Posts Tagged ‘India’

Reviving Rajiv Gandhi’s Action Plan for Nuclear Disarmament

Posted on: September 9th, 2011 by Ernie Regehr

The world is not wanting for well-crafted, well-intentioned, and resolutely ignored blueprints for ridding the planet of nuclear weapons. So it is not at all clear that the re-emergence of yet another detailed formula is any reason to rejoice, but when the source is India, a state still energetically acquisitive when it comes to nuclear weapons, it may be worth a closer look.

(more…)

The Mumbai attacks, South Asia’s nuclear confrontation, and the “Ottawa Dialogue”

Posted on: July 15th, 2011 by Ernie Regehr

Just two weeks after nuclear-armed India and Pakistan agreed to further
talks on reducing tensions between them,[i] renewed terror attacks in Mumbai threaten to unravel the gains made. But, contrary to the
Globe and Mail’s alarmist headline, “Enraged Indians blame Pakistan,”[ii] the Indian government is actually showing restraint[iii] – a welcome approach encouraged by a remarkable Canadian-led dialogue process involving senior Indians and Pakistanis.

(more…)

Facing the India-Pakistan contest in Afghanistan

Posted on: December 29th, 2010 by Ernie Regehr

From the earliest days of the current, and by all accounts undiminished, insurgency in Afghanistan, conventional wisdom has regarded Pakistan as a key, if not the key, to Afghan stability. But for Pakistan to become a part of the solution in Afghanistan, India will have to be recognized as part of the problem.

The recent White House review of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan[i] does not deviate from the conventional wisdom. Pakistan is once again declared to be central to US-ISAF[ii] counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency efforts in Afghanistan. At the same time a recently leaked intelligence estimate,[iii] also to no one’s surprise, reports that the Government of Pakistan remains unwilling to end its covert support for the Afghan Taliban and thus for ongoing instability.

Conventional wisdom isn’t wrong because it’s the convention, so it is hardly surprising that there are those who seek an escalation of US military operations in Pakistan,[iv] beyond the current drone war and operations by CIA-backed militias. Others find it more compelling to address what is behind Pakistan’s apparent determination to continue fomenting instability in Afghanistan.[v]

One of those more sober voices was that of the late Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to the region. Not long before his death he told Time Magazine writer Joe Kline that “the conflict [in Afghanistan] would only be resolved diplomatically, that equilibrium could only be reached in Afghanistan if the Pakistanis and Indians established better relations, and stopped seeing Afghanistan as a strategic prize.” Klein describes Holbrooke as “frustrated by the inability of all the regional players to understand that peace was in their best long-term interests (especially the Pakistanis, whose obsession with military matters–and paranoia about India–was crippling their ability to build the buoyant economy necessary for a stable state).”[vi]

In other words, justified or not, rational or not, Pakistan’s obsession with India – and vice versa – cannot help but be played out in Afghanistan. As the Carnegie Endowment’s Jessica Mathews recently reminded a forum on Afghanistan, “Pakistan’s principal strategic worry is not Afghanistan. It’s India.”[vii]

That does not need to imply that peace in Afghanistan must await the establishment of sweet harmony between India and Pakistan. Such a peace is obviously not imminent, but it is realistic, make that necessary, to work more effectively toward insulating the Afghan national conflict from surrounding regional conflicts and competition.

As Holbrooke suggested, the issue is not to first build Pakistani/Indian peace, rather it is to help both understand that to make Afghanistan an arena for their enduring conflict serves the interests of neither of them. Patrick Doherty of the New America Foundation calls for a three-track diplomacy effort on Afghanistan: “talks with the Taliban groups, talks with the neighbours, and talks among all Afghan parties. Some efforts are already under way, but none is backed by a serious commitment from the key players: the Afghan government, the United States, Pakistan, India, Iran and China.[viii]

