 2001, became the first major nation to declare tacit support for the NMD, whose construction was publicly announced by President Bush on May 1, 2001. New Delhi went out of its way to cast the US decision in as positive a light as possible, stating that "we also welcome moving away from the hair trigger alerts associated with prevailing nuclear orthodoxies" when President Bush gave no hint whatsoever in his statement that the US was contemplating any such move. Even the post-Pokharan II Indian government initially understood that the NMD project would seriously de-stabilise an already unstable nuclear situation, promote a new arms race in space, and by seeking to institutionalize an enduring US nuclear supremacy create all kinds of tensions and rivalries. Like other nuclear weapons states apart from the US, India would have preferred a world without the NMD system. That is why it opposed it in the first place. However, once the US decided to ignore and override the objections of other non-nuclear weapons states (NNWSs) and even of the nuclear weapons states (NWSs), whether friends, allies or rivals, India's stance changed. India now believes it must not risk alienating the US but must instead seek to ingratiate itself with the US in the hope that it will thereby be 'rewarded'.

Longer term national and global interests which are served by moving towards complete global disarmament and by opposing NMD-like efforts to extend the arms race have now been jettisoned in favour of much narrower, short-sighted and short term considerations. These are a) how best for India to gain greater acceptance and recognition from the US as a nuclear power, and b) how best to utilize the situation to forge a closer relationship with the US even though this means growing dependency and subordination of India's foreign policy framework to US dictates and concerns.

9. But won't supporting the NMD give India important benefits? What is wrong in trying to become a close friend or even ally of the US?

In going in for the NMD/TMDs the US is playing for very high stakes - trying to achieve global nuclear-military dominance. In supporting the NMD/TMDs India is playing for very low stakes - quicker (even if informal) entry into the nuclear club, lifting of remaining sanctions which are being eased off anyway, other sops and 'carrots' from the US, like more access to dual-use technologies, surveillance information, stronger support for India's claim to a UN Security Council seat, and so on.

On one side we will have greater nuclear tensions and rivalries and a world moving further away from disarmament. This creates greater insecurities for everyone but above all for the NWSs themselves, India included. Even the most powerful nuclear country, the US, feels so insecure that it wants to go in for an NMD which will create yet another spiral of insecurity amongst nuclear rivals. An inevitable consequence of the US going ahead with the NMD is that China will be forced to greatly enhance the quantity and quality of its nuclear arsenal. This will have repercussions on India where this Chinese reaction will become the rationale and excuse for India to similarly enhance its nuclear arsenal, which in turn pushes Pakistan to do the same.

On the other side, you have an India angling for minor and dubious 'benefits' for which it must also pay a heavy price in loss of national sovereignty and greater subordination to the US's foreign policy dictates. It is not just a question of supporting the NMD. India will have to repeatedly support various US actions (or at least not seriously oppose them) if it wants to secure from the US a certificate of reliable 'good behaviour'. Isn't it obvious that the balance sheet regarding the effects of the NMD project on India is overwhelmingly negative?

As for becoming an ally of the US, it is vital to recognize and remember that there is an enormous asymmetry and disparity of power between the US and India. This means any relationship between the two can never be one amongst equals regardless of what diplomatic rhetoric and language either side uses. Indeed, the relationship will have to be established on terms decided predominantly by, and acceptable to the US. India becoming a 'friend' or 'ally' of the US does not mean that the US will discard Pakistan as a 'friend' or 'ally' in favour of India. It is the US that is in the driver's seat, that has many options, and that will decide who its friends or allies should be, not India. It is the US that can and will use India for its purposes not the other way around, whether in regard to China, Pakistan or anyone else.

The NMD issue itself makes this clear. It is not the US that has shifted to accommodate India but the other way around. In fact, the US seeks to bully and coerce not only its perceived rivals or opponents but also its friends and allies, and does this as a matter of routine. Witness how it has disregarded the concerns over the NMD of Japan and the European/NATO allies who can now be expected to (howsoever reluctantly) line up in support of the NMD/TMDs. By going ahead with the NMD project it has shown that it treats countries far more powerful than India, with contempt and disregard, and this is the country with which India thinks it can have an 'equal' or 'balanced' relationship! India is not a key determinant or axis of the US's foreign policy framework. Indeed, not even countries much stronger than India like Russia, China, Britain, Japan, Germany, France can play such a role. But for India, especially after Pokharan II, the US has become the single most important, indeed determining, axis of the whole of India's foreign policy thinking and framework of operation. So much for India's post-Pokharan II claims that going nuclear would enhance India's autonomy and sovereignty in the world order.

10. Won't the nuclear order of the NMD era be a better one for India and the world than the pre-NMD nuclear order? What about the reductions in offensive weapons/missiles promised by the US?

