Category Archives: GLOBAL

The U.S. election just became more uncertain

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Published in The Hindu on 10th October, 2020

All elections are unpredictable and American presidential elections are no exception. Yet, such is power of incumbency that there have been only four occasions since 1900 where a sitting and elected President has been defeated by his challenger for a second term. The 2020 election was shaping up to be cliff-hanger when President Donald Trump announced Friday last week that he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19, further darkening the clouds of uncertainty. He returned to the White House after three days of hospitalisation but question marks persist.

One term presidencies
In 1912, Democratic challenger Woodrow Wilson scored a decisive victory over President William Taft, seeking his second term. However, the reason was a divided Republican vote. President Theodore Roosevelt, the US president from 1901 to 1909 had supported Taft for his first term. Subsequently, he got disenchanted and eventually split the Republican party, running as the candidate of newly established Progressive party, and coming second in the race. Taft, already weakened with the infighting in the Republican party, emerged a distant third.

The second one-term president was Herbert Hoover, defeated in a landslide victory by his Democratic challenger Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. This election was fought against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Roosevelt won on the promise of the New Deal and then went on to win in 1936, 1940 and 1944. By the time he began his fourth term in January 1945, he was already suffering from high blood pressure and congestive heart disease and died three months later. Till then, there was no restriction on the number of terms for president; the two-term limit was introduced with the 22nd constitutional amendment in 1951.

In 1976, Democratic challenger Jimmy carter defeated President Gerald Ford who had taken over the presidency after president Nixon resigned when faced with the threat of impeachment. He had earlier been appointed (not elected) Vice-President in 1973 when Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned. In US history, Ford is the only one to have held both positions of Vice-President and President without having won an election to either.

1970s was a decade marked by an energy crisis sparked by oil price hikes, high inflation, economic downturn and rising unemployment. The US Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran in 1979 following the Islamic revolution in Iran became emblematic of eroding confidence among the people that made it easier for Republican challenger Ronald Reagan to trounce Democratic incumbent President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Democratic party was already polarised as Senator Ted Kennedy had challenged President Carter in the party primaries.

Both 1932 and 1980 also marked deeper power shifts; in 1932, Democrats took back Congress continuing till 1950s, introducing social security; the 1980s saw the return of the Republicans with promises of tax cuts and supply side economics.

The last one term president in the 20th century was George H W Bush who had won easily in 1988 after being Reagan’s Vice President for eight years. He lost his re-election bid to rank newcomer, Democratic challenger Bill Clinton in 1992 despite having notched up a series of foreign policy successes during the first term – Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan followed by the unification of Germany and the break-up of the Soviet Union. “It’s the economy, stupid”, became the catchphrase of the successful Clinton campaign.

Unresolved questions
The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was going to be an issue but President Trump testing positive raised a bunch of fresh questions – about implications for continuity for government, and, for the election campaign leading to polling on 3 November and its follow-through till the winner takes office on 20 January 2021.

Presidential succession to ensure continuity of government was addressed in the 25th constitutional amendment (1967), triggered by the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. In case a president dies, resigns or is otherwise incapacitated, the succession moves to the Vice President, and then on to the Speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate and the members of the Cabinet beginning with the Secretary of the State.

Campaign continuity is more uncertain. Elections are held every four years in November on the Tuesday after the first Monday of the month. Changing the date would need bipartisan consensus, hardly likely when the country is in the throes of a campaign. This year, the popular election on 3 November will be followed by the 538-member Electoral College voting on 14 December.

Congress will certify the Electoral College vote on 6 January 2021 officially declaring the president (and vice-president) who will assume office at the inauguration on 20 January. During this, when exactly does the winning candidate become “president-elect” is a question on which legal experts still differ.

There is no legal guidance in case a candidate dies or is unable to campaign shortly before the November polling or anytime thereafter. For 2020, in any event, the ballot papers are already printed and millions of postal ballots were cast when the question surfaced.

Were a vacancy to arise after 3 November, the Electoral College will be guided by the two political parties since the primaries process of anointing candidates is their jealously guarded preserve. Under the circumstances they may just find it expedient to bump up the VP to fill the presidential slot but how the VP slot will then be filled remains uncertain.

