Tag Archives: Switzerland

Nuclear Monopolies

15 Sat Jun 2013

Posted by in India, Nuclear, South Asia

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The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) held its 2013 plenary meeting in Prague last week. Little of what transpired at the meet has trickled out, but it is known that Britain lobbied strongly for India’s membership into the exclusive nuclear club. After the meetings, a brief statement was issued that said that “only the NSG’s relationship with India was discussed.” An earlier meeting in March this year revealed that though four of the five Non-Proliferation Treaty sanctioned nuclear powers – France, Russia, Britain, and the United States – supported India’s membership, the proposal was opposed by China and a few other countries (most likely Austria, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand).

The NSG was established in the immediate aftermath of India’s 1974 “peaceful nuclear explosion” at Pokhran. From an initial seven members in 1975, the group today has 47 members that are all part of the nuclear cycle, be it ore, technology, or even important shipping hubs. The secretive body works on consensus, and its rulings are not legally binding but serve as guidelines to coordinate and regulate nuclear commerce between states.

Despite the Pokhran impetus behind the creation of the NSG, the Indo-US nuclear deal supported strongly by George W Bush brought about a thaw in civilian nuclear relations with India. The United States was able to arm-twist the few hesitant Participating Governments (PG) of the NSG into giving India a waiver for its non-NPT status. Yet this was only a quick fix – in the long-run, US pressure upon the NSG regarding India brought to the fore related tensions within the group over enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) and China.

India has publicly downplayed its interest in joining the NSG and other technology denying regimes such as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Zangger Committee, and the Wassenaar Arrangement. Nonetheless, its apparent nonchalance should not be misread: if anything, Delhi is extremely eager to have a seat at the “Big Boys’ Table.” Some analysts perceive this, quite narrow-mindedly, as a matter of prestige. However, these memberships are important to India as they provide a better platform from which to voice India’s views on nuclear commerce and non-proliferation and thereby protect its own nuclear establishment.

The NSG’s India Quandary

India critics are quite right in their warning that India does not see eye-to-eye with the NSG and the body’s opening its doors to the South Asian country will dilute its mission. Had anyone paid attention, this would have been obvious from the mid-1960s at the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) negotiations over the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and at every opportunity to discuss nuclear issues since. The PGs must decide whether the nuclear status quo serves the world’s best interests (and risk being made irrelevant) or allow changes to reflect the realities which they had been in a position to ignore 40 years ago.

By allowing India into the NSG, the group also risks looking hypocritical, at least on paper, and losing credibility with trouble spots like Pakistan, Iran, and a slew of countries newly interested in nuclear power (29 according to the International Atomic Energy Agency). China has already not-so-obliquely hinted, however debatably, at the double standards exhibited by the group regarding India and Pakistan, and used the Indo-US nuclear deal as an excuse to make further sales to Pakistan under the, again debatable, pretext of ‘grandfathering’ its sales into a previous bilateral treaty between the two states.

However, by not letting in India, the NSG might be hastening its own demise – as India’s economy grows so will its nuclear energy sector. Increased confidence in designing, building, and running nuclear reactors will inevitably lead to India eventually becoming a nuclear exporter – it is already among the leading countries in fast breeder and thorium reactor research. At this point, Delhi will have little to hold it back from establishing its own criteria for safe nuclear commerce outside the scope of the NSG. Every country pursuing nuclear power has its own strategic equation, and if an Indian-led export regime is perceived as less intrusive and insulting to national sovereignty while offering similar benefits, the NSG may have few bargaining chips to use with India.

The View From Delhi

India’s dealings with the NSG have revealed two anti-India blocs – a small group of nations whose opposition is on ideological grounds, and China. The first group’s idealism prohibits it from accepting the sort of exceptions the NSG would have to make to allow India to become a member. This group also opposed the India-specific waiver in 2008 and would have voted against it had it not been for “tremendous pressure” exerted upon them by the White House.

India can, and has in the past, use persuasive diplomacy with the group of European states (and New Zealand) to convince them of the merit of India’s case. India can also count on the countries that have the most to gain from India’s unrestricted entry into the nuclear market to also speak on its behalf to these states. Though not easy, Delhi can probably persuade these states not to block its membership if not support it.