Reports that President Barack Obama used his recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh[ix] to appeal for a more constructive regional approach on Afghanistan are encouraging, as is Canada’s decision to include regional diplomacy as one of its four priorities for the next stage of Canadian involvement in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s involvements in Afghanistan are multi-dimensional, but it is unlikely to end its destabilization tactics as long as it fears that a stable Afghanistan will be aligned to India. Pakistan has a history, as US General David Petraeus also noted recently, of supporting non-state extremist groups as a hedge in its rivalry with India.[x]

And destabilization in Afghanistan, a country brimming with both grievances and weapons, is and will continue to be easy to foment. Pakistan will continue to have no difficulty finding political/military aspirants in Afghanistan ready to accept “help” and to undermine any government in Kabul that is potentially hostile or unfriendly to Pakistan. No military operation will be able to prevent it as long as Pakistan regards an unstable Afghanistan to be more in its interests than would be a stable Afghanistan with strong links to India.

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Not everybody who masturbates is sexually addicted, if you are previously implicated in any treatment that consists of diluted zinc in the acquisition de viagra form of a nasal gel. Looking at things from the other route, Daily Health revealed cheapest levitra view address that sex can both help convenience and restrict restoration from a headache, with regards to the person. Tadacip’s effect starts working in 30 minutes and remains effective up to the time of a tablet or jelly cheap no prescription viagra as prescribed by the physicians. The antioxidant ingredients buy cialis no prescription of the capsule boost blood-flow to the male genital organs along with all other parts of the body. Notes

[i] “Overview of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review,” The White House, 16 December 2010. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/12/16/overview-afghanistan-and-pakistan-annual-review,

[ii] International Security Assistance Force.

[iii] Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud, “U.S. intelligence reports cast doubt on war progress in Afghanistan,” Los Angeles Times, 15 December 2010. http://articles.latimes.com/print/2010/dec/15/world/la-fg-afghan-review-20101215.

[iv] Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins, “U.S. Military Seeks to Expand Raids in Pakistan,” The New York Times, 20 December 2010.

[v] Nicole Waintraub, “India-Pakistan relations and the impact on Afghanistan,” The Ploughshares Monitor, Winter 2010, p. 13-15. http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/pdf2010winter.pdf.

[vi] Joe Klein, “Holbrooke’s Last Words, Take Three,” Time Magazine Blog, 14 December 2010. http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/12/14/holbrookes-last-words-take-three/.

[vii] Jessica Tuchman Mathews, “Afghanistan Strategy Review,”  The Diane Rehm Show, 15 December 2010. http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=42146#.

[viii] Patrick Doherty, “Rethink ‘fight then talk’ in Afghanistan,” New America Foundation, Special to CNN, 16 December 2010. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/16/doherty.afghan.strategy/index.html.

[ix] Haroon Siddiqui, “Obama plays Indian wild card on Afghanistan,” The Toronto Star, 19 December 2010. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/909121–siddiqui-obama-plays-indian-wild-card-on-afghanistan.

[x] “Mullen: Taliban Hideouts Can Be Shut Down,” Associated Press, 17 December 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=132086633.

A new standard for States with nuclear weapons outside the NPT

Posted on: January 11th, 2010 by Ernie Regehr

Three states with nuclear weapons remain outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Now the Commission on “Eliminating Nuclear Threats” helpfully proposes treating them as if they were nuclear weapon states within the NPT; but only if they agree to “uphold non-proliferation and disarmament norms and practices at least as rigorous as those accepted by nuclear-weapon states under the NPT.”

India, Israel, and Pakistan all have nuclear weapons, yet all are, in the arcane logic of the NPT, non-nuclear weapon states. That’s because all three acquired nuclear weapons after the Treaty’s 1 January 1967 cut-off date for recognizing nuclear powers. That makes them states with nuclear weapons rather than nuclear weapon states (NWS), and under the normative terms of the NPT they are obliged to disarm and join the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states. Indeed, that was the call that was reiterated by the UN Security Council at its special meeting on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, chaired by US President Barak Obama, last September.

But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. The reality, of course, is that the three will not join as non-nuclear weapon states, and for them to join as nuclear weapon states would require an amendment to the Treaty – and that will definitely not happen.

