As India rejoices in its status as a nuclear power, countless non-proliferationists are shaking their heads in disbelief, unable to rationalize what just happened. While pragmatists across the world have simply taken this affront to NPT as a matter of course, there are others, particularly Left wing intellectuals, who will bemoan this moment forever. This article will explain why they are deluded, why they do what they do, why it is dangerous to do what they say and why no one will ever listen to them. Let us start by mentioning the fundamental cause of their mental disorder.
"Fanaticism for peace is as bad as fanaticism for War"
The non proliferationist argument runs as follows: The struggle to end the possibility of nuclear war is supposed to be fought on three fronts:
a. Preventing more nations from acquiring nuclear weapons: To be achieved by NPT
b. Preventing existing nuclear powers from perfecting and enhancing their nuclear capabilities: To be achieved by CTBT.
c. Preventing existing nuclear powers from expanding their arsenal: To be achieved by FMCT.
The inducement for any (non nuclear) nation to accept any of these conditions is that it will obtain ready access to nuclear technology for civilian energy purposes; this saves smaller nations the time and money required to develop such technology independently and perhaps makes the world a safer place.
1. As with most arguments and initiatives for global disarmament, the NPT (and also the CTBT and FMCT) looks good on paper and makes good sense in a perfect world. In this Utopian sense, India is not only an egregious offender, but also a vicious bully. It has refused to sign the NPT or the CTBT (the FMCT is not formally on the table yet), built its own nuclear weapons and has then used its new economic power and leverage with the US to get a "waiver" for itself, i.e. a formal declaration from the Nuclear Suppliers Group that there is one standard for India (and by extension, possibly for other US allies in the near future?) and one standard for the rest of the world.
The liberal Left has a pattern of severely upbraiding democratic nations like India or the US for the slightest breaches of what it perceives to be the "humanitarian standard". One defiant remark from President Bush draws more flak in the liberal press than a storm of hate speech from leaders in the Middle East and parts of Latin America. And while the Left continues to beat up America over increased airport security or a possible wiretap, Islamic nations openly practice double standards against non-Muslims, women, homosexuals and publicly stone people to death for blasphemy, apostasy or even witchcraft.
The real reason why the myriad inhuman acts of such dictators continue to fly under the radar of the Left intelligentsia is not a lack of information, nor a lack of judgement, but a mixture of cowardice and contempt. All other things remaining the same, India, England or America are comparatively safe places on earth for a person to criticize the administration and get away with it. That is where cowardice comes in. The second factor is the powerful desire to be seen as over and above the general standard of intellect. It is so much easier to condemn peaceful, democratic India over technicalities; than to engage with the dictators on the big injustices in Iran or Venezuela.
That, in brief, is the soft underbelly of the Left liberal establishment.
2. Now we come to the NPT in particular. The NPT (in its current form) recognizes only five "nuclear powers". It is unclear as to what are the principles that are used to distinguish "nuclear weapon states" from "non nuclear weapon" states, if indeed there are any.
Sovereignty for all nations and freedom for all people is fair. Who can rationally argue against it? The idea of NPT can be considered fair only if it respects the right of all nations to aspire to greater heights, or else it will serve little more than the aim of the powerful few in the mid-twentieth century to perpetuate their hegemony. If anything, the India specific waiver has given credibility to the global nuclear regime: it has created a model by which a nation can be "earn" its way to become a recognized nuclear power. It suggests that the NPT is based not on power; but on principles. If India, with its impeccable non-proliferation record, self adopted "no first use policy" and five thousand year long history of non-aggression does not make the cut, who will? To characterize our 1100 million strong democracy as incapable of handling the status of "responsible nuclear power" is patently ridiculous.
Disarmament enthusiasts and their Left wing cheerleaders should look elsewhere for enemies of peace: Iran, China, Syria and Pakistan might be good places to start.
The Oracle is convinced that the peace fanatics are needed elsewhere in the world. Recently, the New York Times reported that the US will transfer $32 billion worth of armaments to foreign governments in this fiscal year, compared to $12 billion in 2005; not to mention that the US already allows allies like Greece, Turkey and Italy to have "shared control" of roughly 180 US nuclear weapons stationed in Europe under the pretext of NATO arms sharing agreements. Special Russian jets carrying "dummy rockets" have landed in the backyard of the Venezuelan President. China is in the midst of transferring large caches of arms and money to the avowedly genocidal government of Sudan. It isn't a very congenial world and it doesn't help if the high priests of peace are wasting their energies on hypothetical nuclear holocausts started by India.
3. Finally, what about Iran? What about Pakistan? As explained before, the India specific waiver has actually given credibility to the non proliferation regime by creating principles which determine whether a given nation may qualify as a "recognized nuclear power".
The argument of non-proliferationists has been based on the deception that an India specific waiver opens the door to Iran, Pakistan and North Korea to be "rewarded" for "bad" behaviour. In fact, it is quite the opposite, since neither of these nations would currently qualify under the new principle that has just been established. The older regime, which suggested that one could muscle into the nuclear club with a push and shove, has encouraged the heroes of hate in Iran and Pakistan to press on with their agenda of destruction. The new principle shuts them out...completely. Again, this is not an indictment for the people of the respective nations but for their authoritarian government and, dare we say it, their violent culture.
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