Obama’s Prague Speech: A New Push for Nuclear Disarmament?
Rajesh Rajagopalan
Professor, CIPOD, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
US President Barack Obama’s call for nuclear disarmament earlier this month in Prague may appear to be a radical message; however, a closer examination suggests that his soaring rhetoric hides somewhat baser – and narrow – national interest. Nevertheless, Obama’s message is also a foretaste of what Indian diplomacy will have to deal with in the coming year.
Obama’s speech itself is the culmination of an increasing emphasis in Washington on nuclear disarmament. What is notable about this new-found concern is that much of it piggybacks on concerns about nuclear proliferation and potential nuclear terrorism. All these recent arguments, including by the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ (George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn, all senior Washington statesmen), are notable for their concern about the possibility that proliferation might make the US more vulnerable to a nuclear attack from terrorists or from rogue third world dictators. There is nothing necessarily wrong with security concerns driving nuclear disarmament. However, today’s nuclear disarmament is not being driven by the moral revulsion about nuclear weapons that motivated Jawaharlal Nehru or Rajiv Gandhi or even Ronald Reagan. Rather it raises the suspicion that if American security concerns are addressed, through a rejuvenated NPT, then nuclear disarmament will once again be consigned to left-wing academic conferences.
Obama’s speech was in reality, more along traditional American lines. The primary driver is still the concern with nuclear proliferation. It appears more as a public relations campaign aimed at rebuilding the non-proliferation regime and specifically aimed at burnishing American credentials in time for the NPT Review Conference next year. The RevCon is likely to be stormy, and Obama wants to improve the American image.
The US President reiterated American commitment to ballistic missile defense (though with some caveats about technical feasibility), to the NATO, CTBT and FMCT. He has also promised a new push towards deeper cuts in the US and Russian nuclear weapons through a new START agreement. On CTBT, Obama promises to seek Senate ratification (a tall order considering that he needs nine Republican votes for the two-thirds majority needed), and on FMCT he has junked the Bush administration’s ‘no verification’ approach.
Moscow has been cautious in its response, as it faces both opportunities and difficulties. The opportunities lie in the promise of a new arms control treaty that might lead to significant reductions in both arsenals, something that Russia has been seeking because it cannot afford to keep the bloated ‘legacy’ arsenal. Russia is also hoping for a more traditional nuclear arms control treaty to replace the Moscow Treaty, which counted only warheads (not delivery systems), left unaccounted huge numbers of ‘reserve’ warheads, and had no verification clauses. The Russians have already declared that they would seek to count delivery systems in any new treaty and seek control on nuclear weapons in space. The US and Russia have already begun preliminary discussions on a new nuclear arms control treaty that would reduce strategic nuclear weapons to much lower levels, possibly as low as one thousand each.
In terms of challenges, as Russian nuclear arms dwindled, Moscow has been placing greater emphasis on its nuclear deterrent because its conventional forces have deteriorated faster. Today, Russia’s conventional military strength is a mere shadow of what it was during the Cold War years. Hence, a reduction in nuclear arsenals, though necessary, is still worrying because it highlights even more starkly its weakened conventional power. So Moscow has also been seeking conventional arms control to match the reductions taking place in the nuclear arena. However, the US is unlikely to satisfy Russian concerns on this issue because it intends to maintain a global role that would be impossible without its significant conventional military clout. Russia has a painful choice to make: it cannot afford its huge nuclear arsenal, but cannot afford to significantly reduce its nuclear arsenal without some agreements on conventional arms, either.
Where does this new nuclear arms control push leave New Delhi? India is likely to welcome any reduction in the US/Russia strategic arsenals, but the other parts of the Obama agenda do create some concerns. If Obama is able to convince the US Senate to ratify the CTBT, India will be under pressure to join the global momentum towards CTBT. The instinctive Indian reaction has been to link any Indian acceptance of the CTBT to progress in global nuclear disarmament. It might be wise for New Delhi to reconsider this stance. There is little indication that India needs to test again and the CTBT will have little impact on India’s nuclear arsenal or its weapons status. Standing alone against the CTBT made sense in 1996; today it would suggest stasis.
Besides, India has bigger battles ahead. If the FMCT negotiations begin, then India needs to find partners to work with to ensure that its existing fissile material stocks are not touched. India also needs to ensure that progress in US-Russian strategic arms control does not lead to demands that India also join the process soon. India also needs to resist the latest fad – linking regional nuclear issues with conventional military balances and regional conflicts, being promoted by Pakistan, China and some Middle Eastern states. Advancing India’s arms control agenda on all of these issues will be easier without an unnecessary CTBT diversion.
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