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Submission to the References
Committee Inquiry into Nuclear Tests by India and Pakistan Submission by Associate
Professor Marika Vicziany |
1 Further submissions by the
National Centre for South Asian Studies and
the Monash Asia Institute following a series of dialogues.
It is fair to say that the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan came as a surprise to not only Australian governments and business but also Australia's South Asia specialists. The bulk of research and academic effort in Australia during the last ten years has focussed largely on questions of economic and social reform in South Asia, and with few exceptions, insufficient attention has been paid to strategic and foreign policy issues.
In view of this, it would be premature to write a full and confident report on the questions raised by your committee at this stage. Hence I am submitting a personal statement about some of the matters you have been asked to investigate. I also wish to draw your committee's intention to two events in Melbourne which will assist us in submitting a fuller report in the coming weeks.
1.1 The 5th Annual Postgraduate Student
Workshop on South Asia
(Glenn College, La Trobe University) on 10-12 July 1998.
This brought together young scholars working on South Asia and regional experts. It was the first occasion on which some of Australia's South Asia security specialists were able to assemble their thoughts on the question of the nuclear tests in South Asia. The speakers were:
Dr. Devin Hagerty, Department of Government, University of Sydney
Dr. Samina Yasmeen, Department of Political Science, University of Western Australia
Dr. Mohan Malik, School of international Relations, Deakin University.
Dr. Peter Friedlander was also invited to comment on how the Indian press has reacted to Australian policies and sanctions. Dr. Friedlander from the School of Asian Studies at La Trobe University is one of only five Hindi language specialists in Australian universities. He has been translating Hindi newspaper articles into English. This is a very important project because the great increase in literacy during the last two decades in India has been reflected in a very significant rise in the readership of Indian language newspapers (Readership in India of the English language press has been relatively stagnant). Through Dr. Friedlander we might be able to follow the views of the non-English speaking public and opinion makers in India on the nuclear tests and international reactions to them.
1.2 Forthcoming dialogue at Monash University
on "Security and
Disarmament in the Asia-Pacific" in late August 1998.
The Monash Asia Institute and the National Centre for South Asia Studies have responded to the nuclear tests on the Indian subcontinent by planning a security dialogue which will bring together representatives from a number of organisations, think tanks and countries in the Asia-Pacific region including the four major countries in South Asia, China, Korea, Japan and Singapore. Our partners to this project include the Georgetown University in Washington DC, University of British Columbia, Nautilus USA and a number of Australian universities with expertise on South Asia. We have the in-principle support of Mr. Tim George, Assistant Secretary of the South Asia and Indian Ocean Branch in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the various High Commissions in South Asia, the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and the Georgetown University in Washington.
The Indian High Commission in Canberra has been very helpful and they have offered to assist us in bringing out two leading non-official, security specialists from India Funding for this is likely to come from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and as such will be unaffected by Australian sanctions.
2 Need for more expertise on
South Asia at the highest levels of
Australian government.
It is unfortunate that Australia has responded to the nuclear tests in South Asia by imposing sanction on India and Pakistan rather than seeking to enhance our engagement with both countries. For reasons explained below India has felt especially isolated in the Asia-Pacific region and has attempted, unsuccessfully, to involve herself in a number of regional organisations and fora. It would have been useful to have responded to these felt needs and the nuclear tests by increasing our dialogue with India and Pakistan rather than reducing our involvement in the region via sanctions and our withdrawal from joint defence exercises.
2.1 Need for a better understanding
of India's foreign and defence
policies and expenditures.
Better knowledge of India's policies and expenditures on foreign and defence issues, together with a systematic analysis of Indian foreign policy at the highest levels of the Australian government, might have produced a different set of reactions to those which we have seen. As it happens, the last serious review of India's security situation was published in July 1990 (by the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Australia-India Relations: Trade and Security). A great deal has changed in the interventing years.
It is widely believed by Indian governments, think-tanks, academic specialists and others that Indian expenditures on defence have dwindled in recent years and that her foreign policy position was in disarray until the Bharatiya Janata Party seized the opportunity this year to detonate a series of nuclear devices as a way of signalling a new determination on India's part. Indian perceptions of security and defence in South Asia and more generaly in the Asia-Pacific need to be taken seriously.
