24 March 2000
Indian Professor Calls India/Pakistan Confrontation Dangerous
(Professor Sumit Ganguly testifies before Senate) (1000) By Jim Fisher-Thompson Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- International relations expert Sumit Ganguly told Congress March 23 that contrary to Indian government pronouncements downplaying the danger of the Indo/Pakistani Kashmir crisis, the confrontation could escalate a smoldering ground conflict over disputed territory into nuclear war since both nations now have nuclear weapons and are developing delivery systems. Ganguly, an American of Indian descent who is a professor of international relations at Hunter College in New York and visiting fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he disagreed with the recent statement by Indian President Kircheril Raman Narayanan that warnings by world leaders like President Bill Clinton about the growing danger of the India/Pakistan confrontation were "alarmist." Rather, Ganguly said, "I would like to underscore that there is a real danger of war in South Asia with the accompanying danger of escalation to nuclear war." He told Chairman Richard Lugar, whose Committee was looking into "India and Pakistan: The Future of Nonproliferation Policy" that "a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would amount to an unparalleled human catastrophe. It would also dramatically undermine the post-Hiroshima nuclear taboo with far-reaching consequences for the international system." Ganguly told the Senators that "the spiraling of the Indian and Pakistani weapons programs cannot be arrested without forthrightly addressing the Kashmir problem. Since the outbreak of an ethno-religious insurgency there in December 1989, this putatively 'low intensity' conflict has consumed more lives than all the Indo-Pakistani wars and crises combined." The Indian professor added that "breaking the (Kashmir) deadlock will require an imaginative and bold shift in American (nonproliferation) strategy." Asked by Chairman Lugar who should do "the heavy lifting" in bringing about a resolution to the Kashmir conflict, Ganguly noted that unfortunately American mediation in the Kashmir issue is problematic because of the in-bred distrust Indian policymakers have of the United States. "Lowering the temperature" in Kashmir is essential to defusing a potential nuclear confrontation, Ganguly told the lawmakers, but old Cold War attitudes toward the United States in New Delhi will make U.S. diplomatic intervention difficult. Because of the Cold War and India's ties with the Soviet Union, "Indians do not believe the United States can be an honest broker" in the Indian/Pakistan crisis. Turning to non-proliferation policies, Ganguly said that after India and Pakistan "crossed the nuclear Rubicon" by testing their nuclear weapons, the U.S. policy of trying to roll back their nuclear and ballistic missile programs had not met with success. "Both sides have refused since 1998 to even countenance giving up their nuclear options," he said, and "they have little or no incentive to behave differently." Discounting as useful, economic sanctions brought against India and Pakistan to stop their nuclear weapons proliferation, Ganguly told the Committee that "it is most unlikely that further American economic pressures and political hectoring will lead to the abandonment of nuclear weapons." At the same time, another U.S. nonproliferation device -- export controls on technology to India -- has had the opposite effect, he pointed out. It might have some effect in a less technologically developed state but Indians just say "fine, we will now manufacture these things on our own ... and we will not be dependent on the international community and the United States." For Ganguly, the preferred policy for defusing the nuclear threat to the region is "to urge India and Pakistan to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). In this regard, the Senate's ratification of the treaty would significantly enhance the ability of American interlocutors as they seek Indian and Pakistani accession to the treaty." He added, however, "the goal of obtaining Indian and Pakistani signatures on the CTBT must realistically be tied to some viable incentives. Toward this end, the United States should offer to lift a swath of sanctions against both countries as a quid pro quo for their adherence to the CTBT's expectations." Fred Ikle, former director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and now a senior fellow at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS), who also appeared before the Senate Committee, agreed with Ganguly that export controls on technology as a nonproliferation device. "By now we should have discovered that a nation with some scientific and industrial capability that is determined to build nuclear weapons can be delayed with export controls and secrecy but it cannot be prevented from eventually acquiring nuclear bombs." He added, however, that economic sanctions were a different matter. Acknowledging that "by and large, economic sanctions have not been effective in dissuading nations from going nuclear," Ikle said they would be more effective "if all the leading democracies were willing to maintain a credible threat of universal economic sanctions, such a deterrent might be persuasive in some cases; Libya comes to mind." Ikle placed more hope in the "Nunn-Lugar-Dominici program," a cooperative thread reduction effort that "enlists U.S. diplomacy and economic assistance to coax, urge and help governments better to control the dangerous weapons materials and bombs that they have accumulated," he explained. Terming Nunn-Lugar-Domenici an outstanding effort at "constructive engagement," the former official said, "I can think of no greater accomplishment in the recent era in behalf of non-proliferation than this program." Ikle did not have much faith in the power of treaties to curb proliferation, noting that "it is easier and nicer to have a treaty signing ceremony than a military action," but he said a way must be found to respond to violators that "will not aggravate the problem." The former arms control official told the lawmakers that "we need to impose penalties that will help to deter the next proliferator in the queue. If possible, we should also give assurances to those threatened by the new proliferation to dissuade them from doing what Pakistan did in response to India's weapons tests. But whatever measures we take, we should not send gifts each time a regime violates nonproliferation agreements." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)
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