For all the reasons already pointed out, the NMD will greatly worsen the world situation. Believing in the efficacy of "mutually assured destruction" or MAD was bad enough and a huge obstacle to bringing about true security through complete nuclear disarmament. But believing in the possibility of 'winning' nuclear wars is even worse and far more detrimental to the prospect of bringing about total nuclear disarmament. The new nuclear order will be more dangerous, unstable and lethal in its potential for destruction than the older one. There are some who think that India will get a place in the 'new nuclear order' and that, therefore, India is justified in endorsing the NMD project. This is extraordinarily foolish thinking on the part of the Indian government and its acolytes. The existing nuclear order is not a club of equals. It has three grades of membership. The first-class members are only the US and Russia. The second-class members are China, France and Britain. The third-class aspirant members who may be accommodated informally but not formally, are India and Pakistan. Israel is like a US appointed caretaker-employee of the club with 'bombs in the basement' but not yet interested in applying for formal or even informal membership. It has 'nuclear cards' but instead of entering the 'nuclear game' and playing its hand, it is holding it back as a 'reserve'.

The NMD seeks to change the whole character of this nuclear club so that it would eventually have four, rather than three, grades of membership. In the first, 'super' class would, if the US has its way, only be the US itself. Russia would then be long way behind in the second class. China, Britain and France would be in the third-class with China making desperate efforts to get into the second-class. India and Pakistan would be even further behind in the fourth category with 'nuclear cards' that are even 'weaker' than before for the purposes of the 'game' with new rules that they are so keen to enter and play.

The reductions that the US is offering (coming down below the START-III stipulated level of 2500 warheads deployed on each side) are feeble compensation for it going ahead with the NMD/TMDs project. US war-planners believe that the country's Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) for targeting and deployment of nuclear weapons requires a minimum of 2000 warheads deployed (with a few thousand other warheads stored in reserve). The Russians want to come down to 1500 deployed (with a few thousand other warheads in reserve). These arsenals are still more than enough to destroy the world a number of times over. Reductions to these levels are not certain but even if they do take place, the NMD itself acts as a limit to further deductions on any serious scale. When these thousands of warheads (deployed and stored) that are still existing are allied to an array of defence mechanisms including possible new kinds of more accurate and lethal weapons, there would then emerge a very grave situation. This would be far worse than the situation today where there are more warheads in the possession of US and Russia and more warheads in the global total but no missile defence systems.

11. Can the NMD/TMDs provide a shield to India and South Asia?

The NMD is for the US mainland only. The US is not planning any regional TMD for South Asia. Why should it? Contrary to some Indian hopes, the US does not regard Pakistan as a nuclear threat to it. However, even if a regional South Asian TMD were to be set up, there are any number of ways to 'underfly' it. TMDs are ineffective against short-range, low-trajectory missiles of the kind that would suffice for much of India-Pakistan cross-targeting purposes. Moreover, TMDs do not affect or address aircraft-deliverable bombs where reliance has to be on conventional anti-aircraft defences which cannot, however, distinguish between planes carrying nuclear warheads and those which do not. Moreover, a plane carrying nuclear warheads even if it is 'hit' or 'downed', provided it does not explode immediately, can still have time to release or 'unpin' its warheads before crashing, or even detonate at the point of crash contact itself. In short, a TMD would not provide a meaningful shield for preventing a major India-Pakistan nuclear exchange were either country determined to use its nuclear weapons.

12. Could India have acted differently?

Of course, it could have. The first step in preventing the development of the NMD/TMDs is to oppose it firmly and unequivocally. The next step is to join forces with all other governments and Civil Society Organisations and with people everywhere (including in the US) against the NMD/TMDs project. This is the only way to move towards global disarmament and nuclear sanity. By treating the NMD/TMDs as 'inevitable', one only makes its construction more likely, and the struggle against it more difficult. Such acceptance also promotes and justifies immoral and unprincipled political behaviour, misleads the wider public, and legitimizes war-mongering.

Furthermore, governments which have good relations with the US but are not prepared to compromise on principle and firmly oppose US nuclear behaviour, do not fear any untoward US reaction or punishment. Indeed, for all its irritation and dislike of such government resistance and opposition, the US does not impose penalties on such countries. To give an example, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa and Egypt (members of the New Agenda Coalition which is at the forefront of the global struggle to bring about disarmament) all have good relations otherwise with the US but are firmly against the NMD/TMDs. They pursue an independent line on nuclear matters without fear of US reprisal. Indeed, the US as well as other nuclear powers (including India) find it extremely frustrating that international public opinion (including in their own countries) makes it so difficult for them to successfully threaten or blackmail non-nuclear weapons states with their nuclear arsenals.

Of course, what is common to the four countries mentioned above is that all of them have rejected going in for nuclear weapons although they have the capacity to do so if they wanted (Egypt is the most scientifically and technologically advanced of the Arab countries), and all have refused to 'shelter' behind the nuclear umbrella of anyone. Not having nuclear weapons and refusing to 'shelter' behind them, has given these countries greater national security, not less and enabled them to be more independent and critical of the nuclear powers, not less.

By gong in for nuclear weapons in May 1998, India has created greater nuclear insecurity for itself and for the South Asian region. It has embarked on a fateful and dangerous escalator of arms racing, an escalator whose movement is outside of its own control. Nuclear India is less able than before to behave independently. It is more subject to nuclear 'imperatives' not of its own making. The NMD is a perfect example of all this, forcing India to now pretend that the escalator it is riding on is going where it wants it to go when it so obviously isn't.

India has a choice, however. It can get off this crazy escalator of constant nuclear arming by giving up nuclear weapons altogether. Doing this will not only make India safer but will also strengthen the struggle to make the world safer through the complete and permanent elimination of nuclear weapons.