What are the key factors in the Indian perception? They might be summarised as follows:
- that India's nuclear technology had developed enormous
sophistication throughout the 1980s but that international pressure had
stopped her from testing;
- that: despite India's restrained attitude to nuclear
weapons, her call for complete nuclear disarmament and her strong attachment
to democracy, her opinions and needs were ignored by the big powers which
instead were busy wooing the authoritarian regimes of East Asia;
- that giving India a nuclear weapons capability was a
necessary response to the difficulties of developing an appropriate, conventional
weapons strategy in South Asia;
- that the tests were an appropriate response to concerns
about the intentions of China, North Korea and Pakistan in South Asia;
- that the tests were an appropriate response to the unwelcomed,
arrogant, "policeman" role which the USA has been assuming in
the Asian region;
- that the tests ordered by the BJP government were long overdue and have widespread national support well beyond the forces within the BJP because of all the above considerations.
In early 1997 Brahma Chellaney summarised much of this when he predicted that:
"By the end of 1997, India's nuclear ambivalence should have dissipated" and that her emergence as a nuclear power would reflect India's realisation that "it lacks the military might to inspire awe, the economic power to wield influence or even a political ideology to inspire support in a world in which the assertive promotion of national interests overrides all other considerations."
Challency's predictions were out by only four months. It is unfortunate, that the reactions of the western world to the Indian tests confirm many of India's previous concerns about our lack of sympathy towards them.
Our Indian friends have been especially appalled by the phrase that India has detonated a "Hindu bomb". They have responded by pointing out that the Indian bomb is in fact the first "Islamic bomb" because India has the world's second largest Muslim population after Indonesia and the head of India's nuclear program is a South Indian Muslim nuclear scientist. In short, western responses to the nuclear tests in South Asia have brought to the fore some of the strongest expressions of "orientalism" that we have seen for some time and India has been shocked by this. In these circumstances, it would have been very helpful had we in Australia adopted a more sympathetic attitude inwards India even while repudiating the use of nuclear technology as a way of resolving defence insecurities. As it happens, many of our responses have been harsher and less sympathetic than that of our allies.
2.2 Need for a better knowledge of the
history of nuclear
developments in South Asia.
The strong character of the Australian reaction to the nuclear tests in South Asia might have been somewhat different had there been in Australia a longer term and deeper knowledge of the recent history of nuclear technology developments in the South Asian region. Australians appear to be convinced that India and Pakistan have been at the brink of nuclear conflict on previous occasions and that the recent tests have produced a dangerously unstable situation. There is also a tone in the Australian position on testing in India and Pakistan which smacks of "orientalism" - namely the view that India and Pakistan can't be trusted to handle nuclear technology responsibly. Such "orientalism" does us no good at a time when new political formations in Australia - in particular One Nation - have expressed their deep suspicion of Asian cultured and ideas. I am not alone in noticing how our Indian friends link up our responses to nuclear tsting with the One Nation phenomenon. One Indian community newspaper Indian Voice has commented as follows in its July 1998 issue.
"For countries like Australia whose leadership has been vitriolic about their comments on India's nuclear tests, they would do well to take care of the bomb ticking away within. Instead of aligning with racism as represented by Pauline Hanson they should ensure that this lady does not represent the face of future Australia" (p.19)
The author of this article is the publisher and editor of another Indian community newspaper Diversity - The New Age.
It is important for Australians to be aware of alternative interpretations of the present situation in South Asia. Not all South Asia experts, and probably not the majority, accept the gloomy and despatching scenarios which have been predicted. Indeed, according to Dr. Devin Haperty, some of the best, younger scholars who are working on the problems of nuclear technologies in South Asia argue convincingly for the view that the logic of nuclear deterrence in South Asia is a realistic scenario and despite all the difficulties between India and Pakistan and third countries such as China, nuclear technologies have not increased regional insecurity in the recent past and are unlkely to do so in the future.
Given that both India and Pakistan now possess a nuclear weapons capability, it is even more important to accept the logic of "nuclear deterrence" and do everthing possible to assist the countries of South Asia in handling their nuclear capacities in a way which is responsible and safe and minimises risk.
