By Zia Mian and M. V. Ramana

Wrong Ends, Means, And Needs: Behind the U.S. Nuclear Deal With

resident George W. Bush and Indian Prime inspection and safeguarding. Yet, as they consider the deal and ways to transform Minister issued a joint state- its broad framework into legal realities, po- litical elites in each country have ignored ment on July 18, 2005, laying the grounds for some crucial issues. P Policymakers in the have the resumption of U.S. and international nuclear aid to debated the wisdom of the deal.1 This debate has been rather narrow, confined India. Such international support was key to India de- to proliferation policy experts and a few interested members of Congress, and largely veloping its nuclear infrastructure and capabilities and focused on the lack of specific details with regard to the deal, the order of the various was essentially stopped after India’s 1974 nuclear weap- steps to be taken by the respective govern- ments, and the potential consequences for ons test. India’s subsequent refusal to give up its nuclear U.S. nonproliferation policy.2 The larger policy context of a long-standing effort to weapons and sign the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty co-opt India as a U.S. client and so sustain and strengthen U.S. power, especially with (NPT) has kept it largely outside the system of regulated regard to China, has gone unchallenged. There is also little recognition of how the transfer, trade, and monitoring of nuclear technology agreement could allow India to expand its ARMS CONTROL TODAY January/February 2006 that has been developed over the last three decades. nuclear arsenal. The deal has incited a wider and more intense debate in India on questions of na- The July agreement requires the United tion and trade with India.” In exchange, tional security, sovereignty, development, States to amend its own laws and policies India’s government would identify and and democracy. Some would like to see as on nuclear technology transfer and to work separate civilian nuclear facilities and pro- few constraints as possible on increasing the for changes in international controls on the grams from its nuclear weapons complex future capacity of India’s nuclear weapons supply of nuclear fuel and technology so as and volunteer these civilian facilities for complex, and others question the extent to to allow “full civil nuclear energy coopera- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which nuclear energy can help meet India’s

Zia Mian is a professor at the program on science and global security at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and M. V. Ramana is a faculty member at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development at the Institute for Social and Economic Change in Bangalore, India.

11 Alex Wong/Getty Images Wong/Getty Alex

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush’s three-day meeting in July produced a joint declaration between the United States and India establishing a global strategic partnership, which includes increased nuclear energy cooperation.

energy needs. Despite the many claims Still, U.S. hostility toward Communist “We must maintain the mechanisms for that the social, economic, and political China led to some extraordinary ideas deterring potential competitors from even well-being of the people of India will be about nuclear cooperation. In the wake aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”5 enhanced by this deal, there has been little of China’s first nuclear weapons test in In other words, the geopolitical order was attention paid to the issue of whether In- 1964, senior officials in the Department to be frozen as it then was, with the United dia needs nuclear weapons at all, the costly of State and the Pentagon considered States assured of maintaining its relative failures of the Indian nuclear energy enter- the possibilities of “providing nuclear superiority in the different regions of the prise, and the possible harm for the people weapons under U.S. custody” to India world. A key concern was China. of India from a continued expansion of the and preparing Indian forces to use them. The first dramatic change in Indo-U.S. nuclear complex. At the same time, the U.S. Atomic Energy relations came during a March 2000 visit Commission was considering helping by President Bill Clinton to India, less than Misplaced U.S. Goals India with “peaceful nuclear explosions,” two years after the 1998 nuclear tests. The The nuclear deal has to be seen in the which would involve the use of U.S. governing coalition then was dominated context of efforts over the last 50 years to nuclear devices under U.S. control be- by nationalist Bharatiya Janata incorporate India into U.S. strategy in Asia. ing exploded in India.4 These plans were Party (BJP), whose views are strongly anti- After the Chinese revolution, the United dropped amid growing fears of the conse- Communist, aggressively pro-nuclear weap- States came quickly to believe that newly quences of proliferation for U.S. military ons, and opposed to the more traditional independent India was the only potential and diplomatic power, and the United strategy of nonalignment. The joint state- regional power that could compete with States turned instead to preventing the ment issued by the two leaders declared China for dominance in Southeast Asia. further spread of nuclear weapons. that “India and the United States will be Despite repeated U.S. efforts to use eco- The end of the Cold War prompted a partners in peace, with a common interest nomic and military aid to promote this rethinking of strategic possibilities and a in and complementary responsibility for policy, India’s first prime minister, Jawaha- now infamous 1992 draft Defense Plan- ensuring regional and international secu- rlal Nehru, refused to have his country play ning Guidance prepared for then-Secretary rity. We will engage in regular consultations this role. He said that a free India would of Defense Dick Cheney, which declared on and work together for strategic stability not be a pawn for great powers, and warned that “[o]ur first objective is to prevent in Asia and beyond.” that this kind of alliance building by great the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a Further developing the idea of the United