Tight race or landslide
How will this uncertainty play out in 2020? President Trump returned to the White House on 5 October and two days later was back in the Oval Office announcing that he had recovered fully. Doctors described the cocktail of drugs administered to the president as an experimental therapeutic.

Trump has refused to participate in any virtual TV debates with Biden, a decision announced by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates after he tested positive. The first TV debate had been variously described as “chaotic”, “a shit show” and a “wrestling bout in a mud-pit”, none an edifying label.

More than once, Trump expressed scepticism about the integrity of postal balloting warning that the issue would have to be decided by the Supreme Court. When asked about a peaceful transition of power, he generated controversy with, “we are going to have to see what happens”. This is one reason that Trump is keen to push through the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to replace late Judge Ginsburg, widely seen as a moderate and a liberal voice.

Earlier, ratification of federal judicial appointments was approved not by a simple majority but a larger (filibuster proof) majority of 60. This invariably meant getting support from across party aisles. However, growing polarisation and politicisation of judicial appointments in recent decades often led to prolonged impasses and nominations had to be withdrawn. In 2013, then Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid worked out a deal to permit judicial appointments for Circuit and Appeal Courts to be cleared by simple majority of 51. It boomeranged when the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell employed the same ‘nuclear option’ to approve the appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court in 2017 and is threatening to use it again.

Surveys and reality
In all four instances of single term presidencies, the challenger won a decisive victory and in three instances, a landslide victory. Most opinion polls indicate a lead (not landslide) for Democratic candidate Joe Biden but polls can be notoriously misleading; even in 2016, Hillary Clinton led in the polls even winning more popular votes but losing the electoral college.

It is also impossible to predict whether the pandemic will catalyse a cyclical shift seen in 1932 and 1980. Just as there are old time Republicans who wish they had another candidate instead of Trump, many staunch Democrats wonder whether Biden will be sufficiently committed to their progressive agenda. Which party is more fractured internally remains speculative.

Amid the growing uncertainty, only a decisive victory on 3 November will show that US democracy has developed immunity from COVID-19.

Iran Ties Need Quiet Diplomacy

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Published in The Hindu on 18th July, 2020

Recent reports that Iran’s Transportation Minister Mohammed Eslami had launched the track laying programme for the 600 km long rail link between Chabahar and Zahidan last week sparked concerns that India was being excluded from the project. Iran has since clarified that it is not the case and India could join the project at a later stage. This keeps the door open for IRCON
which has been associated with the project even as India continues with the development of Chabahar port.

Connectivity for Afghanistan
Providing connectivity for Afghanistan through Iran in order to lessen its dependence on Karachi port has enjoyed support in Delhi, Kabul and Tehran since 2003. Chabahar port on Iran’s Makran coast, just 1000 kms from Kandla, is well situated but road and rail links from Chabahar to Zahidan and then 200 kms further on to Zaranj in Afghanistan, need to be built. With Iran under sanctions during the Ahmedinejad years (2005-13), there was little progress. IRCON had prepared engineering studies estimating that the 800 km long railway project would need an outlay of $1.5 billion. Meanwhile, India concentrated on the 220 km road to connect Zaranj to Delaram on the Herat highway. This was completed in 2008 at a cost of $150 million.

Things moved forward after 2015 when sanctions on Iran eased with the signing of the JCPOA. An MOU was signed with Iran during Prime Minister Modis’s visit to Tehran in 2016 to equip and operate two terminals at the Shahid Beheshti port as part of Phase I of the project. Another milestone was the signing of the Trilateral Transit and Transport Corridor treaty between Afghanistan, Iran and India. In addition to $85 million of capital investment, India also committed to provide a line of credit of $150 million for port container tracks. Phase I was declared operational in 2018 and India’s wheat shipments to Afghanistan have been using this route. An SEZ at Chabahar was planned but re-imposition of US sanctions has slowed investments into the SEZ.