2.3 Need for a better understanding
of Indian views and sensitivities
on Australia's positioning under the USA nuclear umbrella
Australians need to understand why India refuses to take Australian views on the nuclear tests seriously. We should not ignore Indian criticism that Australia is in no position to take the high moral ground because we have located ourselves so firmly under the American nuclear umbrella. It was significant that Mr. Rupert Murdoch himself recently said what many academic analysts have been pointing to during the last years that given out special positioning in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia should have been leading the USA on a number of issues rather merely following.
Australia's dependence on US nuclear protection strikes our Indian colleagues as hypocritical and contradictory. Certainly we do not have the right, according to them, to take the high more ground and to do this as loudly as we have done. The speed with which we reacted to the nuclear tests has also taken our Indian friends by surprise. There is presumption that we had a pre-formed view fo the tests. Had we delayed a little, it would have indicated that we were thinking about our bilateral relationship and considering a range of alternative strategies.
3 Australian reactions to Australia's official resonse to the nuclear tests.
Many academics in Australia were surprised by the strong Australian condemnation of the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan. Our surprise was based on the discussions which have occured in various forums on the "security vacuum" in the Asia-Pacific. The Australian Centre for American Stdies (in 1995) have held round table discussions on regional security during the last three years at which strong concerns have been voiced by non-South Asia specialists about the regional interests of China. It has fallen to the India specialists to point out on such occasions that one of the important regional counterweights to China in the Asia-Pacific is India (1). The prevailing view at such conventions has been that the USA remains the most effective counterweight to China and as such needs to be engaged in the region. Nevertheless, the idea of India playing a useful role has never been opposed - rather commentators have wondered about the economic capacity of India to undertake the kind of responsibilities which this assumes.
In the light of these discussions, we have, therefore, been surprised by the extent to which the perceptions and conclusions by Australia's Asia experts are not shared by the wider Australian community, including our official representatives. We have been asking ourselves why this great difference of opinion exists? By detonating nuclear devices, India has shown some capacity to play an enhanced security role in the Asia region but this has not been received positively by Australia despite the concern that Australia and its allies have had of Chinese intentions in the region and Japan's reluctance to play a leadership role. We need to seriously address this question: how might India now play a more positive role in regional security?
3.1 Need for a better knowledge of alternative concepts.
Australian perceptions of a nuclear south Asia appear to be working within very narrow conceptual paradigms. It would be possible to accept this if there was evidence to suggest that we have opted for the present conceptual framework of "nuclear non-proliferation" because careful consideration had been given to other paradigms which were rejected because they were found wanting.
Australia's unquestioning attachment to the notion of "nuclear non-proliferation" causes problems for us in our relationship with India because the Indian understanding of the term is so very diferent. The Indian view of nuclear non-proliferation is that it is a posture which fosters non-proliferation horizontally amongst the non-nuclear states whilst simultaneously tolerating and actively encouraging nuclear proliferation vertically amongst the existing nuclear club nations.
The language which, we use is important. In articulating our policy within the paradigm of "nuclear non-proliferation" we are further identifying ourselves with the nuclear haves and this, in turn, undermines our capacity to be taken seriously by the nuclear have-nots and those who were nuclear have-nots before the May 1998.
There can be no doubt that the words and concepts we have used in our criticisms of India and Pakistan further emphasise the asymmetric relationship between 'us" and "them" and as such divide us further. According to our Indian colleagues if we were true opponents of the nuclear option, we would be making a case for disarmament. Our failure to do this is incomprehensible to them.
In the meantime, Australians remain firmly attached to the belief that "nuclear non-proliferation" operates on a higher moral plane than "nuclear deterrence" and "disarmament". Is it not then insurprising, that the Australian position is regarded as being not merely hypocritical but also naive?
3.2 Need for engagement rather than sanctions
My recent work on Indian economic policies has drawn my attention to the extent to which India has felt isolated in the Asia-Pacific region. Since the early 1990s when the Government of India adopted a "Look East" foreign and economic policy, she has been trying to get access to regional fora such as ASEAN, APEC and ASEM. With few exceptions, she has been excluded from all of these except as a dialogue partner or a member of the odd working committee.