ARMS CONTROL TODAY January/February 2006 January/February ARMS CONTROL TODAY powers was bad for international relations dominant consideration underlying the States and India as strategic partners in man- and could lead to war.3 new regional defense strategy.” It noted, aging regional and international security, the 12 “Next Steps in Strategic Partnership,” signed countries, containing about one in three program based on domestic resources and in January 2004, announced that the United people on the planet, many of whom are national technological capabilities would States would help India with its civilian space very poor, this will amount to a tragic continue to grow,” with the expected inter- programs, high-technology trade, missile distortion of values and priorities. national supply of nuclear fuel, technology, defense aid, and civilian nuclear activities. and reactors serving to “enhance nuclear The subsequent nuclear deal is but one of the An Errant Debate in India power production rapidly.” At the same building blocks promised in this larger ar- Although the nuclear deal has incited a time, he made it clear that “there is noth- rangement. The purpose of the 2004 accord limited policy debate in the United States, ing in the joint statement that amounts was made clear by a U.S. official who said the it has become a key concern in Indian do- to limiting or inhibiting our strategic “goal is to help India become a major world mestic politics and has elicited three broad nuclear weapons program.” As an assur- power in the 21st century.… We understand positions. First, there are the nuclear hawks ance that India would have the final say in fully the implications, including military who oppose the deal. They see the nuclear implementing the deal, the prime minister implications, of that statement.”6 energy and nuclear weapons programs as announced that, “before voluntarily plac- These implications became clearer one more or less integrated complex. They ing our civilian facilities under IAEA safe- with the U.S.-India Defense Relation- see the deal, particularly the proposed guards, we will ensure that all restrictions ship Agreement of June 28, 2005. The separation of civilian and nuclear facilities, on India have been lifted.” thinking behind this agreement was ex- as imposing constraints that would make A different source of opposition to the plained by Robert Blackwill, who served more difficult the creation of a large nuclear deal comes from India’s left-wing parties, in the first George W. Bush administra- arsenal, which they believe is essential for which otherwise support the Congress-led tion as U.S. ambassador to India and India to be a “great power.” The clearest ex- government. These parties have tradition- then as deputy national security adviser pression of this view has come from former ally supported the nuclear energy program, for strategic planning. In a rhetorical Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and but they opposed the 1998 nuclear weap- question, Blackwill asked, “Why should others in the BJP. ons test and have pressed for India to play the U.S. want to check India’s missile ca- Vajpayee has argued that “[s]eparating a larger role in global disarmament efforts pability in ways that could lead to Chi- the civilian from the military would be and to do more to reduce nuclear dangers na’s permanent nuclear dominance over very difficult, if not impossible.… It will in the region. Their greatest concern is democratic India?”7 Less than a month also deny us any flexibility in determin- that the deal ties India too closely to U.S. later, the nuclear deal was announced. ing the size of our nuclear deterrent.” The policies. India’s Communist Party leader, Recruiting India may help reduce the “flexibility” he desires is the ability to use Prabodh Panda, said in parliament that immediate costs to the United States of ex- what may be classified as civilian facilities the recently concluded agreements with ercising its military, political, and economic to increase the pace at which the nuclear Washington served to reduce India to a power to limit the growth of China as a weapons program could grow, as well as its “junior partner of the U.S. in fulfilling its possible rival. More generally, the United eventual size. Similar sentiments have also global ambitions.” As the first sign of India States sees Asia as central to global politics been voiced by some retired officials from surrendering its traditional nonalignment after the demise of the , and the nuclear complex. and role in representing the Third World, it needs strong regional clients there. The The second position is that of Singh they cite the Indian government’s surpris- search for allies and friends is all the more and many other leaders of the Congress ing vote for a U.S.-led resolution against important at a time when the United States Party, which heads the coalition currently Iran at the September 2005 IAEA Board of is isolated because of its invasion and oc- governing India. They see the deal as of- Governors meeting, something key U.S. cupation of Iraq. On all these counts, India fering recognition of India as a nuclear- lawmakers and officials had made clear was is seen as a major prize, and support for its weapon state, pointing out that the joint tied to the nuclear deal.9 military buildup and its nuclear complex statement says India will have “the same These positions, which have by and large seems to be the price the Bush administra- benefits and advantages as other leading dominated the debate so far, have many tion is willing to pay. countries with advanced nuclear technol- flaws. The first is their shared belief in the ARMS CONTROL TODAY January/February 2006 This goal is, it seems, to be pursued ogy, such as the United States.” More prac- success of India’s nuclear energy program regardless of how it will spur the spiral tically, they see it as a way to sustain and and the need to continue with and expand of distrust, political tension, and dan- expand the nuclear energy program while this effort. This fails to recognize that the gerous, costly, and wasteful military not restricting the building of what they deal, in fact, marks U.S. acceptance of a preparedness between the United States describe as a “minimum” nuclear weap- long-standing Indian demand for lifting and China, between China and India, ons arsenal. Even though Indian nuclear international restrictions on nuclear coop- and between India and . This last strategists and policymakers have never eration and that this demand is itself testa- dynamic is already coming into view, as defined the term “minimum,” it is used to ment to the failures of the Department of Pakistan has demanded from the United suggest that being restrained in its Atomic Energy. States (and been refused) the same deal nuclear ambitions. At the same time, it is The second problem is the belief shared as is being offered to India, and China made clear that the minimum could in- by the hawks and the government that wants any exemptions for international crease, depending on circumstances. nuclear weapons are a source of security. nuclear cooperation and trade to be of- Singh explained to the Indian parliament They ignore the essential moral, legal, and fered not only to India but to be open to on July 29, 2005, that the deal offers a way criminal questions of what it means to have others, i.e., its ally, Pakistan.8 In all these whereby “our indigenous and be prepared to use nuclear weapons. 13 Energy, Vikram Sarabhai, predicted that by 2000 there would be 43,500 megawatts of nuclear power.12 Neither of these predic- tions came true. Despite more than 50 years of gener- ous funding, nuclear power currently amounts to only 3,300 megawatts, barely 3 percent of India’s installed electricity ca- pacity. Indian nuclear capacity is expected to rise by nearly 50 percent over the next few years, largely because of two 1,000- megawatt reactors purchased from the So- viet Union in a 1988 deal and now being built by . Even if more such deals were to be made in the future, it is by no means clear that India’s nuclear establish- ment will be able to keep its promises, let alone contribute a significant fraction of projected electricity demand. Another of the Department of Atomic Energy’s failures has been in ensuring sufficient supplies of to fuel its nuclear reactors. As an Indian official stated

Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Indranil in an interview to the British Broadcasting Corp., “The truth is we were desperate. We have nuclear fuel to last only till the end of 2006. If this agreement had not come through, we might have as well closed down our nuclear reactors and by exten- sion our nuclear program.”13 This is not a new crisis; the former head of the atomic energy regulatory board has reported that “uranium shortage” has been “a major 14 Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released a three part chronilogical history of problem…for some time.” India’s nuclear power program at the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre in November. India has been unable to import ura- Contrary to Department of Atomic Energy predictions that nuclear energy would nium for its unsafeguarded nuclear reactors generate as much as 43,500 megawatts of electricity by 2000, it only produces because of the rules of the 44-member Nu- 3,300 megawatts today, barely 3 percent of India’s installed electrical capacity. clear Suppliers Group (NSG), the countries The only difference between these two the poor, women, minorities, farmers, and that manage international nuclear trade camps is on the character and number of workers, has come out against the deal be- with a view to preventing proliferation. the nuclear weapons to which they aspire cause they see it as having been concluded Apart from two very old imported U.S. and how many people in how many cities without any public debate; as strengthen- reactors, India relies on - they are prepared to threaten to kill. The ing an unaccountable, dangerous, and fueled nuclear reactors, which are based left-wing parties are more ambiguous; costly Indian nuclear energy and nuclear on the two Canadian-designed and -built they support disarmament but have not weapons program; and as undermining pressurized heavy-water reactors it acquired called for India unilaterally to give up its important nuclear nonproliferation and in the 1960s. The total electric capacity of nuclear weapons arsenals and ambitions. disarmament goals.10 these reactors is 2,990 megawatts. At 75 Some of them even feel Indian nuclear percent capacity, these require nearly 400 weapons may be needed to hedge against Nuclear Energy Failures tons of uranium every year. The a more belligerent U.S. exercise of power On the Indian side, a primary motivation production reactors, CIRUS and Dhruva, and influence. for the deal has been the history of failure which are earmarked for nuclear weapons Standing outside the political parties is of its Department of Atomic Energy to purposes, consume perhaps another 30-35 a broad network of social movements in produce large quantities of nuclear electric- tons annually. We estimate that current India that have become an increasingly ity. In 1962, Homi Bhabha, the founder uranium production within India is less important element in its political life. The of India’s nuclear program, predicted that than 300 tons of uranium a year, well short most prominent of these, the National Al- by 1987 nuclear energy would constitute of the fuel requirements. liance of Peoples Movements, an umbrella 20,000-25,000 megawatts of installed The Department of Atomic Energy has 11

