This book has caused much controversy in the US because it deals with a theme that is sensitive. It is considered ‘politically incorrect’ to talk about the Israel Lobby and its influence on US foreign policy. But in a living democracy it should be possible, and often, it is unavoidable, to talk about what is considered ‘politically incorrect’. Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt is Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The genesis of the book is an interesting story. In 2002, the editors of the Atlantic Monthly invited the two authors to write an article on the Israel lobby and its effects on US foreign policy. It took almost three years to write and by 2005 it was sent to the editors who declined to publish it though the authors had taken the trouble to comply with the suggestions made by the editors. The authors tried other journals, but they too rejected it.
This short monograph, tract really, is the tenth in the Signpost series published by LeftWord Books. They have been of a uniformly high standard, while adopting an unqualified Left-liberal perspective. This book also undertakes a polemical analysis of the Indo-US nuclear deal, which the Left parties have criticized on largely ideological considerations. Incidentally, no recent issue has proved as divisive as the Indo-US nuclear deal; it has divided the media, academic and strategic communities in both countries into two camps, promoting or opposing the deal. It would however be unjust to ignore the advantages of the deal on which the two Governments have invested so much political capital.
- First, it would permit India to obtain nuclear and other high technology, denied since May 1974, after India conducted its so-called Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE). This denials regime became stricter after India conducted its five-nuclear-test series in May 1998. The Indo-US nuclear deal would exempt India from these sanctions.
- Second, the deal recognizes India to be ‘a country with advanced nuclear technology.’ It cannot be recognized as a nuclear weapons state under the present Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), despite having performed six nuclear tests to establish its nuclear prowess. However, this new terminology takes India further towards its recognition as a de jure nuclear weapons state with its attendant prestige.
- Third, the deal cements the growing strategic convergence between India and the United States to serve their foreign policy interests and counter an intransigent China. India’s relations with China are, at best, uneasy, and they will remain uneasy since China views India as its chief antagonist in Asia. The nuclear deal will strengthen India’s strategic partnership with the United States.
This book has three essays written by its three authors; what binds them together is their impassioned opposition to the nuclear deal. Their attack on the deal is launched from several directions, but the extremely partisan nature of their attack leaves them open and vulnerable to questioning.
Prabir Purkayastha has made a thoughtful study of the issues involved. He praises the Atomic Energy Commission for establishing India’s nuclear fuel cycle in the teeth of sanctions imposed on India after the 1974 PNE, but fails to discuss why the PNE was conducted when India’s atomic energy programme was technologically immature. He also argues that the Indo-US nuclear deal was mistimed, and that India should have waited ‘for the contradictions within the NPT to mature.’ This argument misses out on two critical issues.
- First, that India is also a victim of the present imperfections in the NPT.
- Second, that India’s atomic energy programme is highly vulnerable now due to shortages of natural uranium for its Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors and low enri-ched uranium for its Light Water Reactors. The Indo-US nuclear deal would ensure uranium supplies for these programmes.
The author believes that the Hyde Act, the enabling US legislation to operationalize the Indo-US nuclear deal, is inimical to Indian interests, and that it overrides the enabling 123 Agreement negotiated by the two countries. He makes a good argument there-after that producing nuclear power is more costly than coal-based power, which accounts for some 60% of India’s total power generation. Power from indigenously built atomic reactors and imported reactors, apropos, are twice and thrice as costly as coal-based power. The author also highlights India’s hypocrisy in speaking with a forked tongue now about promoting nuclear nonproliferation, after having opposed the NPT for decades, as a ruse to avoid striving for the goal of nuclear disarmament. In fact, India is going full speed ahead with its own nuclear armament.
Ninan Koshy correctly traces the origins of the Indo-US nuclear deal of 18 July 2005 to the Framework Agreement on Defence Cooperation signed by the two countries on 28 June 2005. Earlier, in March that year, Condoleezza Rice had declared that the United States would help India to become ‘a major world power in the 21st century’, which caused immense satisfaction in New Delhi. Like Purkayastha, he indulges in much nitpicking about how the provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement contradict the Prime Minister’s various statements in Parliament to make the point that the deal does not serve India’s interests. The art lies here in analysing minor issues minutely for criticism, without considering the big picture of how the deal serves India’s broader interests. Citing the US Quadrennial Defense Review he then makes the orthodox argument favoured by the Left parties that the real purpose of the nuclear deal from Washington’s perspective was to draw India into an anti-China alliance in Asia. Neither the author nor the Left parties appreciate China’s many steps to harm India’s interests like the nuclear arming of Pakistan and other efforts to box India within South Asia.
The most disappointing essay is that by Bhadrakumar who carries forward these arguments to analyse the global logic pursued by the United States. His essay gets lost in a wholly irrelevant discussion on the significance of Central Asia in the global competition between the United States, Russia and China; the emerging new Cold War in global politics; the strategy of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan; energy politics; and so on that are very absorbing, but are only peripheral to the Indo-US nuclear deal. He finally meanders to the conclusion that India’s Central Asian policy lacks direction, and the Hyde Act ‘is intended to make the Indian foreign policy “congruent” to the US policies,’ which is a very tenuous argument.
Currently, the Indo-US deal is in limbo. The Left parties have repeatedly threatened to withdraw support to the UPA government if it proceeds further to finalize the deal. Apropos, the Congress spokesman, Abhishek Singhvi, informed a Washington audience recently: ‘There cannot be a deal without a government…
[ and] when the sacrifice of the government doesn’t get you the deal, then you are inviting death without martyrdom. So why have death if you don’t even have martyrdom?’ Is this the epitaph for the Indo-US nuclear deal? This will become known very soon, but this monograph under review sounds the Last Post.
P.R. Chari is research professor, Institute for people and Conflict Studies, New Delhi.