India's exclusion from APEC was especially hard for her to accept. In the words of the former Minister for Commerce, Mr. Chidambaram, "APEC without India is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark". India was, in other words, unable to comprehend why it was kept out of APEC when even Russia was recently admitted as a full member.
India's exclusion from APEC has been such a sore point with India that in 1997 the National Centre for South Asian Studies decided that it was in the interest of India and Australia to at least network Indian academics and think-tanks into the APEC process by starting a dialogue between Indian policy specialists and Australia's APEC specialists. As a result, a series of talks was held in July and December 1997 in Perth and New Delhi between the National Centre for South Asian Studies (Melbourne), the Indian Ocean Centre (Perth) the Australian APEC Study Centre (Monash, the Centre for Policy Research (New Delhi), and the Monash Asia Institute. This was the first occasion on which out Indian colleagues were properly briefed about the APEC process. It also gave us an opportunity to confirm how severely neglected India felt as a result of her exclusion. India's exclusion has been one of many factors compelling India in the direction of a nuclear weapons based non-aligned position. One of the papers written for the New Delhi dialogue concluded that:
'It is now too late to bring India into the fold of ASEAN, APEC and ASEM as a way of avoiding India's entry into the nuclear club. However, it is not too late to bring India into these regional organisations as a way of allowing her to engage in a regular dialogue with regional partners on matters of common economic and security issues" (2).
3.3 Need to be more careful how we express our views
Australia has been criticised for using inappropriate and very strong language in condeming the nuclear tests by India. The right of Australia to pursue its own strategic and security interests is beyond questioning, but we need to be more sensitive to how we express this Complaints have been voiced about descriptions of Pakistan as being "dirt poor"; about India's "outrageous act of nuclear bastardry"; about the Australian view that India is not really concerned about national or regional security but is either seeking a "grotesque status symbol" or is playing "fast and loose with international safety and security" in the pursuit of short-term political gain.
These strong words have contributed to a virtual standstill in our bilateral dialogue. By contrast, the dialogue between India and the USA has not abated and within the American political system champions for a better understanding of India have emerged (3). In Australia, no such champions are visible.
The timing of the cessation of dialogue between Australia and India is also unfortunate, coinciding as it does with the emergence to national prominence of the One Nation Political party. Although India has a deep democratic tradition and understands how intensely nationalist and chauvinist parties can emerge, the racist rhetoric of One Nation makes Australia appear to be even less sympathetic to the concerns of India, Pakistan and other Asian nations than our condemnation of South Asian nuclear explosions suggests.
3.4 Need to distinguish between the objectives of Australian and US foreign policy positions
Many of us are concerned with the degree to which Australia is following rather than leader the USA in thinking about regional security and disarmament. Australians live in the Asian region and over the years we have developed a special relationship with our various northern neighbours. It is a unique relationship, without parallel in the western world. Ou response to the Indonesian crisis has, for example, been very sensitive and understanding. By contrast, we have not been at all solicitous of the special needs and feelings of India and Pakistan.
Our moral outrage does not mean very much to our South Asian colleagues who point out that we are not, unlike New Zealand, dispassionate commentators. Australia is not only firmly placed under the US nuclear umbrella but is apparenty not willing to diverge from the US position on nuclear and foreign policy matters - at least not in the instance of South Asian affairs.
An appropriate response by Australia to the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan might have been, however, one area in which in which Australia had a unique contribution to make: we could have voiced our concerns and criticisms but still insisted on a further engagement with India and Pakistan rather than a disengagement.
Australia's potential to make a unique contribution to the foreign policy and security issues of the Asian-Pacific has been recognised by othr Asean governments and even American companies which have approached at least one Australian university to write reports on the region precisely because the attitudes and orientations of Australians are significantly different from those of the USA, and indeed more palatable to our near neighbours. In many arenas, the US position is regarded as being too narrow, self serving and therefore biased.
4 Report on India's reaction to Australian reponses
4.1 Comments about Australian inconsistencies
Indian colleagues have commented that our rhetoric against nuclear testing in South Asia is strangely inconsistent, we have sanctions on India and Pakistan but we have not imposed the same economic sanctions on ourselves - we have not declared, for example, any ban on Australian exports to South Asia. Presumably our interests in the growing export markets of India and Pakistan are too powerful to be set aside by our moral outrage against those governments for joining the nuclear club. It has been noted in New Delhi, for instance, that the Link West seminars by Austrade in various Australian cities have confirmed and that the purpose of these is to encourage exports to South Asia.