ARMS CONTROL TODAY January/February 2006 January/February ARMS CONTROL TODAY group of several hundred organizations electricity-generation capacity. His succes- been able to continue to operate its reac- and campaigns that support the rights of sor as head of the Department of Atomic tors by using uranium stockpiled from 14 when its nuclear capacity and thus its fuel of and proceed with its program, How Many Bombs Are Too Many? needs were much smaller. Our estimates ignoring both the costs and risks of re- In particular, the deal promises to allow are that, without the nuclear deal, this processing and the many problems with India access to the international uranium stockpile would be exhausted by 2007. breeder reactors. market. If the deal goes through, New Del- The department’s desperate efforts to The dismal state of India’s nuclear hi will be able to purchase the uranium it open new uranium mines in the country energy complex, despite 50 years of needs to fuel those reactors it chooses to have met with stiff resistance, primarily determined government support and put under IAEA safeguards. This will free because of the health impacts of uranium funding, may offer the clearest proof up its domestic uranium for its nuclear mining and milling on the communities yet of one of the basic assumptions un- weapons program and other military uses around existing mines.15 derlying the NPT. The treaty recognized and would allow a significant and rapid For decades, the department has of- that developing countries would need expansion in India’s nuclear arsenal. India fered the potential shortage of domestic a great deal of help if they were to es- is believed to have a stockpile of perhaps uranium as justification for a plutonium tablish nuclear energy for peaceful pur- 40-50 nuclear weapons, with fissile mate- fast- program, which has poses successfully. That is why Article rials stocks for many more, and plans that involved costly and hazardous reprocess- IV of the treaty calls for a trade-off: reportedly involve an arsenal of 300-400 ing facilities to recover plutonium from providing non-nuclear-weapon states weapons within a decade.16 Realizing . Its efforts to build a with access to international coopera- these plans will require the production of breeder, however, have not made much tion with nuclear energy in return for much larger quantities of fissile material progress: the Fast Breeder Test Reactor a demonstrated commitment not to and at much higher rates than India has started functioning in 1985 and has develop nuclear weapons. In refusing to achieved so far. Such production of fissile been plagued with problems while the sign the NPT and in developing nuclear materials specifically for nuclear weapons Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor is not weapons, India had until now sacrificed is not constrained by the deal. expected to be completed until 2010 the benefits of this international sup- India could use its newly unallocated if all goes accordingly to plan. Poor port. Now, through the nuclear deal, domestic uranium to meet its fissile mate- economics and safety and engineering the United States has promised India all rial needs in several ways. It could choose problems have effectively killed such the help it needs for its civilian nuclear to build a large plutonium-production reac- breeder reactor programs in the United program, all without signing the treaty tor to add to CIRUS and Dhruva, its two States, , and Germany, but India or even accepting any limits on its weapons-grade plutonium-production reac- may choose to try to follow the example nuclear arsenal. tors at the Bhabha Atomic Research centre ARMS CONTROL TODAY January/February 2006 Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images Sarkar/AFP/Getty Dibyangshu

