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The Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests take place within the tortuous history of non-proliferation, and especially within the context of nuclear weapons policy in the United States û the first and still preeminent nuclear power. That history may carry within it possible next steps that should be taken by those opposed to all nuclear weapons in all countries.

Once the United States actually used nuclear weapons for political strategic purposes against civilian populations in Japan, the history of both warfare and diplomacy reached a new stage. It meant that nuclear wars could in fact throw hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people onto the funeral pyre in an instant. Moreover, the emergence of the post-Hiroshima US as the unchallenged global powerhouse led short-sighted leaders around the world to draw the awful conclusion that nations possessing, or even using, nuclear weapons could still ascend to or remain within the charmed circle of limitless power û a circle of deviltry, to be sure, but a charmed circle nevertheless. Nuclear nations became nations of pretension with technologically advanced weaponry, the financial capacity to spend great sums on new terror weapons and supposedly the power to intimidate other nations. Nuclear weapons were rationalized as the ultimate instruments of defense and aggression. (In fact, their centrality in Moscow's arsenal could not prevent the Soviet Union's collapse, nor did US nuclear might stop it from losing to Vietnam.)

But others recognized nuclear weapons as a curse on humankind. Ironically, it was Gandhi who said after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan that although America had won the war, 'we will see whether it's lost its soul.'

Creating the Club

This frightening state of affairs in 1945 did not mean that US or Soviet leaders were prepared to surrender what Einstein claimed were 'old habits of mind' in the face of an utterly new situation which then challenged humanity. Only a half-hearted US attempt was made to speak to the new situation, with the flawed Baruch Plan of 1946.

The plan called for a world atomic development authority, step by step control of nuclear development, disclosure of what each nation was doing, and swift and 'condign' punishment of any nation that violated the plan, subject to no veto. Not surprisingly the Soviets feared that the US proposal was an attempt to control their far-behind nuclear development and threaten them through an international authority from which they would have no recourse. The Soviets proposed their own non-negotiable plan, calling for an end to the development and production of nuclear weapons and prohibition of their use, as well as the protection of the veto regarding any sort of international authority. Both proposals died with propaganda-driven whimpers. The stage was set for governments, especially of non-nuclear states, to conclude that nuclear weapons were not only an acceptable component of national sovereignty but a necessary proof that the nation was a serious 'player' in the game of international politics.

The clearer-eyed among them saw that the nuclear road could only lead to an endless arms race, including regional arms races and nuclear testing. This would result in nuclear proliferation, the threat of nuclear use, and possibly their actual use. As nations acquired nuclear weapons their leaders adopted the US-created theological doctrine of 'deterrence,' a military strategy that included a system of active and passive nuclear threats. The ideology of deterrence fueled not only the nuclear arms race, but also the development of other weapons of mass destruction such as missiles. Nuclear weapons heated up the atmosphere of international politics. After all, many governments believed they had enemies. Some of them believed that with more powerful weapons they could vanquish their enemies and dominate alliances. Except in the recent case of South Africa û and that because of a profound revolution in values and purpose û every nuclear nation concluded either that its enemies were overpoweringly numerous or that its antagonists had or could create nuclear weapons. Therefore there was no choice but to press forward with nuclear weapons development. In 1954, however, there was a moment when Jawaharlal Nehru of India proposed a ban on nuclear tests after the United States' ill fated Bikini Bravo tests. This was followed by the Einstein-Russell proclamation that governments must end their crazed nuclear policies. But the build-ups continued.

Members Only

As the problem of proliferation unfolded, nuclear weapons states tried to keep control over the nuclear weapons club. The United States sought to act as the guardian at the gate of the club. Yet it had little leverage on the Chinese or the Soviet Union (although in the Chinese case the US had contingency plans to knock out China's nuclear development facilities in the early 1960s). On the other hand, those nations deemed friendly to US foreign policy goals were given far better treatment by the US.

In the case of France and Israel, the US actively aided or employed a fatalistic diplomacy which asserted that it was useless to try and stop these nations from obtaining nuclear weapons. This followed the general pattern of US foreign policy, which was to expand military assistance to anti-Soviet allies and short term friends. Thus, the US assistance programs throughout the cold war had the baleful effect of subsidizing poor nations far more for military equipment and armed forces, including nuclear weapons, than for economic development. Pakistan was no exception and used US aid to build up its own military and develop its scientific military establishment. This process came to fruition during the Afghanistan war which saw billions of US dollars spent in and through Pakistan for military purposes, while Pakistanis remained dismally poor.