4.2 Anger about the use of language
The sharpest criticism of Australia has been made not because we have taken a strong stand against nuclear proliferation but because of the inappropriate language which we have used it condemning India and pakistan. There is also a perception that our handling of official bilateral matters in recent weeks has been highhanded. We have also been criticised for reacting too quickly and in unquestioned sympathy with the US position.
4.3 Surprise about the lack of sympathy
for and understanding of
India's security and defence dilemmas.
Our Indian colleagues have expressed surprise at the lack of sympathy in Australia for their security, defence and Foreign policy dilemmas. Their surprise is often preceded by comments such as "but we have had joint naval exercises...." and "you spent $6 million on Australia - India New Horizons..... why are you so unfriendly now..."
It has also been said that Australia has over-emphasised the role of domestic political factors behind the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan. We have made too much of the role of the newly elected BJP government and failed to pay sufficient attention to the long term evolution of nuclear technologies in the region and what has compelled this (see section 2.1 above). We have also underestimated the degree of national consensus behind the tests in South Asia. Above all, we have simply failed to accept te views of India and Pakistan that they have reasonable concerns for their national defence.
The National Centre for South Asian Studies has responded to these comments by pointing out that Australia's understanding of Indian needs and sensitivities has been poor because:
- we have too few experts who properly understand the logic
behind India's defence and foreign policies.
- Australian governments, companies and journalists are
reasonably well informed about matters of Indian trade, economy and society
but that there is little understanding of the security issus in South Asia;
- Australian foreign policy concerns have focussed on the East Asian region and little attention has been paid to South Asia - moreover, the exclusion of India from regional forums such as APEC have meant that at the highest levels of government, there has been little opportunity for Australia to come to an understanding of how India herself views East Asian Countries such as China and Korea.
5 Preliminary views on the medium and long term impact on bilateral relations.
As suggested as the start of this submission, it is too soon to assess the impact of the recent events on bilateral relations between Australia and India. At the same time, evidence is emerging of a major downturn in goodwill. A serious study of the likely impact on bilateral and regional relations will require some time and yourcommittee might consider outsourcing some components of your investigation to experts in the universities. Funding for such projects will, however, needs to be provided because the capacity of the universities to react to your committee's needs is seriously constrained by the financial difficulties which the universities are facing as a result of DEETYA cutbacks. A good model for outsourcing the research work which needs to be conducted is provided by the East Asia Analytical Unit's study India's Economy at the Midnight Hour. This generated a large number of very valuable inputs into the final report.
The downturn in goodwill between India and Australia needs to consider at least two dimensions:
- how and why things took a sudden, negative turn in the
last quarter of 1997 when Australia was severely criticised for flying
over an Indian naval vessel which was making a maiden voyage to Southeast
Asia. Australia was criticised for "splying for the USA" - we
dropped sonar-sensitive buoys around this vessel. This was described as
an "unfriendly" and "hostile" act and it was unexpected
because we were involved in joint India Australia defence exercises at
that time;
- Why despite the great effort expended on "Australia - India: New Horizons 1996" the Indian perception remains that nothing much happened to develop the diplomatic dimension to our commercial relationship. 1997 was declared by the Australian Government to be the "Year of South Asia" but very quickly the word was out that in effect little effort could be put into this because no funding commitments were made. The "New Horizons" of 1996 started to slip away from Australia in1997.
5.1 The growing marginalisation of Australia
Our Indian contacts have expressed surprise at the strict interpretation we have given to the sanctions and the cessation of official visits between Australia and India. Your committee might consider, for example, investigating the reasons behind our requesting Mr. Soli Sorabjee not to visit Australia. Mr. Sorabjee has apparently said that although he is the Indian Attorney-General, unlike the Australian equivalent of that position, he is not in any sense a political appointment and he does not consider himself to be an official of the Government of India. Mr. Sorabjee kindly noted that "there has been a misunderstanding by the Australian Government of the rule of India's Attorney General".
Actions such as this not only out off any useful dialogue between Australia and India, but indeed will rapidly make us into a marginal consideration in South Asia.