Indian workers examine iron rods at the construction site of the prototype fast breeder reactor at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research in August, 2004. The reactor is scheduled for completion in 2010. 15 in Bombay. CIRUS and Dhruva could con- of such weapons-useable material is safeguards on the breeder program begs the tinue to produce about 25-35 kilograms of the plutonium in the spent fuel of the question as to whether this is or ever was weapons-grade plutonium a year. Another unsafeguarded Indian power reactors. intended only for civilian purposes. Dhruva-sized production reactor could Over the years, some 9,000 kilograms of yield an additional several bombs worth of reactor-grade plutonium may have been Why Nuclear Electricity? such plutonium each year. produced in these reactors, though a Both Indian and U.S. supporters of Another way in which India could large fraction of this plutonium is prob- the deal claim that the growth of increase its fissile material stockpile is ably still not separated from the spent nuclear energy generation capacity in to expand its small-scale centrifuge en- fuel. Even though it has a slightly dif- India is a practical and even a neces- richment program and make highly en- ferent mix of the plutonium isotopes sary way to maintain India’s current riched uranium (HEU) for nuclear weap- from the weapons-grade plutonium rate of economic growth. The evidence ons. So far, it is only believed to have normally used for weapons, reactor- suggests otherwise. enriched its domestic uranium to make grade plutonium can be used to make a According to our estimates, the cost of fuel for the nuclear submarine that has nuclear explosive.18 The United States producing nuclear electricity in India is been under development since the 1970s conducted a nuclear test in 1962 using more expensive than the non-nuclear alter- and has recently completed testing of its plutonium that was not of weapons natives.21 Construction costs are high, and .17 India could make HEU grade, and one of India’s May 1998 nu- construction times are long, making the both for weapons and enriched fuel clear tests is reported to have involved capital cost of a nuclear reactor very high

Despite the many claims that the social, economic, and political well-being of the people of India will be enhanced by this deal there has been little attention paid to the issue of whether India needs nuclear weapons at all, the costly failures of the Indian nuclear energy enterprise, and the possible harm for the people of India from a continued expansion of the nuclear complex.

