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The Rediff Special/ Professor Stephen P Cohen

The need for a fresh look at US policies in South Asia

For more than 40 years, American policy towards India and Pakistan was shaped by the Cold War. But when the Soviets left Afghanistan early in 1989, the dominant American policy became one of preventing New Delhi and Islamabad from 'going nuclear' and on two occasions, in 1990 and 1999, managing regional crisis.

While the second Clinton administration made an attempt to engage India over a broader range of interests, non-proliferation issues still dominated American policy. It was assumed that the president would visit India and Pakistan once they adhered to the CTBT, now signed by over 150 countries and ratified by fifty, although not by the United States itself.

This expectation was dashed by a dramatic series of events. First, in 1995, the Indian government retreated from its earlier support of the CTBT, and in 1996 rejected the treaty. Then, in May 1998, India and Pakistan declared themselves nuclear powers and proved it with a series of underground atomic weapons tests. Finally, a trip by India's prime minister to the Pakistan city of Lahore in February 1999 held out the promise of regional rapprochement. But this hope dimmed when severe fighting, initiated by Pakistan, broke out in the Kargil region of Kashmir four months later. In October 1999, Pakistan's already enfeebled democracy was swept away by a military coup.

These developments underscore the need for a fresh look at US policies in South Asia. It is clear that pursuing ambitious non-proliferation goals without a full appreciation of regional interests and dynamics has not worked, as both India and Pakistan have demonstrated an ability to resist outside pressures perceived as inimical to their vital interests. Washington's policy-makers need a better understanding of both the opportunities for and the limitations on American power in the area. New thinking is called for on four issues:

The spread of nuclear weapons, the India-Pakistan conflict, India's emerging stature as a major power, and the dilemma of coping with a potentially chaotic Pakistan.

Handling a newly nuclear region

The development of India and Pakistani nuclear programs raises three immediate and one long-term concern for the US:

1. That the two nations not use their nuclear weapons in a crisis.

2. That their nuclear weapons not add to regional instability or figure in an inadvertent detonation.

3. That the technology to produce these weapons not be transferred to any other nations or non-sovereign rogue groups. Implicit in this enumeration is a recognition of the fact that nuclear disarmament is not a realistic option in South Asia.

In the last decade, India and Pakistan have had two serious crisis, and in both cases the US played an important role in defusing the tension. The first incident (in Kashmir) occurred in 1990, when each of the two countries possessed a few unassembled nuclear devices, and American diplomacy helped calm the situation. Then, in the summer of 1999, India and Pakistan engaged one another in a short but bitter war in the Kargil region of Kashmir. Once more the US intervened diplomatically, urging both sides to forgo military escalation and resume their political dialogue. Washington demanded that Pakistan withdraw its forces from positions it had seized on the Indian side of the Line of Control. The US also urged India to refrain from crossing the Line of Control or attacking Pakistan elsewhere.

This diplomatic effort succeeded because the US had established intimate dialogues with both India and Pakistan after their 1998 nuclear weapons tests. The eight rounds of talk between Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh were the longest sustained discussions ever conducted between US and Indian government officials. Later, when President Bill Clinton met with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief during the latter's emergency visit to Washington in July 1999, Clinton kept Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee informed by telephone.

In addition to urging restraint during a crisis, there are other ways to reduce the risk of accidental or inadvertent use of nuclear weapons. Some are technical: Better command-and-control arrangements would enhance Indian and Pakistani confidence that nuclear weapons would be used only when intended. The best arrangement (from the perspective of crisis stability) would be if neither actively deployed its nuclear arsenal, perhaps by leaving warheads unassembled and separated from their delivery systems.

The US should be prepared to share its experience in developing command and control arrangements and nuclear doctrine to assist the two states in maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent with the fewest number of weapons and the highest level of stability.

Stabilising the India-Pakistan nuclear relationship is all the more important since in a few years both may have medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching other countries. There is also an American interest in making sure that these new nuclear systems not interact with those of other Middle Eastern or Asian powers -- Israel and Pakistan, for example or India and China. The US must also remain concerned about the transfer of nuclear weapons expertise, fissile material, and whole devices from South Asia to other states, legitimate or rogue.

While both India and Pakistan have pledged to enforce legislation prohibiting such transfers, the fact is that four of the world's five declared nuclear weapons states (Britain being the exception) have assisted one or more other countries with their nuclear programs.

These wide ranging problems call for a strategy that moves beyond one of mere prevention of South Asian proliferation to one that enlists India and Pakistan in limiting the further spread of weapons of mass destruction and the problems raised by the introduction of ballistic missile systems. This strategy will have to combine incentives with sanctions.

One incentive is status. India, in particular, craves a seat at the nuclear 'high table', and both that nation and Pakistan want the legitimacy of their nuclear programs to be recognised. However, neither can be members of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty which defines a 'nuclear weapon state' as a country that tested nuclear devices before 1967. Nor should either be included in strategic nuclear reduction talks.

That said, both India and Pakistan should be associated with the various international nuclear and missile control regimes and the larger effort to contain weapons proliferation, and the US should be prepared to discuss with the Indian government various ideas for promoting nuclear stability, including a greater role for defensive systems and India's stated preference for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.

Another incentive would be the provision of civilian nuclear technology to these energy starved states. It would not be a violation of the NPT to assist South Asian countries with their civilian nuclear programmes, once the civilian programmes are separated from military nuclear programmes. The US did this in the case of an NPT violator, North Korea.

Affording India and Pakistan such assistance could also be part of a trade-off that brought them into the various international nuclear and missile control regimes and encompassed the larger effort to contain weapons proliferation. Finally, the prospect of a continuing positive relationship with the US provides another incentive for these states to restrain their military nuclear programmes and join in global non-proliferation efforts.

Professor Stephen P Cohen, the well-known expert on South Asia, is a senior fellow at the US-based Brookings Institution. This commentary is reproduced from the Brookings Policy Brief, with Professor Cohen's permission.

PART II: Need for US engagement in the Kashmir dispute

PART III: India may not be China, but neither is it an insignificant 'Third World' State

PART IV: The question, 'should Bill Clinton visit Pakistan,' is the wrong one

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