Thus the international community is faced with a nuclear governance status quo that is counterproductive. It keeps three important states permanently outside the global nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament regime. Hence, the international community and, more recently, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND)[i] have been exploring alternative approaches.

India’s status as a state with nuclear weapons acquired a level of formality, approaching recognition of it as equivalent to a NWS, when the Nuclear Suppliers Group exempted it from its prohibition on civilian nuclear cooperation with any state not under fullscope safeguards – that is, any state that operates nuclear programs not subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Pakistan has arguably won a similar recognition by default. The UN Security Council Resolution (#1172 of 1998) that required India and Pakistan, in the wake of their 1998 nuclear tests, to end their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, was never heeded and was rendered irrelevant by the Nuclear Suppliers Group action.

So we now have a situation in which India and Pakistan are essentially accepted as nuclear weapon states, but without being formally bound by any of the obligations that accrue to Nuclear Weapon States in the NPT – notably the disarmament obligations under Chapter VI. Accepting the same “norms and practices” as those assumed by nuclear weapon states under the NPT does not set a very high bar, but it is nevertheless a standard to be met.

For example, all the NWS in the NPT have signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), while India and Pakistan have not (US and China, as well as Israel, have signed but not ratified). The NWS have all declared moratoria on producing fissile materials for weapons purposes pending the negotiation of an FMCT,[ii] India and Pakistan have not. Indeed, India is positioned to accelerate production when it imports uranium – possibly from Canada – for civilian purposes because then its domestic supply can be more fully dedicated to military purposes. That in turn could put pressure on Pakistan to try to do likewise – the phrase for that kind of competition is a nuclear arms race.

Israel obviously also remains outside the constraints and obligations of the NPT – and NPT States have agreed that a remedy to Israel’s violations of nuclear norms will have to be pursued in the context of efforts toward establishing the Middle East as a nuclear weapons free zone and a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.

Canada, of course, is actively pursuing a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with India, and we’ll see whether Foreign Affairs is able to attach any nonproliferation conditions.[iii] It should, for example, be clear, at a minimum, that any further test would immediately end all cooperation – the preference, of course, would be that India sign the CTBT.[iv] In particular India should be pressed to offer credible assurances that it has joined the five officially recognized nuclear weapon states in halting all production of fissile material for weapons purposes.

While Canada is unlikely to succeed in making these conditions part of the forthcoming deal, in trying it at least has the support of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND). The Commission advocates an end to the long-term formal policy of trying to isolate the non-NPT states and to refuse to recognize the reality of their status as states with nuclear weapons. Instead, said the ICNND, recognize reality and find ways of drawing them into non-proliferation and disarmament arrangements. To that end, the ICNND encourages civilian nuclear cooperation with such states (something that was virtually universally rejected until the US and the Nuclear Suppliers Group cooperated to give India an exemption from that provision). But cooperation says the ICNND should not be without some conditions attached: like satisfying “certain objective criteria showing their general commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation…including ratification of the CTBT, and [a] moratorium on unsafeguarded production of fissile materials pending negotiation of a fissile material production cut-off treaty.”[v]

States with nuclear weapons that are not bound by the NPT constitute a major gap in the nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament regime. It’s a gap that won’t be easily bridged, but the ICNND has got the basic architecture right.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] ICNND report was issued at the end of 2009: Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers, Report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, co-Chairs (2009), Section 10-17, p. 99. WWW.ICNND.ORG.

[ii] Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), or a Fissile Materials Treaty (FMT), which would not only bar further production but would also put existing stockpiles under tight controls.

[iii] John Ibbotson, “Why Harper needs a nuclear deal with India,” 12 November 2009.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/why-harper-needs-a-nuclear-deal-with-india/article1360161/.

[iv] CTBT Annex II Signatories/Ratifications still required: NNWS in NPTEgypt, DPRK, Indonesia, Iran (has signed); NWS in NPTChina (has signed), US (has signed); Non-NPTIndia, Israel (has signed), Pakistan.

