To Defuse Nuclear Tensions in South Asia: A Nuclear Weapons Convention

Edition on "Humanity at a Crossroads," Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer 1998): 10

"The United States has no moral basis for imposing sancitons when it has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests of its own and still possesses some 10,000 nuclear weapons. There is no legal foundation for sanctions against India and Pakistan without a universal ban against nuclear weapons." --David Cortright By David Cortright The Nuclear tests of India and Pakistan have increased the danger of a nuclear arms race in South Asia. They have also revealed the failure of U.S. nonproliferation policy and the need for a new approach to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

The United States and the other nuclear powers have attempted to deny nuclear weapons to others while maintaining this capability for themselves. By clinging to the bomb as the ticket to great power status, they have reinforced the perception of nuclear weapons as the ultimate currency of global influence. For India in particular, the decision to go nuclear was an attempt to become a major player in world affairs. Lacking the economic prowess to advance to the front ranks of power, India seized upon the bomb as a shortcut to realizing its ambition of global leadership.

The United States has compounded the problem by imposing unilateral economic sanctions against India and Pakistan. These sanctions will cause economic hardships, especially in Pakistan, but they will not convince either government to give up nuclear weapons. The United States has no moral basis for imposing sanctions when it has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests of its own and still possesses some 10,000 nuclear weapons. There is no legal foundation for sanctions against India and Pakistan without a universal ban against nuclear weapons. This requires a commitment from all countries, especially the nuclear powers, to abandon these weapons. In the absence of such a pledge, Washington's punitive actions are seen in South Asia as the height of hypocrisy, the classic case of the besotted drunkard preaching temperance.

India has declared a moratorium on further nuclear tests and says it will give up the bomb as part of a global ban on nuclear weapons. It has urged UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to begin immediate negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention similar to the conventions against chemical and biological weapons. Public opinion surveys in India and Pakistan sponsored by the Fourth Freedom Forum show widespread support for nuclear disarmament. They also confirm a willingness by Indian elites to forego the nuclear option if the major powers abandon their weapons.

The United States and the other major powers have committed themselves on numerous occasions to nuclear weapons elimination. Article VI of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) specifically commits the nuclear powers to negotiate "in good faith" for global nuclear disarmament. This pledge was reiterated at the NPT extension conference in New York in May 1995, when the United States and the nuclear weapons states promised "the determined pursuit . . . of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons." Despite recent arms reductions, the United States has refused to consider nuclear abolition. The Pentagon objects that banning nuclear weapons will leave us defenseless, but the United States has more than sufficient conventional military power to deter any potential threat. If all nations reduce their nuclear weapons together in a phased and gradual manner, the risks of miscalculation or temporary advantage to any single country can be minimized. A universal, non-discriminatory disarmament regime offers the best hope for containing the nuclear threat.

A technically sound blueprint for moving step-by-step toward nuclear weapons abolition was developed in 1996 by the prestigious Canberra Commission. A resolution urging negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1997. An initiative by the major powers to begin negotiating such a convention, and an invitation for India and Pakistan to sit at the table and join the process, would dramatically transform the dynamics of nuclear policy in South Asia. It would also lay the foundations for a safer, nuclear-weapons-free future for the world.