India was given a waiver from US sanctions to continue cooperation on Chabahar as it contributed to Afghanistan’s development. Despite the waiver, the project has suffered delays because of the time taken by US treasury to actually clear the import of heavy equipment like rail mounted gantry cranes, mobile harbour cranes etc. With regard to the rail-track project, a financing MOU was signed under which India undertook to provide $500 million worth of rolling stock and signalling equipment including $150 million of steel rail tracks. In fact, the railway tracks currently being laid are those supplied by IRCON. Iranian responsibility was for local works of land levelling and procurement. The MOU between IRCON and Construction and Development of Transport Infrastructure Co expired last year. Further, the Iranian company undertaking some of the works, Khatab al Anbiya was listed by the US as Special Designated Entity leading IRCON to suggest to the Iranians to appoint another contractor.

Meanwhile, Iran has ambitious plans to extend the railway line from Zahidan to Mashad (about 1000 kms) and then another 150 kms onwards to Sarakhs on the border with Turkmenistan. Another plan is to link it with the INSTC towards Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea. In 2011, a consortium of seven Indian companies led by SAIL had also successfully bid for mining rights at Hajigak mines in Afghanistan that contain large reserves of iron ore. However, developments at Hajigak remain stalled because of the precarious security situation in Afghanistan continues.

Why Iran Needs China
In 2016 January, just as sanctions were eased, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tehran and proposed a long term comprehensive, strategic partnership programme that would involve Chinese investment in Iranian infrastructure and assured supplies of Iranian oil and gas at concessional rates. Reluctant to be tied in too close a Chinese embrace, Iran kept the negotiations going for years. China patiently permitted a limited barter trade; SINOPEC prolonged its negotiations on developing the Yadavaran oilfield while CNPC pulled out of the South Pars gas project last year, after initially promising to take over the French company Total’s stake.

Meanwhile tensions in the region have been growing since last year with missile strikes in Saudi Arabia claimed by the Houthis and a US drone strike in January killing IRGC chief Gen Qassim Soleimani. During the last four weeks, there have been more than half a dozen mysterious explosions including at the ballistic missile liquid fuel production facility at Khojir, advanced centrifuge assembly shed in Natanz and the shipyard at Bushehr. Reports attribute these to US and Israeli agencies in an attempt to provoke Iran before the US elections.

In May, US announced that it wanted UN Security Council to continue the ban on Iranian acquisition of conventional weapons. UNSC Resolution 2231 was adopted in July 2015 by consensus to endorse the JCPOA and contains a 5-year restriction on Iran’s importing conventional weapons that ends on 18 October. Even though US unilaterally quit the JCPOA, it is threatening to invoke the automatic snapback of sanctions provisions of JCPOA. UK and France have criticised US duplicity but are unlikely to exercise a veto. At the same time, Iran hopes that November may bring about a change in the White House that opens options for dialogue.

Iran’s Balancing Act
Just as it has been a tricky exercise for India to navigate between US and Iran to keep the Chabahar project going, the Rouhani administration has found it difficult balancing act to manage the hardliners at home while coping with Trump administration’s policy of ‘maximum pressure’.

Russia and China are the only countries to veto US moves in the UN Security Council. Even so, the Iran- China comprehensive, strategic partnership roadmap has run into opposition in the Majlis. After the recent elections, the Reformists are down from 120 seats to 20 while the Principlists (Conservatives) are up from 86 to 221 seats in a house of 290 members. A former IRGC Air Force commander Mohammed Ghalibaf, former Mayor of Tehran who ran unsuccessfully for President against Rouhani in 2013 and 2017 has been elected the new Speaker. Hard liners have accused Foreign Minister Zarif of undue secrecy surrounding the agreement amid rumours that China may be taking over Kish island and that Chinese troops would be stationed in Iran to secure Chinese companies and investments.

Iran may well be considering a long-term partnership with China but Iranian negotiators are wary of growing Chinese mercantilist tendencies. It is true that China has greater capacity to resist US sanctions compared to India but Iran realises the advantage of working with its only partner that enjoys a sanctions waiver from US for Chabahar since it provides connectivity for land-locked Afghanistan. Iran and India also share an antipathy to a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. This is why Iran would like to keep the door open. Nevertheless, India needs to improve its implementation record of infrastructure projects that it has taken up in its neighbourhood. There are numerous tales of Indian cooperation projects in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar etc suffering delays and cost over-runs that only make it easier for China to expand its footprint in our neighbourhood. The key is to continue to remain politically engaged with Iran so that there is a better appreciation of each other’s sensitivities and compulsions.