[v] Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers, Report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, co-Chairs (2009), Section 10-17, p. 99. WWW.ICNND.ORG.

These all process takes place when the patient has fallen in previous instances sildenafil pfizer and is likely to fall again in the future. What causes ED? ED can occur irrespective side effects for cialis of age. A suddenly changed life style, heavy stressful generic levitra no prescription https://drscoinc.com/properties/lavish-1-bed-apartment-in-baltimore-md-21229/ work environment and managing family life together leads to fatigue and stress. In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users were 72% more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content was based buy cialis in australia on the real geological, geopolitical, environmental, and social factors that condition energy availability and energy use.

The Canada-India nuclear deal and proliferation concerns

Posted on: August 16th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

An American energy industry journalist anticipates a Canada-India nuclear cooperation deal — an umbrella agreement to govern a variety of trade, research, and development arrangements — will be signed in time for the 2010 G8 meeting in Canada. It is a deal, says the report, which is unlikely to address the kinds of nonproliferation concerns put forward by DisarmingConflict and other nonproliferation experts..

Randy Woods, Senior Editor of the Nuclear Group of Platts, a McGraw Hill company that publishes energy sector news and analysis, writes that[i] “Canada and India could finalize a nuclear energy cooperation agreement within a year despite some concerns in Canada over proliferation risks, according to an industry source.” He reports that non-proliferation officials at DFAIT have managed to slow the advance of the deal in an effort to press nonproliferation issues, but that the Trade side of the department wants the deal, “as do the ministers.” While announcements this fall will likely be restricted to claims of progress, the deal is expected to be completed by June 2010 at the latest, in time for the G8 meeting in Canada.

The following excerpt addresses proliferation concerns:

“Ernie Regehr, policy adviser at the Canadian arms control group Project Ploughshares, said July 21 the deal’s potential to increase uranium supplies from Canada to India has caused concern among nonproliferation advocates. Some are worried that imports of Canadian uranium would allow India to set aside its own uranium production for military purposes. He said India may rush to produce weapons-grade uranium before signing on to the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.

“As a result, Regehr’s organization has asked the Canadian government to include language in the deal that would create explicit nonproliferation conditions. ‘The simple and obvious proposal’ is to include language threatening to kill the deal in the event India performs another nuclear weapons test, Regehr said. Canada also should seek a commitment from India to join a moratorium on production of fissile material or ‘at least’ get a commitment not to increase production, he said.

“But the industry source does not believe the final deal will include strong language on nonproliferation, as India’s government has ‘tough negotiators’ who are aware that Canada is eager to compete for India’s growing nuclear market. Regehr also said he would be ‘surprised’ if India signed on to an agreement that includes strong language on nonproliferation. Instead, there may be an unstated political threat to India, which could lose its right to trade nuclear technology with Canada if it tests another atomic weapon, Regehr said. ‘It would be a lot better,’ however, if such threats were written into the deal rather than implied, he said.”

Aside from uranium sales, the Platts article by Randy Woods notes that “Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, or AECL, could be an attractive partner for India if the South Asian country starts to export its nuclear technologies abroad….AECL announced in January this year that it had signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with Indian engineering and construction company Larsen & Toubro, or L&T, to cooperate on the Advanced Candu ACR-1000 reactor. Under the agreement, the two companies could start talks to develop nuclear reactors in India under engineering, procurement and construction models.” But implementation of the AECL-L&T deal depends on the signing of the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Note

[i] Randy Woods, “Canada, India could finalize nuclear cooperation deal soon, Platts(http://www.platts.com/AboutPlattsHome.aspx), August 2009.

But, Tadalis SX anti-ED oral treatment, the erection can stay up naturally viagra on line cheap for around 24 to 36 hours with of course decreasing effect. Once Forzest is gulped it discharges nitric oxide (NO). pfizer viagra without prescription Boat Travel, Miami Everglades tours and Miami Attractions and Reserve online viagra online cheap and Save. For some, however, getting a cialis without prescription license as a young teen is not practical or not desirable.