The bigger hindrance for Delhi is Beijing. Not only has China flouted NSG guidelines in its dealings with Pakistan, but it is also the main obstacle to India in several international fora including the NSG and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Strategists in Delhi must rue the day Jawaharlal Nehru refused a permanent seat on the UNSC (the US offered to support India’s bid in 1952 and again in 1955) in favour of China. If India expects its northeastern neighbour’s behaviour to change, it will have to wait long. These memberships amplify India’s voice on the world stage; they are diplomatic force multipliers that once given, cannot be taken back or negated. Beijing might be willing to make small and temporary concessions on the border and on its support to anti-India forces in the region but it will never accede to a place at the table for Delhi.

There is little doubt that China is using its clout to squeeze benefits out of the group for its protégé and several PGs accept the logic equating an unstable and nuclear black-marketeering Pakistan to India. Not only has Chashma 3 and 4 been grandfathered in soon after the announcement of the Indo-US nuclear deal, a new deal for two more reactors has been struck between China and Pakistan. Worse, the NSG has been unwilling (and unable) to take Beijing to task for its violations.

India’s Way Forward

There is little hope for India with regard to the NSG (or UNSC) while it faces what is practically a veto from China; the organisational structures of these groups do not allow for much room to manoeuvre. However, India can lobby the other members of the NSG hard and enter into bilateral deals with them as it tries to block Pakistan’s way up that same path. India’s booming economy and energy needs are an enticing carrot if deployed well, and few countries would be able to resist such an offer in an era of global economic slowdown.

India also needs to develop good relations with states not in the NSG that have significant nuclear activities, particularly Namibia, Niger, and Morocco, who are all major suppliers of uranium ore concentrates. The IAEA lists 72 countries with significant nuclear activity of which 47 are members of the NSG. The remaining 25 represent a market India can create, nurture, and develop outside the ambit of NSG restrictions. This is not to say that India should not insist upon IAEA safeguards; on the contrary, it should. However, India can write its own rules beyond IAEA protocols.

In all honesty, this is too bold a step for India’s nuclear establishment that struggles even to construct a reactor on time without finding substandard parts or accusations of incompetence. In addition, India’s political masters have never exhibited the mettle or vision required to work around such a diplomatic impasse. The threat of the evolution of an alternate nuclear control regime is the surest way to force members of the NSG to consider India’s views and membership, but the real question is if Delhi has the stomach for a long drawn out and demanding game of nuclear chess. My guess is no.

Grappling with Thanatos

17 Mon Dec 2012

Posted by in Opinion and Response, United States

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The recent tragedy in Connecticut in the United States that left twenty children and seven adults dead has numbed people worldwide at the senseless violence. Adam Lanza, the 20-year old gunman who unleashed this horror, first murdered his mother at their residence and then went to her school and killed 26 other people, mostly children below the age of seven.

Not surprisingly, familiar arguments in favour of and against gun control are being heard. Unfortunately, the anguish, anger, and frustration of the moment has left the debate with much noise and little sound. While some advocate a complete ban on guns, moderate voices in favour of gun control are pushing for stricter licensing. The other side is still relying on the liberty argument or clichés like, “guns don’t kill people – people do.” As gun control advocates point to statistics showing decreased gun violence in states with stricter gun control laws, gun advocates point to Switzerland and Israel as examples of countries with exemplary records on gun violence despite being saturated with automatic weapons.

Undeniably, both sides have merit, but both sides also miss the forest for the trees. The debate ought not be whether owning guns should be legal or not, but how well one’s society can reproduce the results of communities with few instances of gun violence, with or without guns – and the matter is not as simple as licensing or calibre. Furthermore, while the liberal principle is a good guideline in framing laws, ideology must also take into account socio-economic and political realities and not be hidebound to arcane musings. Blindly comparing the United States to other countries such as Switzerland, Israel, or Japan, or unthinkingly importing US laws to India (the Gurdeep Singh Chaddha, the two parantha shootouts, and the Gurgaon hospital incidents within the span of a month clearly indicates that this is not a US-only debate).

Gun data

Comparing gun data from five different countries reveals an interesting perspective. Switzerland, which gun advocates have long touted as an example of how guns do not necessarily result in violence, has a very low incidence of gun homicides, but so does Japan, where gun ownership is almost nil. Israel, often touted as a gun-toting paradise, has surprisingly low gun ownership for its reputation and a middling rate of gun violence than the low rate commonly advertised. The United States, on the other hand, with the highest gun ownership in the world, is outdone only by the states of the South and Central Americas, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. Although this comparison would undoubtedly be bolstered by a thorough comparison of all countries, it nevertheless yields some food for thought.

