India, Pakistan, Nukes and US Policy

Last week, this writer had the immense privilege of presenting at the annual Project on Nuclear Issues Conference in DC, organized by CSIS. My presentation there was on US leadership in addressing nuclear proliferation challenges in South Asia.

Of course, the US should care about Indo-Pakistani relations. Not only is India a robust and quickly-growing world economy that engages in large-scale daily trade with the US, and not only do we need the help of Pakistan in our ongoing counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan and the Northwest Frontier Province, but we have additional strategic concerns in the region with regard to the growing power of China, concerning humanitarian and aid relief efforts, and as a part of our overall diplomatic overtures to the Islamic world.

But the US -- and indeed the international community -- has even more reason to cool tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi, owing to the nuclear presence in both countries' defense strategies.

Regardless of why India and Pakistan have pursued acquisition of the bomb, the fact is that both have it and, from each country's perspective, have plenty of reason to use it against the other. But this is exactly what must not happen. In a recent article, I referenced the effects a hypothetical limited regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan would have on the subcontinent and indeed on the world. The scientists who carried out this study had worked with Carl Sagan in the 1980s on the idea of nuclear winter, and the conclusions they drew from their analysis is absolutely chilling.

Both India and Pakistan (though not the only ones) are not party to the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and there are certain measures the US can take -- some symbolic, some actionable -- to lead by example and encourage both nations to understand better their priorities and interests in the context of changing circumstances and new global challenges.

One thing the US can do is keep the momentum of this week's Nuclear Security Summit going by hosting roundtable talks with India and Pakistan -- and perhaps even with other invested countries. Though it wasn't substantial, it certainly does count for something that at the Summit, Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani shook hands. PM Gilani later reported that PM Singh had accepted his invitation to visit Islamabad in the near future.

In the meantime, however, peace talks between the two countries -- which have been protracted over long-standing issues like Kashmir -- have completely stalled in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. The Indian government wants Pakistan to take a harder line against terrorist cells like Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the 26/11 attacks and widely believed to be receiving clandestine support and funding from the ISI, Pakistan's equivalent of the American CIA. Pakistan, for its part, officially denounces such claims and says that it too faces the same types of terrorist threats, and so asserts that the two countries should be working closely together on addressing mutual security concerns. The US, having a sustained interest in the region and relatively good ties with both countries, should mediate roundtable talks to address those mutual concerns.

Another thing the US can do is to continue bilateral work separately with each country to advance President Obama's goal of securing all loose fissile material worldwide within four years. Such measures would include stopping the production of all fissile material (a particular challenge for Pakistan), which may include a formal fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT). In addition, the Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation deal, agreed in 2005 and then signed and ratified in 2007-2008, should not become a template to be applied to other states -- especially Pakistan, who called just two weeks ago for precisely that.

Finally, the US Senate should ratify the CTBT as more of a symbolic gesture. At the very least, it wouldn't hurt.

There are additional measures the US can take, but those are more in the category of sweeping regime reform, which can be the topic of another article sometime soon.

The bottom line: if the US wants to maintain and strengthen nuclear security, and protect not only its borders but those of its allies and partners worldwide, it needs to bring India and Pakistan into the fold by leading the way.