Washington, July 14 (Inditop.com) A leading arms control expert has suggested that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should use her visit to India to “re-establish nuclear restraint and arms control as a top priority for the region”.
South Asia is as much a nuclear tinderbox as it was a decade ago when Indian and Pakistani-supported forces engaged in a clash that almost triggered a nuclear war, Daryl G. Kimball writes in an editorial in the July/August edition of Arms Control Today.
India and Pakistan each claim to want only a “minimal credible deterrent”, but the end of their nuclear and missile build-up is not in sight, he writes. Their “support for negotiations on a global fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) is weak at best”.
Despite its struggle against extremists inside its own borders, the Pakistani army sees India as its main adversary, Kimball said, noting: “Pakistan is expanding its uranium-enrichment capabilities and building two new plutonium-production reactors for weapons purposes even though it already possesses enough fissile material for 60-80 bombs.”
One excuse for Pakistan’s ongoing build-up is the US-Indian nuclear cooperation initiative, Kimball suggested.
Given the billions of dollars of US military aid flowing into Pakistan and India’s commitments made in the context of the nuclear cooperation deal, the Obama administration can and should use its leverage to put the brakes on their nuclear arms race, he said.
“Now that President Barack Obama has jump-started global disarmament efforts and pledged to engage other states in the effort, India and Pakistan must do their part by embracing rather than rejecting commonsense nuclear arms control strategies,” Kimball suggested.
A good starting point would be for India to invite Pakistan and China to halt fissile production for weapons pending the conclusion of a global FMCT, he said, suggesting “Clinton should not hesitate to put the CTBT back on the US-Indian bilateral agenda”.
“It may be difficult for the Obama team to nudge India and Pakistan toward greater nuclear restraint, but failure to bring about change risks the most severe nuclear proliferation consequences in the years ahead.”