5.2 Impact on bilateral commerce
In the short term, bilateral trade between Australia and India is unlikely to be effected unless unexpected opportunities and contracts suddenly emerge. In the event of unexpected opportunities and medium term predictions about bilateral commerce, there are three possible scenarios;
1. in instances where Australia provides an overwhelming price or technology advantage, Australian commerce is unlikely to be adversely affected by the recriminations of recent months;
2. however, in cases of new contracts and deals where Australia faces strong international competition. Australian bids are likely to be put at the bottom of the preferences of Indian public sector enterprises (it is important to remember that the public sector still accounts for over half of the capital investment in Indian industry and that many Australian companies are working in industries where the presence of the government is especially strong);
3. here is a third scenario which applies to Australian NRI (non-resident Indian) firms - these are reposing that their Indian business contacts are eminently practical and are taking no notice at all of the decline in bilateral goodwill. It is probably the case that the culture and family links between NRI businesses in Australia and India override the concerns of governments.
On balance, is reasonable to assume that there will be an adverse impact on bilateral commercial relations and that this will cost Australia, given the large trade and other surpluses we have with India and Pakistan. This conclusion in based on the view that second scenario above is the more important one for Australia - in most areas of bilateral commercial activity we have serious competitors in South Asia. Moreover, the role of government in supporting trade with Australia has been very important in the past and there is no reason for assuming that this role will decline.
5.3 Impact on Indian and Pakistan students
coming to Australia
for study purposes
During the last two years there has been a surge of interest in students from South Asia studying in Australian universities, TAFES and schools. Numbers for the July 1998 intake suggest that the rise in enrolments from these parts of Asia is continuing. However, it is important to note that these figures pertain to students who made a decision to stydy in Australia before the recent downturn in bilateral relations. In the medium to long term, the Australian reponse to nuclear tests in India and Pakistan could create difficulties for this newly emerging export market because:
1. we have strong competition from countries such as Britain which has been less inclined to take a harsh position against India and Pakistan and
2. South Asian students are well informed about Australian politics, and the current Australian response on nuclear issues when matched with the unfriendly rhetoric of Pauline Hanson makes us a less appealing choice for young people.
5.4 Need for your committee to consider the economic impact of the nuclear tests.
I understand that your committee has interpreted its brief as focussing more sharply on the political-defence security aspects of the nuclear tests in South Asia. However, given the close relationship between these things and national economic interests, it is important for your committee to speak to Australian business firms, Austrade and the various Business Councils.
The view has been expressed by some commentators that American responses to Indian nuclear tests are likely to shift largely in response to lobbying by American business which regards the Indian market as too profitable to ignore for too long. This is another reason for dealing with this aspect of the bilateral relationship. In the case of Australia we note that while the Asian currency crisis has seriously curtailed our commerce with north east and southeast Asia, the markets of South Asia continue to expand. Can we afford to jeopardise this growth?
6 Preliminary views on the medium
and long term impact on security in the
Asia-Pacific-Indian Ocean Region
There is no evidence to show that the explosion of nuclear devices by India and Pakistan has added to regional insecurity in South Asia or the Asia-Pacific. Our realisation that we now have two South Asian states which have a nuclear weapons capability should not panic us into dismal scenarios of gloom and foreboding. Nor should we concentrate our efforts into further isolating India and Pakistan from the region. Instead, Australia should use its unique influence and connections to assist Pakistan and India in becoming safer and less risky nuclear weapons states.
We should actively search out "circuit breakers" to enable us to end the sanctions as soon as possible and engage India and Pakistan in dialogues and joint exercises. We should aim to get back to the high point reached in our bilateral relationships in late 1996 and surpass these by resuming exchanges at the highest possible levels. India was disappointed by the failure of the Australian Prime Minister to visit during "Australia - India; New Horizons"; we could demonstrate our concern for the events of recent months by the Australian Prime Minister visiting India and Pakistan on a goodwill mission. A dramatic gesture of this kind would provide a powerful signal to overcome the negative perceptions about Australia which have emerged in South Asia since May this year.
