Shivakantjha.org - This Strategic Partnership
This Strategic Partnership
(An Aspect of the 123 Agreement)
Part VI
By Shiva Kant Jha
THE Contracting parties under the 123 Agreement
are desirous of a strategic partnership between them. Art
2 of the Agreement refers to the possibility of a strategic reserve
of nuclear fuel.
First, it is worthwhile to examine what “strategic” means in
the context of the Indo-Nuclear Deal. Whilst it is possible to draw the import
of a word from its usage (we all know about the Strategic Arms Limitations Talk,
Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, Strategic Defense Initiative …), it is easier
to draw its import from the concept of ‘strategy' as commonly understood in
our days. The Encyclopedia Britannica explains it thus:
“….in warfare, the science or art of employing all the military,
economic, political, and other resources of a nation to achieve the objective
of war. This is the modern meaning reflecting the need for general military
and economic mobilization for warfare.”
The hegemonial America has two obvious strategic interests
in our times:
(i) to establish the supremacy of the economic realm on the
political realm facilitating the rule of Market (Pax Mercatus) in this phase
of Economic Globalization under which the corporations rule, and politics virtually
becomes the “shadow cast on society by big business”; and
(ii) to turn interventionist to establish wider and wider realm
of control on the globe, because “globalization of the world economy” is bound
to lead to a “widening economic divide' and “deepening economic stagnation,
political instability, and cultural alienation,” which are sure to cause unrest
and violence among the “have-nots” ‘much of it directed against the United States'”
The pursuit of the abovementioned aims lead to strategic partnership. The 123
Agreement establishes the US dominance through interventionist policies the
major component is the US commercial interests.” Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Prize
Winner for Literature, very aptly said:
“It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations,
international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant.
It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the
pathetic and supine Great Britain.”
On the face, the Indo-US Deal is a bilateral Agreement, but
a close analysis would reveal that, in effect, it is multilateral in many ways.
Art 2(1) of the 123 Agreement says: “…..Each Party shall implement this Agreement
in accordance with its respective applicable treaties, national laws, regulations,
and license requirements concerning the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
Art2 (2) illustrates the range of the ‘full civil nuclear energy cooperation',
permits, under clause (g) “Supply between the Parties, whether for use or for
the benefit of the Parties or third countries, of nuclear material.” Cl (h)
prescribes similar provisions as to ‘equipment'. Art 2(3) authorizes the nuclear
materials, information, equipments to be transferred through the territory of
the third countries. Art 4 which deals with ‘Nuclear Trade says in sub-Art (1):
“The Parties shall facilitate nuclear trade between themselves
in the mutual interests of their respective industry, utilities and consumers
and also, where appropriate, trade between third countries and either Party
of items obligated to the other Party…..”
Art 2(1): …..Each Party shall implement this Agreement in accordance
with its respective applicable treaties, national laws, regulations, and license
requirements concerning the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
Art2 (2) illustrates the range of the ‘full civil nuclear energy
cooperation', permits, under clause (g) “Supply between the Parties, whether
for use or for the benefit of the Parties or third countries, of nuclear material.”
Cl (h) prescribes similar provisions as to ‘equipment'. Art 2(3) authorizes
the nuclear materials, information, equipments to be transferred through the
territory of the third countries. Art 4 which deals with ‘Nuclear Trade says
in sub-Art (1):
“The Parties shall facilitate nuclear trade between themselves
in the mutual interests of their respective industry, utilities and consumers
and also, where appropriate, trade between third countries and either Party
of items obligated to the other Party…..”
The normal rule of public international law is, to quote George
Schwarzenberger,
“Treaties confer no legal rights and impose no legal duties
on non-parties”. The Vienna Convention on the law of Treaties, 1969 sets
out provisions pertaining to “Treaties and Third States”. Art. 34 says: “A treaty
does not create either obligations or rights for a third State without its consent.”
Article 2 (h) defines “third States”: meaning “ a State not a party to the
treaty. ” Lord McNair in his book on the Law and Treaties, [Oxford the
Clarendon Press, 1961 on pages 333] discusses the effect of a treaty upon the
nationals of third state. In this discussion examples have been given from such
treaties where the contracting parties had agreed to provide or create obligations
on third states to cooperate in the matter of extradition of figures. All this
is ensured by express terms of the treaty with the assent of the third states
or by necessary implications. On reading the 123 Agreement we do not know the
profile of the ‘third counties'. One recalls what Carl
von Clausewitz , said, of course in a different context:
"The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar
difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a
mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently — like the effect of a fog
or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance.
Are we forging ahead to form a strategic block more sinister
than the Alliances of all sorts crafted before the World War I and II?
“But this is only one aspect of a larger issue. This deal is a part of
an ongoing project to absorb India into the U.S. imperial sphere of influence
as a "strategic"
junior partner .” the Editor of the Analytical Monthly Review ,
(Summer 2007) said. And The Christian Science Monitor [ July 20, 2005 edition]
says:
“US plans to broaden India's access to nuclear technology,
announced this week during an enthusiastic visit to Washington by Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, have their roots in designs from the earliest days
of the Bush administration to build India's stature as a counterbalance to
a rising and problematic China…..But perhaps the greatest significance of
the plan is what it says about 21st- century geopolitics and in particular
about a Bush administration vision for dealing with China, some analysts say.”
Further it quotes Joseph Cirincione, head of the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
"The crux of this announcement is what it tells us about
the US grand strategy, and that behind whatever else is going on here the
US is preparing for a grand conflict with China and constructing an anti-China
coalition,"
And an opinion is expressed: “In that scenario, India is
even more valuable as a nuclear power, rather than as a non-nuclear country."
With India on the side of the USA, the latter's vulnerability to variables is
greatly reduced in any strategic engagement against h China, or the Islamic
World, or any other emerging formation in realpolitik of our fragile world.
A measure of credibility is lent to the apprehension by all that is happening
around us, which includes the scheduled Joint U.S. -Indian naval exercises
in the Bay of Bengal; and the tone and temper of the media build-up, and the
baroque antics of the wielders of the State-power. If such apprehensions
go wrong, none would be happier than this humble self. I would end this article
with the immortal words of Gandhari in which she blessed her son Duryodhana
before he took to the road of perdition: “ Yatoh Dharmahstatoh Jayah” (Where
dharma is, victory is surely there).”
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