The Trends Shaping The Post-Covid World

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Published in The Hindu on 11th May, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic began as a global health crisis. As it spread rapidly across countries, country after country responded with a lockdown, triggering a global economic crisis. Certain geopolitical trendlines were already discernible but the Covid shock therapy has brought these into sharper focus, defining the contours of the emerging global (dis)order.

The first trend which became clear in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis is the rise of Asia. Economic historians pointed to its inevitability recalling that till the 18th century, Asia accounted for half the global GDP. The Industrial Revolution accompanied by European naval expansion and colonialism contributed to the rise of the West and now the balance is being restored. The 2008 financial crisis showed the resilience of the Asian economies and even today, economic forecasts indicate out of G-20 countries, only China and India are likely to register economic growth during 2020.

Asian countries have also demonstrated greater agility in tackling the pandemic compared to US and Europe. This is not limited to China but a number of other Asian states have shown greater responsiveness and more effective state capacity. Consequently, Asian economies will recover faster than those in the West.

The second trend is the US retreat after a century of being in the forefront of shaping the global order. From the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations after World War I or the creation of the UN and Bretton Woods institutions after World War II, leadership of the Western world during the Cold War, moulding global responses to threats posed by terrorism or proliferation or climate change, US played a decisive role.

US hubris and arrogance also generated resentment, more evident in recent years. Interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have become quagmires that have sapped domestic political will and resources. This is the fatigue that President Obama sensed when he talked of “leading from behind”. President Trump changed it to “America first” and during the current crisis, US efforts to corner supplies of scarce medical equipment and medicines and acquiring biotech companies engaged in R&D in allied states, show that this may mean America alone. Moreover, even as countries were losing trust in US leadership, its bungled response at home to the pandemic indicates that countries are also losing trust in US competence. US still remains the largest economy and the largest military power but has lost the will and ability to lead. This mood is unlikely to change, whatever the outcome of the election later this year.

A third trend is EU’s continuing preoccupation with internal challenges generated by its expansion of membership to include East European states, impact of the financial crisis among the Eurozone members, and ongoing Brexit negotiations. Threat perceptions vary between old Europe and new Europe making it increasingly difficult to reach agreement on political matters e:g relations with Russia and China. The trans-Atlantic divide is aggravating an intra-European rift. Rising populism has given greater voice to Euro-sceptics and permitted some EU members to espouse the virtues of “illiberal democracy”.

Adding to this is the North-South divide within the Eurozone. Strains showed up a decade ago when austerity measures were imposed on Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal a decade ago by the ECB, persuaded by the fiscally conservative Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. ECB chief Christine Lagarde’s press statement in end March that “ECB is not here to close spreads” undermined any solidarity that the Italians felt as they battled with the pandemic and growing borrowing costs.

Further damage was done when Italy was denied medical equipment by its EU neighbours who introduced export controls leading to China airlifting medical teams and critical supplies. Schengen visa or free-border movement has already become a victim to the pandemic. EU will need considerable soul searching to rediscover the limits of free movement of goods, services, capital and people, the underlying theme of the European experiment of shared sovereignty.

A fourth trend, related to the first, is the emergence of a stronger and more assertive China. While China’s growing economic role has been visible since it joined the WTO at the turn of the century, its more assertive posture has taken shape under President Xi Jinping’s leadership with the call that a rejuvenated China is now ready to assume global responsibilities. Chinese assertiveness has raised concerns, first in its neighbourhood and now, in the US that feels betrayed because it assisted China’s rise in the hope that an economically integrated China would become politically more open. In recent years, the US- China relationship moved from cooperation to competition and now with trade and technology wars, is moving steadily to confrontation. The pandemic has seen increasing rhetoric on both sides and with the election season in the US, confrontation will only increase. A partial economic de-coupling had begun and will gather greater momentum.

Xi has engaged in an unprecedented centralisation of power and with the removal of the two-term limit, has made it clear that he will continue beyond 2022. His signature Belt and Road Initiative seeks to connect China to the Eurasia and Africa through both maritime and land routes by investing trillions of dollars in infrastructure building as a kind of pre-emptive move against any US attempts at containment. Even if Xi’s leadership comes under questioning, it may soften some aggressive policy edges but the confrontational rivalry with US will remain.