In India, while the official gun ownership rate is a fairly low 3.36 per 100, the rate of illicit gun ownership is estimated to be around 2.83. Not surprisingly, despite having far less gun crime per capita in comparison to the United States, India is shown in a poorer light when gun crime is weighted with gun ownership – 40 million guns in India kill 4,100 people while 270 million guns in the United States cause 9,500 fatalities.

Between the United States and India, and Switzerland and Japan, gun advocates would be happy to note that the ownership and licensing of guns does not seem to bear a strong correlation to gun crime. If guns and licensing are not a primary variable in gun crime, it leaves the other variable – people.

Well-beingComparing the same five countries, we notice that the states with the lowest Gini coefficient are also the ones with the lowest gun crime. However, before one rushes to embrace a Rawlsian world order, it would be prudent to note that the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Quality of Life Index shows that the overall quality of life remains high in the United States despite the high gun violence. India, on the other hand, has a better Gini coefficient than the US but a lower QLI score; yet as we noticed earlier, though India’s gun violence seems low per capita, it is higher per gun ownership.

This preliminary look at some data from five countries indicates that generic solutions based either on another country’s experience or on committed ideology will not work. A case-specific approach is required, for the evolution of one nation’s ethos towards guns, liberty, violence, death, and community vary from another – not all countries can be made to fit in the Swiss or Japanese mould.

One thing that we do find in common between Japan and Switzerland, however, is the presence of strong communitarian values. While Switzerland is organised into approximately 2,500 communes and has a very weak federal government, Japan is far more centralised but its citizens, nevertheless, place a high premium on community. This is certainly not to say that the state should dictate community values – in fact, Friedrich Hayek’s notion of spontaneous social order comes to mind. The famous economist from the Austrian School argued that spontaneous order emerges in the social as well as the economic realm out of self-interested individuals coming together and is preferable to an imposed hierarchical structure. People would bond around families, religious customs, interest clubs, professional guilds, and other formations. This builds relationships with other people in the neighbourhood, in schools, and in offices. These would be the people one plays frisbee with on the weekend, goes to veena class together, or observe Rosh Hashanah with.

A cursory glance reveals that communities with such bonds are more stable. In the name of freeing the individual from coercive clerical systems and the arbitrary justice of feudal lords, societies are embracing a more extreme and narcissistic individualism that is just as untenable. Whether one blames the internet or the X-Box for turning us into islands despite John Donne’s warning (Meditation XVII), it is difficult to deny that our communities are sick. What ails us is a matter of debate, and what to do about it could be a bigger debate. What has been presented above is merely to make people think more about the assumptions they make on an issue that will claim more lives if we get stuck in our ideological ruts.

While Switzerland and Japan may rely on their strong communitarianism to protect them from escalating gun violence, it must be noted that Indians too have a strong sense of community – the raucous celebration of various festivals should be proof of that. However, India has had its own troubles with gun violence. A shocking 45.7% of India’s guns are illegal, some of them even homemade. One reason could be the utter failure of state institutions to maintain law and order, and a judiciary not free from political influence. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index put India at 94 out of 176 countries in 2012 (the US is ranked 19, Israel 39, Japan 17, and Switzerland 6); at least 62% of Indians reported paying a bribe; conviction rates, though not an indicator in and of themselves, are fairly low, and 120 of India’s 523 parliamentarians have criminal records, and there is no need to repeat the corruption scandals that have been revealed in just this term of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

What remains consistent across the small sample is that communities in trouble are more prone to violence than stable ones. Whether the instability comes from a breakdown of the state apparatus or from the dissipation of social bonds between the individual and the community, it is bound to manifest itself in social disorders such as dishonesty, crime and suicide. Humans are social animals, and anomie, as Jean-Marie Guyau (or Émile Durkheim) would have called it, weakens the social fabric. This is not an argument for homogeneous little units, with few potential faultlines of race, religion, or some other socially constructed yardstick of difference – Sweden, for example, had 138 gun deaths in 2008, of which only 14 were homicides, one unintentional gun death, and 121 suicides. Gun ownership in Sweden is significantly higher than in Israel, at 31.6 per 100.

Gun violence does not seem to be about laws nearly as much as it is about relationships – with oneself and with the community. Understandably, responsibilities must accompany rights, and gun control may have a role in some societies but not in others. More fundamental, however, is how we view each other. Gun ownership is not the problem, and neither is gun control – as Pogo said, many moons ago, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

I’d like to thank Harini Calamur for her comments on the rough draft.

This post appeared on Tehelka Blogs on December 19, 2012.