Limiting the damage: the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal.

• Author: Einhorn, Robert J.

THE UNITED States has an important national interest in strengthening relations with India and making it a strategic partner in the 21st century. But efforts to cement ties with India should not be pursued in a way that undermines a U.S. national interest of equal or arguably greater importance: preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Bush Administration has made precisely that mistake in the nuclear deal reached this past summer during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington.

In the joint statement released on July 18, India agreed to take several steps to demonstrate its commitment to being a responsible nuclear power and supporter of non-proliferation goals. In exchange, the administration agreed to seek changes in U.S. law and multilateral commitments to permit exports of nuclear equipment and technology to India--a radical departure from longstanding legal obligations and policies that precluded nuclear cooperation with states not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Administration officials have claimed that by aligning India more closely with the policies and practices of the international non-proliferation regime, the deal achieves a net gain for non-proliferation. Several of the steps pledged by India are simply reaffirmations of existing positions--for example, continuing its moratorium on nuclear testing, strengthening export controls and supporting negotiations on a multilateral fissile-material cutoff treaty. Some other steps are indeed new and useful. Among these are the commitments to place civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and to refrain from transferring enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that do not already possess them.

Still, the non-proliferation gains of the deal are meager compared to the major damage to non-proliferation goals that will result if the deal goes forward as it currently stands.

The U.S.-Indian deal would make it harder to achieve key Bush Administration non-proliferation initiatives. The United States is now asking the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to permit nuclear cooperation only with countries that adhere to the IAEA's Additional Protocol and to ban transfers of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that do not already possess fuel-cycle facilities. But getting NSG partners to tighten the rules in ways favored by the United States will be an uphill battle if they are also being asked to bend one of their cardinal rules (that is, no nuclear trade with non-parties to the NPT) because it no longer suits the United States.

By seeking an exception to the rules to accommodate America's new friendship with India, the deal reinforces the impression that the U.S. approach to non-proliferation has become selective and self-serving, not consistent and principled. Rules the United States initiated and championed would be perceived as less binding and more optional. Countries with good relations with Washington may conclude that the United States will tolerate and eventually accommodate a decision to acquire nuclear weapons, while China and Russia may feel less inhibited about engaging in nuclear cooperation with "special friends" of their own that the United States might find risky and objectionable.

The nuclear deal in its present form has produced...