Global problems demand global responses. With Covid-19, international and multilateral bodies are nowhere on the scene. WHO was the natural candidate to lead global efforts against the health crisis but it has become a victim of politics. Its early endorsement of the Chinese efforts has put it on the defensive as US blames the outbreak on a Chinese biotech lab and accuses Beijing of suppressing vital information that contributed to the spread. UN Security Council, G-7 and G-20 (latter was structured to co-ordinate a global response to the 2008 financial crisis) are paralysed at when the world faces the worst recession since 1929.

The reality is that these institutions were always subjected to big power politics. During the Cold War, US-Soviet rivalry blocked the UNSC on many sensitive issues and now with major power rivalry returning, finds itself paralysed again. Agencies like the WHO have lost autonomy over decades as their regular budgets shrank, forcing them to increasingly rely on voluntary contributions sourced largely from Western countries and foundations. US leadership strengthened Bretton Woods institutions in recent decades (World Bank spends 250% of WHO’s budget on global health) because US’ voting power gives it a blocking veto. The absence of a multilateral response today highlights the long felt need for reform of these bodies but this can’t happen without collective global leadership.

The final trend relates to energy politics. Growing interest in renewables and green technologies on account of climate change concerns, and US emerging as a major energy producer was fundamentally altering the energy markets. Now, a looming economic recession and depressed oil prices will exacerbate internal tensions in Gulf countries which are solely dependent on oil revenues. Long standing rivalries in the region have often led to local conflicts but can now create political instability in countries where regime structures are fragile.

A vaccine for the Coronavirus possibly by end-2020 will help deal with the global health crisis but these unfolding trends have now been aggravated by the more pernicious panic virus. Rising nationalism and protectionist responses will prolong the economic recession into a depression sharpening inequalities and polarisations. Greater unpredictability and more turbulent times lie ahead.

At The Edge Of A New Nuclear Arms Race

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Published in The Hindu on 27th April, 2020

Last week, a report issued by the US State Department on “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Agreements and Commitments” raised concerns that China might be conducting nuclear tests with low yields at its Lop Nor test site, in violation of its Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) undertakings.

The US report also claims that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons experiments that produced a nuclear yield and were inconsistent with ‘zero yield’ understanding underlying the CTBT though it was uncertain about how many such experiments had been conducted.

Russia and China have rejected US claims but with growing rivalry among major powers, the report is a likely harbinger of new nuclear arms race which would also mark the demise of the CTBT that came into being in 1996 but has failed to enter into force even after a quarter century.

What does the CTBT ban
For decades, a ban on nuclear testing was seen as the necessary first step towards curbing the nuclear arms race but Cold War politics made it impossible. A Partial Test Ban Treaty was concluded in 1963 banning underwater and atmospheric tests but this only drove testing underground. By the time the CTBT negotiations began in Geneva in 1994, global politics had changed. The Cold War was over and the nuclear arms race was over. USSR had broken up and its principal testing site, Semipalatinsk, was in Kazakhstan (Russia still had access to Novaya Zemlya near the Arctic circle). In 1991, Russia declared a unilateral moratorium on testing, followed by the US in 1992. By this time, US had conducted 1054 tests and Russia, 715.

Negotiations were often contentious. France and China continued testing claiming that they had conducted far fewer tests and needed to validate new designs since the CTBT did not imply an end to nuclear deterrence. France and US even toyed with the idea of a CTBT that would permit testing at a low threshold, below 500 tonnes of TNT equivalent. This was one-thirtieth of the 15000 tonne Little Boy, the bomb US dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Civil society and the non-nuclear weapon states reacted negatively to such an idea and it was dropped. Some countries proposed that the best way to verify a comprehensive test ban would be to permanently shut down all test sites, an idea that was unwelcome to the nuclear weapon states.

Eventually, US came up with the idea of defining the “comprehensive test ban” as a “zero yield” test ban that would prohibit supercritical hydro-nuclear tests but not sub-critical hydrodynamic nuclear tests. Once UK and France came on board, US was able to prevail upon Russia and China to accept this understanding. After all, this was the moment of US’ unipolar supremacy. At home, the Clinton administration satisfied the hawks by announcing a Science Based Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship Programme, a generously funded project to keep the nuclear labs in business and the Pentagon happy. Accordingly, the CTBT prohibits all parties from carrying out “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion”; these terms are neither defined nor elaborated.

