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George Bush, India, and Crumbling Nuclear Non-Proliferation: What China's Deal with Pakistan Teaches Us
By Charles Kirchofer, Nov. 3rd, 2008
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China has recently planned a deal with Pakistan to sell it two nuclear reactors (article).
This was in some ways a predictable outcome because of George Bush's
previous deal with India, allowing India to benefit from sharing
nuclear technology without the restrictions of the NPT. This foolish
move has completely destabilized the treaty and reduced the hopes the
world has of maintaining a nuclear peace.
China technically is not allowed to sell reactors or any other nuclear
technology to Pakistan as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT).
Parties to the treaty agree not to spread atomic weapons to any other
countries or even share any technology related to atomic weapons. They
are also forbidden from selling or sharing any information about any
nuclear technology to any country outside of the treaty (i.e.
Pakistan). At the moment, there are five powers officially permitted to
possess nuclear weapons: The United States, Great Britain, France,
Russia, and the People's Republic of China (the five permanent members
of the UN Security Council). There are also four countries that are not
part of the treaty: Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea.
North Korea was originally part of the treaty, violated it, as has now
withdrawn. Israel, Pakistan, and India have each developed nuclear
programs and have remained unpunished (and unencouraged) as they did
not sign the treaty and were therefore not obliged to abide by it.
Recent moves by the Bush administration and the Chinese government are
cracking the already weak foundation of the treaty and making the world
a considerably more dangerous place.
The first blow from the sledgehammer
In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush made a deal with the Indian
government to exempt India from the restrictions of the
non-proliferation treaty. But why? Bush had a few reasons, the most
important probably that India is the world's largest democracy, and
could perhaps in the long run provide a counterweight to a rising,
fairly cooperative, but authoritarian, China. The fact that no liberal
democracy has yet waged war against another liberal democracy probably
factored in to the logic: if nuclear power is going to be in someone's
hands, why not in India's? The idea was also that the NPT was bound to
fail eventually anyway, especially as nuclear power becomes more
popular in light of increased energy needs and scarcer energy
resources. The argument that this was just another capitalist deal in
the interests of big business doesn't hold water: a U.S. company hasn't
built a nuclear reactor in several decades. The nuclear experts these
days are the French, among others. No, Bush did this for
balance-of-power reasons and out of the belief in the inherently
peacefulness of democracies.
These reasons do have there merits. India generally seems to be a
country that is responsible with its nuclear weapons. It does, however,
have conflicts with Pakistan. These have come to a nuclear stalemate,
much in the way the U.S. and Russia both restrained themselves during
the Cold War. But there are other reasons, whether India is
good-natured or not, to be concerned. The NPT, like all of
international law, requires a consesus to maintain it. Bush's actions
have undermined the treaty by showing the United States is not
completely serious about non-proliferation, and that it is willing to
play favorites when it sees that as in its best interests. This gives
other states a reason to make exceptions for deals they see in their
own interests as well. The first state was China; more may follow. Once
deals are made, they're hard to turn back. Unfortunately for the world,
treaties are easily destroyed by exceptions. I plead to the next
President to think carefully about non-proliferation and act quickly.
The treaty may be far from perfect, but it's the best thing we have to
prevent a nuclear war. China's deal with Pakistan has shown that Bush
has indeed set the ball rolling. It is up to the next president to stop
it.
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