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The U.S. is coming round to recognizing India as a world player. India's size, democratic dispensation and increasing economic liberalization point to it's global significance. How will this play out in the times to come? Ambreen Aleem
Shortly after India's independence there was a brief period of friendship between India and the U.S. This beneficial relationship degraded shortly because of pressures of the Cold War. Mutual mistakes occurred. However, with time circumstances have changed substantially and the two have worked to overcome misperceptions. The important elements in the new political equation are: there is no scar tissue in the relationship, and there is recognition of shared security interests. The exchange of visits between the political leaders of both the countries has symbolically opened the doors, and various substantive issues are being addressed.
In addition to strategic issues, there are other strong parallels between the Indian and American ethos. India and the U.S. are democracies, and religious pluralism is a shared value. U.S. security interests are trade and the free flow of oil and gas from Asia. India's population is of the same magnitude as the People's Republic of China, and, in time, India has proved the potential to become a major U.S. trading partner. And as it is expected that U.S. strategic interest will become increasingly more focused on Asia as this area is a source of oil and gas, and contains regions of instability.
It is likely that this era of mutual friendship will grow rapidly. There is potential for a formal U.S.-India alliance, and after the nuclear agreement the signs are more obvious.
Thus we can say that the U.S.-India relations are running at an all-time high. There is widespread awareness today that important progress has been made in recent months in the new U.S.-India Strategic Partnership - the so-called NSSP. India today is also a flourishing democracy. Its leaders in both government and civil society are working to build a more productive, more open economy that will lift India's people and establish India as a world power. The present government is clearly bent on implementing economic reforms. These of course must be politically possible to achieve, and they must enjoy sufficient consensus to survive. Despite all the warming in U.S.-India ties, tensions over India’s nuclear program persisted for long. Successful completion of a civil nuclear accord will help to lift these suspicions so that the U.S.-India relationship can finally realize its potential. In addition to bringing India into the international nonproliferation mainstream and increasing safeguards on its civilian nuclear facilities, this agreement would cement relations with a country that shares America’s democratic values and whose importance in world affairs is growing fast. This joint declaration was a bold and radical move that was clearly motivated by and reflects the mutual interests of both states in counterbalancing the rise of Chinese power in the Asian region. It also promises other potential security benefits, notably enhancing U.S.-Indian counterterrorism cooperation. In these respects, the joint declaration has laid the foundation for promoting the long-term strategic interests of the United States. As per the history the United States and India entered into a peaceful nuclear co-operation agreement in 1963. Under that agreement, the United States supplied India with two light-water reactors at Tarapur and the enriched uranium to fuel those plants. Spurred, among other things, by India’s "peaceful" nuclear test in 1974, the United States enacted the 1978 Non-proliferation Act, which amended the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. This new legislation required that, in order to receive future nuclear exports from the United States, non-nuclear-weapon states such as India needed to place all of their peaceful nuclear activities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—so-called full-scope safeguards. India is a non-nuclear-weapon state under the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and under U.S. law. India refused to accept this condition, and significant U.S. nuclear co-operation with New Delhi, including nuclear fuel supplies to Tarapur, ceased in 1980. The 1963 peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States terminated in 1993 without replacement. In response to India’s nuclear weapons tests in 1998, the United States imposed a series of strict economic and financial sanctions but has since then substantially relaxed these restrictions. However, this landmark agreement, marks a notable warming of U.S.-India relations once again, and is expected to lift the U.S. moratorium on nuclear trade with India. The details of the agreement are still being negotiated, but experts say some clear points are emerging. They include the following: | | India agrees to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog group, access to its civilian nuclear program. But India would decide which of its many nuclear facilities to classify as civilian. Military facilities—and stockpiles of nuclear fuel that India has produced up to now—will be exempt from inspections or safeguards. | | | India commits to signing an Additional Protocol (PDF)—which allows more intrusive IAEA inspections—or its civilian facilities. | | | India agrees to continue its moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. | | | India commits to strengthening the security of its nuclear arsenals. | | | India works toward negotiating a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) with the United States banning the production of fissile material for weapons purposes. India agrees to prevent the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that don't possess them and to support international non-proliferation efforts. | | | U.S. companies will be allowed to build nuclear reactors in India and provide nuclear fuel for its civilian energy program. |
However, in return India would be eligible to buy U.S. dual-use nuclear technology, including materials and equipment that could be used to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium, potentially creating the material for nuclear bombs. The pact would give India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and equipment for the first time in 30 years, even though previously New Delhi refused to join nonproliferation pacts and tested nuclear weapons. This civil nuclear co-operation between the United States and India will offer enormous strategic and economic benefits to both countries, including enhanced energy security, a more environmentally friendly energy source, greater economic opportunities and more robust nonproliferation efforts. The full ramifications that the U.S.-Indian joint declaration will have on the international nonproliferation regime are not yet clear, and any ill consequences could be limited by conditions imposed by Congress. Lawmakers could tie U.S. implementation of the joint declaration to an Indian commitment to halt the production of weapons materials. They could also require convincing evidence that an exception from the full-scope safeguards requirement for India is fully acceptable to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and will not lead to an erosion of the principle that full-scope safeguards will remain a mandatory condition for nuclear trade with non-nuclear-weapon states. Furthermore, Congress could also reject any administration request to exempt India from the requirement of safeguards in perpetuity or allow India to use a voluntary agreement. Insisting on facility-specific safeguards rather than a voluntary offer would eliminate the possibility that such facilities could be removed from safeguards and avoid the image that India has achieved the same status as Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nuclear-weapon states. If the NSG endorses a special full-scope exception for India while keeping the rest of the regime in place, this could counter concerns that the Bush initiative will result in a serious erosion of the nuclear supplier rules. On the other hand, if other suppliers, particularly non-nuclear-weapon states, insist on maintaining full-scope safeguards as a condition of supply to India, the whole initiative could fail. The U.S. administration’s initiative comes on the heels of various other actions that have raised serious doubts about its support for the non-proliferation regime: its rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, its downplaying of the value of IAEA safeguards in the Iraq war, its contention that an FMCT cannot be verified, and its refusal at the 2005 NPT Review Conference to reaffirm disarmament commitments that the United States made at a similar conference in 2000. Many critics and countries are already attacking the Bush administration for these past actions, and this latest initiative may only add to their doubts about the U.S. commitment to advancing non-proliferation objectives. 
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