The coming arms race by Achin Vanaik India's bomb tests are morally shameful and politically foolish. Any act which legitimises or promotes the production or deployment of these evil weapons of mass destruction whether it is by the USA, China, India or any other country deserves to be criticised at least on moral grounds even if the overall judgements that such considerations must be subordinated to "national security concerns'
Indeed, historically India had always cited the moral factor as a major reason why it would not behave like nuclear elites elsewhere. That nobody amongst the new army of applauders has even bothered to point to the moral dilemma intrinsic to this act reveals most strikingly the general mood of the Indian elite and strategic community. But since nobody barring opponents are bothered by this, let us go to the political dimension.
Amongst the numerous reasons why this act is so foolhardy there is space here only to highlight one - it unleashes a political dynamic which is outside India's control and whose ultimate end cannot yet be forecast.
More precisely, there will now be tremendous domestic pressure on Pakistan to carry out its own test in retaliation. If this happens, which is more than likely, the pressure on India to go a step further and openly deploy nuclear weapons will become intense... Once this happens, Pakistan will follow suit and the regional nuclear arms race will begin.
Expect the bomb lobby to react in two ways to such a development. On the one hand there will be the appeal to national chauvinism about the need to counter any Pakistani nuclear threat in the name of national security, ignoring that Pakistan is reacting to India here. On the other, there 22 International Viewpoint #301 will be the claim that it doesn't really matter and that, in fact, Pakistani acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons capability will enhance its self-confidence and therefore improve the prospects of peace through active nuclear deterrence.
What will be missing will be any recognition of the simple truth obvious to all but the 'nuclear expert' that the initiation of such nuclear rivalry both reflects and qualitatively exacerbates the hatreds, tensions and suspicions that have made this the only part of the world that has had for over 50 years a continuous hot-cold war between two countries, and with no China and Pakistan
The supposed Chinese nuclear threat against India has always been abstract, arising not from the actual behaviour of China but from... the deceptive slant given by vested Indian interests to the interpretation of the China-Pakistan relationship. This has falsely been made out to be a near nuclear alliance when it is actually nothing more than a relationship of co-operation in dual use materials and technologies and arms carried out for mutual economic, technological, commercial and political benefit.
One can imagine the uproar in India if China were to supply Pakistan with its most advanced fighter aircraft or help it set up two nuclear reactors. Yet this is exactly what Russia is doing with India. The Pakistani hawk who screams that this indicates an alliance between Russia and India against Pakistan is as fundamentally mistaken as the Indian hawk who makes the opposite but equivalent claim about the China-Pakistan relationship.
The purpose of Defence Minister Ferthe party which has pursued the most aggressive and viciously communal form of cultural nationalism has also been the party with the most aggressive nuclear position. It has been the only party whose official position was that it would "exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons" as distinct from merely keeping the option open. India's insecure elite
Fifty years after independence there is a widespread sense within the Indian ellite, that the country has not 'made it' interna tionally. China has its economic miracle Smaller far eastern countries are greater success stories. But, the elite complains, India is not listened to seriously. We are a great civilisation, they protest. We must shape the twenty-first century along with other great powers.
This is a context eminently suited to the near desperate search for some perceived short-cut that offers the hope of somehow changing such a situation. There has been no change in the external environment or in threat perceptions that explains what has now happened. This is all about India's changing self-perceptions.
The sheer lack of sobriety in much of the public response, the near-hysterical character of the adulation is not only pathetic but deeply disturbing because of the out-dated mind-set it reveals. In the more complex and difficult world we live in, great power status of the conventionally sought kind is neither as important as it was once (and still) thought to be, nor as easy to attain, nor pivoted as significantly on military might.
Certainly, nuclear weapons are not only irrelevant to the issue in a way that economic prosperity and strength is not, but so self-defeating as to be part of the problem, not the solution... * Source: The Hindustan Times, May 14 The author is a leading anti-nuclear journalist, as well as a frequent writer on the communalist danger.
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
* India
The Chinese Revolution and the Shaping of the Maoist Outlook
• £2/$3.50/20FF. Cheque payable to P. Rousset, IIRE, Postbus 53290, 1007 Amsterdam, Netherlands