by CKR
"Implementation of the India-United States Joint Statement of July 18, 2005: India's Separation Plan" is now available, as I posted in WhirledView Choice last week. It’s been relegated to the wonkish, with not much analysis in the MSM, which concentrated on the broad outlines announced during President Bush’s trip to India.
Not that those broad outlines are unimportant: nuclear trade with a nation not party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and India retains the right to make as much fissionable material for weapons as it can in six reactors. Basically, India gets all the rights of an NPT nuclear weapon state, plus a bit more.
I can’t resist a close reading of the official documents, though, because of an ongoing conviction that sometimes important things can be found in the details and between the lines.
Between the lines, it appears that the Bush administration is weighing India’s potential competition for petroleum heavily. India’s energy needs are mentioned frequently in administration materials (State Department Fact Sheet, White House Fact Sheet). It may be that the administration is calculating that the development of nuclear energy, with whatever attendant mistakes, like their War on Terror, is better done there than here.
India, on the other hand, is quite open about its uniqueness.
Uranium is a fairly common element in the earth’s crust, but geology played some interesting games, shortchanging Russia and India in its distribution. As the development of nuclear energy proceeded under the Soviet Union, the republics outside Russia were made to contribute their uranium. This has resulted in enormous environmental problems in Estonia (now nearly cleaned up), Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.
India has a potential alternative to uranium in its thorium reserves. Just as uranium-238 can be “bred” into plutonium-239, thorium-232 can be “bred” into uranium-233, which can be used for civilian reactors and for bombs. However, this would mean designing an entirely new fuel cycle, for which India has not had the resources and other countries have had little interest. So India acquired uranium-fueled reactors from the United States and Canada and made electrical power and nuclear weapons from them.
India also has little indigenous petroleum. So it needs uranium fuel for both electrical power and nuclear weapons. Being able to buy fuel for the fourteen safeguarded reactors will free up uranium for weapons-making. There is currently a small fad in the United States for thorium-fed reactor design, in the hope that it might be more proliferation resistant. Here’s an example (pdf) of that kind of thing. (An ironic note for those who don’t care to click on the link: the authors are from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.) It would be beneficial to India to be able to participate more fully in that development.
The various justifications, in the Indian press and in the official documents, contain a great deal of careful wordsmithing. For an example from history, India’s first nuclear test, in 1974, was said to be a “peaceful” test. This designation was not without some justification, because the United States and the Soviet Union at that time were considering using nuclear weapons for large-scale engineering projects, say the digging of another Panama Canal. The Soviets even constructed Lake Balapan at the Semipalatinsk test site, now in Kazakhstan, with a single enormous shot. The water is still too radioactive to drink, but it’s safe enough to visit. (Photo: CKR)
However, Pakistan, China, and others took the real meaning of that “peaceful” test: India has nuclear weapons; don’t mess with India.
The wordsmithing continues. “The Joint Statement of July 18, 2005, recognized that India is ready to assume the same responsibilities and practices as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, such as the United States.” The italicized words designate India as a nuclear weapon state outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. This designation is the center of a delicate dance.
It is highly desirable that the three nuclear weapon states outside the NPT be brought under similar controls, including limiting the production of fissile material for weapons and safeguards at their nuclear facilities. The NPT defines nuclear weapon states as those that have “manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to January 1, 1967.” India first tested in 1974. Therefore, without a time machine, it can never be brought into the NPT as a nuclear weapon state. However, India will not give up its nuclear weapons. It’s intriguing to envision how the United States might have attempted to motivate such an action, but that’s a subject for another post.
What did India want out of the deal? Trade in nuclear reactors, not only with the US, but with the rest of the world as well. Russia and France will be happy to take up that trade, Russia even before the deal with the US is approved by Congress. Russia will also supply petroleum.
India also wants to be able to expand its nuclear arsenal without limit, and the agreement allows for that. This is an anomaly among the nuclear weapon states. The United States, Russia, England, France, and China have all stopped producing fissionable material for weapons, although China has not made that official. Russia and the United States are taking nuclear weapons out of their arsenals. In the agreement, India states its willingness “to work with the United States for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.” This should in no way interfere with India’s development of a nuclear arsenal, however. The United States refused last fall to negotiate a fissile material cutoff treaty on the grounds that it would not be verifiable.
The agreement also says nothing about India’s joining the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, although it agrees to continue a moratorium on testing. This is not surprising, since the Bush administration also feels that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is not in its interests, although they do continue to fund the CTBT Organization.
India also wants to become a full partner in ITER, the international project to develop fusion energy for civilian power. The Implementation Plan is fuzzy on this: the first paragraph says that India “has become a full partner in ITER,” while one of the US undertakings in paragraph 2 is “To consult with its partners to consider India’s participation in ITER.” The ITER site lists India as providing a “participant team.”
Paragraphs 6 through 11 lay out the basis for India’s separation plan. They consist largely of special pleading that is irrelevant to the separation. Paragraph 6 notes that India’s nuclear program did not begin with a dedicated military program, as did those of the NPT nuclear weapon states. The cynical might note the reason was that it was more convenient for India to acquire civilian nuclear power from those states and divert it, in contravention of its agreements, to military uses. Separation of facilities will be decided solely by India, as will be the timetable.
Paragraph 7 describes an Indian nuclear program very similar to those of the NPT nuclear weapon states. No real uniqueness here, except for degrees of success and details of the types of facilities built.
Paragraph 8 allows for both military and civilian reactors to contribute to electrical power generation. This may be necessary for continued provision of electrical power by existing reactors (although paragraph 9 indicates that all of India’s reactors contribute only 2.8% of total electrical production), but it probably should not continue into the future.
The Soviet Union also mixed military and civilian reactors in their power grid, which has made it difficult to discontinue plutonium production in Russia, because the production reactors supply electricity, hot water, and space heating to the surrounding communities. Shutting down the reactors means shutting down people’s homes.
The United States has, for the most part, kept military production of fissionable material separate from civilian energy production. Recently, however, because its stocks of tritium were running low, the NRC okayed the production of tritium in TVA reactors. This decision was not without controversy (see here and here). Interestingly, this is all I can find that is anything like up to date.
Paragraphs 9 and 10 argue that the small numbers and size of the Indian reactors must be considered in the separation plan. If anything, small numbers and size argue that the Indian reactors should be under safeguards. Paragraph 11 argues that the size of India’s nuclear program is relevant. The bottom line is the amounts of fissile material and the numbers of nuclear weapons the plan allows India to produce.
The principles enunciated in paragraphs 12 and 13 are quite empty of objective criteria: India, and India alone, will decide what is good for its national security. Others have offered criticisms of the list in paragraph 14: fast breeders not included so that capacity to produce plutonium is fifty or so nuclear weapons per year; too long a timetable; India will decide on future reactors’ status.
India is roaring ahead as though Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group have already given their agreement. India and the Bush administration may just be able to generate the momentum to convince them that it’s a done deal and they must ratify it. But it’s not decided yet according to the WaPo and Time.
Many thanks to Jeffrey and Paul at Arms Control Wonk for links to some of the documents. Some of their relevant posts can be found here:
Indian Separation Plan
India Miscellany
India and Nuclear Facilities