Australia could also play a useful role in advising the USA to move beyond its own stringent sanctions against India and Pakistan and use US expertise to minimise the risks to military and civilian nuclear accidents in South Asia. This would require the USA to:
- encourage India and Pakistan to retain the present non-alert
state of their nuclear weapons and
- transfer technologies to India and Pakistan to enable these South Asian states to improve on the effectiveness and safety of their command and control systems.
Dr. Devin Hagerty goes further than this and suggests that the present nuclear status of India and Pakistan could serve as a possible model for the older nuclear states. He notes that the current non-alert status of the nuclear weapons capabilityof India and Pakistan places these two South Asian countries ahead of the other five nuclear powers in terms of larger margins of safety, command and control. Establishing a non-alert status for all nuclear states globally is a very worthy goal.
Australia has more to gain by focussing on short term measures which we can initiate to build confidence in the region than worrying about alternative security scenarios in the long run. A useful aid to policy formation in this area might be to reviw the debate about security on the Korean peninsular - arguably one of the most volatile security areas in the world. A recent interchange between security specialists working on the Korean situation pointed to the inadequacy of the old carrot and stick interpretation of nuclear non-proliferation (4). If Australia insists on adhering to a non-proliferation position, we should ask how we can shift the parameters of this concept to make them more meaningful and less coercive than they have been in the past. Above all, we need to ensure that "non-proliferation" is no longer associated with the self-interested priorities of the nuclear haves (5).
7 Need for Federal Government
funding support to Australian research
institutes and think tanks with expertise on South Asia.
As we note at the start of this submission, the nuclear detonations by India and Pakistan in May this year have caughtall of us by surprise. There had been the general view that the end of the cold war between the USA and the USSR shifted national concerns away from security and strategic issues to economic agendas and that the "real war" was for mastery of the world economy. Thus the bulk of Australian and international scholarship has been ill prepared to engage in a detailed review of the security implications of the nuclear explosions in South Asia.
More importantly, our capacity to react quickly to the needs of your committee are seriouly constrained by a range of funding difficulties which has seen, amongst other things, a decline in:
- funding to the key South Asia research centres in Australia
during the last 2-3 years;
- South Asian expertise in Australia and the absence of
new appointments to academic and research positions;
- funding for conferences, seminars and workshops on South Asia
These constraints were recently taken up by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade in their report Australia's Trade Relationship with India, June 1998.
Recommendation 6 states
"The Australian Government provides sufficient direct and indirect funding to ensure the continued viability of the specialised research centres that focus on India, South Asia and the Indian Ocean region"
and Recommendation 34 states
"The Australian Government provide sustained support for existing South Asia and Indian Ocean focussed research centres by outsourcing research requirements to them.....".
Our current difficulty in adequately responding to your enquiries adds substance to these recommendations.
Notes
1. See for example Vicziany, Marika 1997, 'Regionalism, Subregionalism and APEC: The Case of India" in John Ingleson (ed.), Regionalism, Subregionalism and APEC, Melbourne, Monash Asia Institute, 188-207 and Vicziany Marika 1996, "Whither India", in Roger Bell et al (eds.), Negotiating the Pacific Century: the 'new' Asia, the United States and George Allen &Unwin, Sydney, pp. 129-159.
2. John McKay, Marika Vicziany and John Ingleson, "APEC and east Asia: What does it mean for India?", forthcoming November 1998, New Delhi, Centre for Policy Research. The paper presented in November was revised in May this year.
3. Newt Gingrich and Henry Kissinger, for instance. Mr. Henry Kissinger noted that India had reasonable concerns about China, that sanctions against India were "probably a mistake" and "he warned against the dangers of a long period of confrontation between India and the US": quoted by Ramesh Chandran, The Times of India, Wednesday 20 May 1998. It should also be noted that the US position on Indiais far more complex thanAustralia appears to appreciate: see Vanessa Ralte, "US-India Relations and the Economic Sanctions after the Bomb", forthcoming dissertation, Economics Department, Monash University, October 1998.
4. See "Northeast Asia Peace and Security Network, Special Report, Policy Forum Online 1997-1998", especially paper by Moon Chung-in and Kim Myong Chol & Pak Chol Gu.
5. See forthcoming paper by Marika Vicziany and John McKay on "The concept of nuclear non-proliferation: a comparison of the Korean peninsular and South Asia".
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