Why the CTBT lacks authority
Another controversy arose regarding the entry-into-force provisions (Article 14) of the treaty. After India’s proposals for anchoring the CTBT in a disarmament framework did not find acceptance, in June 1996, India announced its decision to withdraw from the negotiations. Unhappy at this turn, UK, China and Pakistan took the lead in revising the entry-into-force provisions. The new provisions listed 44 countries by name whose ratification was necessary for the treaty to enter into force and included India. India protested that this attempt at arm twisting violated a country’s sovereign right to decide if it wanted to join a treaty but was ignored. The CTBT was adopted by a majority vote and opened for signature.

Of the 44 listed countries, to date only 36 have ratified the treaty. China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and USA have signed but not ratified. China maintains that it will only ratify it after US does so but the Republican dominated Senate had rejected it in 1999. In addition, North Korea, India and Pakistan are the three who have not signed. All three have also undertaken tests after 1996; India and Pakistan in May 1998 and North Korea six times between 2006 and 2017. The CTBT has therefore not entered into force and lacks legal authority.

Nevertheless, an international organisation to verify the CTBT was established in Vienna with a staff of about 230 persons and an annual budget of $ 130 million. Ironically, US is the largest contributor with a share of $17 million. The CTBTO runs an elaborate verification system built around a network of over 325 seismic, radionuclide, infrasound and hydroacoustic (underwater) monitoring stations. The CTBTO has refrained from backing the US allegations.

A new nuclear arms race
The key change from the 1990s is that US’ unipolar moment is over and strategic competition among major powers is back. US now identifies Russia and China as ‘rivals’. Its Nuclear Posture Review asserts that US faces new nuclear threats because both Russia and China are increasing their reliance on nuclear weapons. US therefore has to expand the role of its nuclear weapons and have a more usable and diversified nuclear arsenal. The Trump administration has embarked on a 30-year modernisation plan with a price tag of $1.2 trillion, which could go up over the years. Readiness levels at Nevada test site that has been silent since 1992 are being enhanced to permit resumption of testing at six months notice.

Russia and China have been concerned about US’ growing technological lead particularly in missile defence and conventional global precision strike capabilities. Russia has responded by exploring hypersonic delivery systems and theatre systems while China has embarked on a modernisation programme to enhance the survivability of its arsenal which is considerably smaller. In addition, both countries are also investing heavily in offensive cyber capabilities.

The new US report stops short of accusing China for a violation but refers to “a high level of activity at the Lop Nor test site throughout 2019” and concludes that together with its lack of transparency, China provokes concerns about its intent to observe the zero-yield moratorium on testing.

US claims that Russian experiments have generated nuclear yield but is unable to indicate how many such experiments were conducted in 2019. It suggests that Russia could be testing in a manner that releases nuclear energy from an explosive canister, generating suspicions about its compliance.

The New START agreement limits US and Russian arsenals but will expire in 2021 and President Trump has already indicated that he does not plan to extend it. Instead, the Trump administration would like to bring China into some kind of nuclear arms control talks, something China has avoided by pointing to the fact that US and Russia still account for over 90 percent of global nuclear arsenals.

Both China and Russia have dismissed US allegations pointing to Trump administration’s backtracking from other negotiated agreements like the Iran nuclear deal or the US-Russia INF Treaty. Tensions with China are already high with trade and technology disputes, militarisation in the South China Sea and most recently, with the Coronavirus pandemic. US could also be preparing the ground for resuming testing at Nevada.

The Cold War rivalry was already visible when the nuclear arms race began in the 1950s. New rivalries have already emerged. Resumption of nuclear testing may signal the demise of the ill-fated CTBT, marking the beginnings of a new nuclear arms race.

NPT @ 50: Celebration or Midlife Crisis

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Published in Hindustan Times on 12th March, 2020

Last week, on 5 th March, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) turned 50. Often described by its supporters as the ‘cornerstone of global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament’, the NPT is among the most widely adhered to global treaties. All countries except four (India, Israel and Pakistan that never joined, and North Korea that withdrew in 2003) are parties to the NPT.