This strategy does not mean, however, that there were no concerns expressed in official documents and laws about the development of other nations' nuclear weapons programs. By the 1960s there were clearly many nuclear genies jumping out of national bottles. In the United States there was fear that 'Nasser might get a bomb' in Egypt, just as later fears gripped American planners that 'Saddam might get the bomb' or 'Qaddafi might get the bomb.' One did not have to look too deeply to see that beneath these claimed fears was barely disguised racism. One did not hear the same concerns regarding Israeli, French, or British nukes. In fact, racist fear was an important element in creating support among the nuclear states to use the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 as a substitute for an actual end to nuclear testing and serious disarmament.

In the run up to the NPT of 1968, India took leadership with Sweden and Ireland in proposing to the General Assembly a treaty program for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, which would include measures for the nuclear powers to cut back their own nuclear arsenals. India's position was that non-dissemination of nuclear weapons had to be linked to the creation of nuclear-free zones and to actual disarmament by the existing nuclear powers. Otherwise, the demands made by the nuclear states to stop others from implementing their own definition of defense represented gross discrimination.

However, it should be noted that for a time the NPT treaty program created the illusion of checks on nuclear proliferation, if not an actual limit on nuclear development. But the NPT had significant problems and stipulations which meant that even from the point of view of a nuclear superpower it had limited value. If, as McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor to Kennedy and Johnson claimed, no external force could stop a nation from obtaining nuclear weapons if its internal politics demanded that it get them, it was understandable why potential nuclear weapons states did not sign the NPT û that it wouldn't work for others. But the Bundy theme also had a disingenuous aspect to it û it denied what had become a consistent theme of Indian foreign policy since the first Nehru held office as prime minister: that the entire idea of non-proliferation as advanced by the nuclear states was discriminatory.

The nuclear powers did nothing that would threaten or limit their own nuclear arsenals by negotiating multilateral or bilateral disarmament. They even ignored those commitments to denuclearization already included in the NPT. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (START 2) were based on the theory that the Russians would approve the limits on nuclear and other delivery systems, and then the US would approve the treaty. However, the reality is that Russia cannot sign on because of internal political disputes, and the US Senate under the leadership of Trent Lott and Jesse Helms clearly will refuse to ratify any such agreement. So the talking process continues, with no positive result in sight.

The United States fought hard to keep the present NPT agreement in place at the 1995 revision and renewal conference and to continue it 'indefinitely.' But the NPT was reduced to rhetoric. No one could deny that it suffered from inequities which made the document fatally flawed. Most importantly, the language of Article 6, calling for progress toward general and complete disarmament and specifically nuclear abolition by the nuclear weapons states as a quid pro quo for the non-nuclear states' commitment to forswear nuclear weapons, was repeated in 1995 without any attempt to fulfill the letter or the spirit of this crucial but long unfulfilled Article. Little or nothing has been done by the nuclear weapons states to demand Washington's fulfillment of Article 3, which would open United States' facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection of non-military nuclear materials. The NPT failed as a disarmament measure, and was hollow as a document that would stop nuclear arming. By 1974, India, which also balked at signing, tested its own nuclear device.

Making Choices

The Clinton administration does not know what to do about the India-Pakistan 'declaration' of nuclear status, so of course they redoubled their efforts at the wrong course. Thus, the US military continues joint military training with the Pakistani military. Aid to India has been 'suspended' for a short period. Congress blusters, seeking an increased defense budget and ABM defense as the Senate recoils from consenting to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The Pentagon and its contractors continue to find ways to test weapons 'legally' and work on ballistic missile 'defenses.'

The undersecretary of state, Strobe Talbott, made economic threats after the Indian and Pakistani tests:

'I don't think any one of my colleagues who has worked on this issue was ever under the misimpression that either India or Pakistan would refrain from doing something that it felt was in its interest simply because of the threat of American sanctions...Security also has an important economic dimension. These are two large countries with large populations, many of whom live in great poverty....They cannot afford an arms race....And I think that the American sanctions will not only be a demonstration of our very strong views on the subject, but will also underscore the economic incentives they have not to get too deep into an arms race they already have.'

