Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
GLOBAL VIEWS AND SECURITY DOCTRINES
The Nuclear and Ballistic Missile Issues
France has pleased New Delhi by understanding, if not approving, India's
rationale for going openly nuclear, but divergences remain on nuclear issues.
Both countries plead for disarmament; both, in the present circumstances, believe
in nuclear deterrence. But their views on the international nuclear regime are still
apart. Immediately after India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests, the French Minister
of Foreign Affairs stated in Parliament that 'these tests change absolutely nothing
in the French nuclear doctrine', and that the first priority would be 'to restore the
credibility of the NPT'.
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Three years later, the official statement on France's defence policy, set out by
President Chirac, remains unambiguous. 'Nuclear deterrence is the crux of the
resources enabling France to affirm the principle of strategic autonomy from
which derives our defense policy', and is above all 'an important factor of global
security'. As far as global rules are concerned, Paris considers that the NPT, 'a
vital instrument for stability' which must not be weakened, 'constitutes the basis
for implementing nuclear disarmament'. France calls as well for 'the entry into
force of the CTBT and the opening of negotiations on FMCT'.
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By contrast, India holds that the inequitable NPT regime is a failure.
Commenting upon the NPT Review Conference in May 2000, Jaswant Singh
reiterated: 'the nuclear weapon states (NWS, France being one of them) parties
to NPT and their allies have not diminished the role of nuclear weapons'.
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'The
NWS have either been active collaborators in or silent spectators to continuing
proliferation', and instead of beginning 'any kind of collective, meaningful
negotiations aimed at global disarmament', they have arrogated themselves 'a
permanent special right to possess nuclear weapons and only for their exclusive
security'.
Yet, 'though not a party to the NPT, India's policies have been consistent with
the key provisions of the NPT that apply to the NWS'.
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When India's Minister
of External Affairs argues that 'India cannot join the NPT as a non-nuclear
weapon state', must we understand that she would be ready to do so, if the NPT
was altered in order to accommodate new members? It is difficult to imagine the
NWS accepting officially the new nuclearized countries in their fold, a process
which would be seen as encouraging other countries to nuclearize themselves.
The alternative lies in the search for a new global security order. This is
precisely what Brajesh Mishra called for when stating that 'the old arms control
precepts, which also underline the NPT, have to give way to new equations if
multilaterally negotiated arms control has to succeed'.
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Is President Bush's
BMD project an acceptable 'new equation' for India? The hasty support
extended by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, two days after Bush's