Yet NPT’s golden anniversary passed without much notice. A statement issued in New York by the Spokesman for the UN Secretary General was notable for its brevity and anodyne character. There are suggestions that the NPT Review Conference due to open in New York on 27th April be postponed, ostensibly on account of the coronavirus outbreak, but actually to avoid a potentially bruising showdown.

In 1963, President Kennedy voiced an apprehension that by 1975, there could be as many as 20 countries with nuclear weapons. USSR shared similar concerns. This convergence of interests between the two Cold War adversaries enabled the negotiations for an NPT.

To make it attractive, it was initially conceived as a three-legged stool – non-proliferation, obliging those without nuclear weapons to undertake never to acquire them and accept full-scope safeguards; disarmament, obliging the five countries with nuclear weapons (US, USSR, UK, France and China) to negotiate to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear weapons; and, third, to ensure that non-nuclear weapon states would enjoy full access to peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology.

By the time the negotiations concluded in 1968, India had concluded that the disarmament leg was too weak and the definition of a nuclear weapon state (one that had exploded a nuclear device before 1 January 1967) was one that created a permanent division between nuclear haves and have-nots; it chose to stay away.

Among the oft-cited successes of the NPT is the dramatic reduction in the number of nuclear weapons from a peak of 70300 warheads in 1986 to around 14000 at present, with US and Russia accounting for over 12500. What is overlooked is that nearly all the reductions happened between 1990 and 2010 and the process has now dwindled to a halt. More significantly, these reductions were a result of bilateral talks between US and Russia reflecting their state of relations and no negotiations have ever been held in the NPT framework. In fact, during the first fifteen years of the NPT, the US-Soviet arsenals went up from below 40000 to over 70000, making it abundantly clear that the NPT nuclear-weapon-states have blithely ignored the disarmament leg of the NPT.

The NPT has successfully prevented proliferation. Since 1970, only four countries have acquired nuclear weapons bringing the total number of nuclear-weapon-states to nine, much less than Kennedy’s apprehensions in 1963. However, it brings out the uncomfortable reality that the NPT has no means of dealing with these four states.

The five nuclear weapon states recognised by the NPT (N-5) are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (P-5) giving rise to the inevitable conclusion that nuclear weapons remain the currency of political and military power. This conclusion can only encourage potential proliferators by making nuclear weapons more attractive as the ultimate security guarantor.

NPT supporters also claim credit for strengthening the taboo against nuclear weapons by pointing out that nuclear weapons have never been used since 1945. However, a closer examination of recently declassified papers indicates that since 1970, there were over a dozen instances where US and USSR came close to initiating a nuclear exchange, often based on misperceptions about the intentions of the other or plain system errors. Even today, US and Russia maintain over 1000 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert, increasing the risks of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear exchange.

Today, the nuclear taboo is being challenged as major nuclear powers undertake R&D for more usable low-yield nuclear weapons. Ballistic missile defence, hypersonic systems that carry both conventional and nuclear payloads and growing offensive cyber capabilities further blur the line between conventional and nuclear.

Frustrated by the lack of responsiveness on the part of the N-5, 120 countries party to the NPT joined hands with civil society to push negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty (TPNW), concluded in 2017. These countries had concluded that despite near universal adherence, the NPT could never be the vehicle for nuclear disarmament. It had delegitimised proliferation but done little to delegitimise nuclear weapons. And in the process, the NPT had reached the limits of its success. The N-5 and their allies boycotted the negotiations but the existence of the TPNW exposes the inherent imbalance in the NPT’s three-legged stool.

The uncomfortable truth is that the old nuclear arms control model reflected the political reality of the Cold War. Today’s reality reflects multipolarity, marked by asymmetry. It is hardly surprising that US-USSR treaties of the bipolar era, like the ABM Treaty or the INF Treaty are already dead and others like New START and Open Skies Treaty are being challenged.

The NPT faces a similar challenge, of continued political relevance. Unless the NPT members, especially the N-5 realise this, its golden anniversary may well mark the onset of NPT’s mid-life crisis.