That was on June 3, 1998. Two weeks later, on June 18, Secretary Talbott announced the US position with regard to sanctions:

'Number one, termination of the US foreign assistance programs; two, termination of foreign military sales and financing and the export of US munitions list items; third, denial of credit and credit guarantees by United States Government entities; fourth, opposition of loans to India and Pakistan by the international financial institutions; a prohibition of US bank loans and credits to the Indian and Pakistani Governments, and sixth, a prohibition on specific dual-use export items.'

Some 1.1 billion dollars of loans to India and 54 million dollars of loans to Pakistan now on the World Bank schedule will be postponed. US banks operating in India and Pakistan, that is, private banking operations, will not close down. US companies will be allowed to invest in both nations. The Commerce Department will review on a case by case basis whether to grant licenses to sell to India and Pakistan on areas that touch on security such as computers. The Clinton Administration's general position is one that borders on foolishness unless the US changes its own nuclear stance. That is to say, the inherent asymmetry and discrimination embodied in the current US position are in fact a negotiating non-starter because they are based on the US view that it should not have to get rid of its own weapons.

The US calls on India and Pakistan to:

• 'stop all further tests, adhere to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty immediately and unconditionally' (the US has yet to do this)
• 'refrain from the manufacture of nuclear warheads and bombs or attaching them to ballistic missiles', (the US excuses itself from this admonition)
• 'halt the production of fissile material and participate constructively in negotiations on fissile material cut-off in Geneva,' (the US has no clear policy for itself on fissile materials and their recycling)
• 'confirm policies not to export equipment, material or technology relevant to missiles or weapons of mass destruction and enter into ironclad commitments in that regard' (the US considers the export of nuclear, computer equipment and military assistance and sales on a case by case basis. It seeks to dominate the market in this regard.)
• 'refrain from threatening military movements or violations across the borders' (while the US itself carries out extraterritorial military movements in its own foreign and military activities as, for example, in Mexico, Colombia, etc.) 'and particularly the line of control [in Kashmir] or any other provocative acts or statements' (US representatives are careful to be sure that their language is diplomatic, but provocative acts in terms of covert operations in many parts of the world continue unabated)
• 'and reestablish direct communications between India and Pakistan with a view to addressing the basic cause of the tension between those countries, including the issues of Kashmir.' (The General Assembly has taken a resolution about Kashmir that should open the way to external mediation. It should be noted that India considers Kashmir a domestic problem.) Pious statements are made by a president who has little effective control over the national security apparatus within the government, while in Russia the Duma holds the START 2 agreement hostage to internal politics and a 'wait and see' attitude about US intentions on the economic and national security front. In India and Pakistan nationalism reigns supreme, linking nuclear testing to the conflict over Kashmir and supposed fear of China and Russia or each other, as both societies suffer from poverty.

So, what is the position of a world wide peace movement and those who hold to the need to rid the world of the curse of nuclear weapons? In the United States there are five demands, all interrelated, which should be pressure points:

1. Ratify the CTBT without undercutting it with special exemptions for computer-based or other non-blast tests. The CTBT should become part of a new direction in foreign and national security policy. This means understanding that the India-Pakistan tests are a warning sign that unless the United States leads in a different direction there will be no escape from the introduction of nuclear weapons in regional conflicts; a situation of devastating world consequences.
2. In practical terms this means the creation of nuclear free zones linked to a general disarmament program and nuclear abolition. Nations that have taken the lead in the past on nuclear questions, for example Sweden and Ireland, under the terms of the NPT treaty could call for an emergency conference of the NPT signatories to open up the question of a full-scale disarmament program that will satisfy both signatories' and non-signatories' concerns.
3. The Hague Peace Appeal could serve as an umbrella organization to hold a similar meeting in 1999 of NGO groups.
4. The present stance of the United States, that India and Pakistan must sign the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states, must be reversed to acknowledge the reality of their new nuclear status, but in the context of a general disarmament program and renewed commitment of all nuclear states, new and old, to those commitments.
5. Kashmir, recently put onto the agenda of the UN Security Council, should become an issue for the international community's involvement toward a peaceful settlement, including an international effort to work for a peaceful resolution of the currently nuclear stand-off.

References

Marcus Raskin is a Distinguished Fellow and co-founder of IPS and Professor of Public Policy at George Washington University. He leads the IPS Program on "Paths for the 21st Century," which reflects on lessons of the past 100 years in guiding us into the next. Raskin is the author and editor of 17 books; his most recent is Visions and Revisions: Reflections on Culture and Democracy at the End of the Century. He was a member of the special staff of the National Security Council in the Kennedy administration.