for its submarine if it no longer needs such material.19 An estimated 8 kilo- when compared, for example, to coal-based to rely on domestic uranium to fuel its grams of such plutonium are needed to thermal stations. In a country where there power reactors. make a simple nuclear weapon. If this are multiple demands on capital for infra- There is also the possibility, as hinted at spent fuel is not put under safeguards structure projects, including for electricity by some hawkish critics, that India’s nucle- as part of the deal, India would have generation, this makes nuclear power a ar power reactors may become part of the enough plutonium from this source poor economic choice. weapons complex. For instance, if kept out alone for an arsenal of approximately Other considerations that go against of safeguards and with sufficient uranium 1,100 weapons, larger than that of all nuclear power are the possibility of supplies on hand, power reactors could be the nuclear-weapon states except the catastrophic accidents and the prob- used to make weapons-grade plutonium United States and Russia. lem of nuclear waste. In studying the by limiting the time the fuel is irradiated. Finally, the fast-breeder reactor under safety of nuclear reactors and other Run this way, a typical 220-megawatt pres- construction also will be a source of pluto- hazardous technologies, sociologists surized heavy-water reactor could produce nium. The Department of Atomic Energy and organization theorists have come 150-200 kilograms per year of weapons- has always resisted placing the breeder pro- to the pessimistic conclusion that seri- grade plutonium when operated at 60-80 gram under international safeguards and is ous accidents are inevitable with such percent capacity. This could mean as much doing so again when asked to do so as part complex high-technology systems. as an eightfold increase in the existing rate of the deal. Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the The character of these systems makes of plutonium production. The penalty to Atomic Energy Commission and secretary accidents a “normal” part of their be paid in terms of the increased and less of the Department of Atomic Energy, has operation, regardless of the intent of efficient use of uranium would be covered said that the Prototype Fast Breeder Reac- their operators and other authorities. by access to imported uranium to be used tor will not be under safeguards because In India, as elsewhere, there have been in other power reactors. There would no it is a research and development program many small accidents at nuclear facili- longer be a trade-off between uranium for and “any research and development pro- ties. Given its high population density, electricity generation and weapons pluto- gramme, we are not going to put under a nuclear reactor accident in India in- nium production. safeguards.” He has also pointed out that volving the release of large quantities Neither does the deal constrain how “only that which is clearly of no national of radioactive materials could cause

ARMS CONTROL TODAY January/February 2006 January/February ARMS CONTROL TODAY India uses the weapons-useable mate- security significance, only that part will be tremendous damage. Finally, there re- rials produced so far. A major source civilian.”20 The department’s resistance to mains the problem that no country has 16 resolved: the disposal of large amounts should have a decentralized component the Re-Emergence of a New Rival,” The New of waste that will remain radioactive and should involve rural people—the York Times, March 8, 1992. for many tens of thousands of years. customers—in planning and decision- 6. “U.S. Unveils Plans to Make India ‘Major The issue that really needs to be dis- making.”23 By working with the rural World Power,’” Agence France Presse, cussed but has hardly figured in the de- poor, it may be possible at last to de- March 26, 2005. bate is whether India needs any nuclear velop and provide the small-scale, lo- 7. Robert Blackwill, “A New Deal for New power plants at all. There are many who cal, sustainable, and affordable energy Delhi,” Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2005. believe India would be better off giving systems that they need. 8. Mark Hibbs, “China Favors NSG Solution up this costly and dangerous technology on India That Facilitates Trade With Paki- and finding ways to meet the needs of its Conclusion stan,” Nuclear Fuels, November 7, 2005. people that do not threaten their future If approved by Congress and India’s 9. Wade Boese, “U.S.-Indian Nuclear Prospects or their environment. parliament as well as the NSG, the Murky,” Arms Control Today, October 2005. A 2003 study by the Confederation of U.S.-Indian nuclear deal will prove 10. Sandeep Pandey, “Condemnation of Indian Industry found that there is great costly and dangerous. It will feed a India-U.S. Nuclear Deal,” Statement by the scope for improving Indian energy in- cascade of mistrust, insecurity, and National Alliance of People’s Movements, tensity (energy consumption per unit of instability, diverting resources to a October 26, 2005. gross domestic product), which is high fateful military competition that will 11. David Hart, : A Com- compared to other countries, and called envelop China, India, Pakistan, and parative Analysis (London: George Allen & for increased cooperation with the the United States. More broadly, it is Unwin, 1983). United States in this area. It has been difficult to see the deal as anything 12. Vikram Sarabhai, Science Policy and Nation- estimated that Indian industry could other than a fundamental rejection al Development (Delhi: Macmillan, 1974). save as much as 20-30 percent of its to- of the nonproliferation regime, as it 13. Sanjeev Srivastava, “Indian PM Feels tal energy consumption and that nearly abandons the assumption that access Political Heat,” British Broadcasting Corp., 30,000 megawatts, i.e., more than the to nuclear fuel and technology must July 26, 2005. total planned nuclear capacity by 2020, be within the terms of the regime. It 14. A.Gopalakrishnan, “Indo-U.S. Nuclear could be saved through energy conser- undermines the aspirations of the vast Cooperation: A Nonstarter?” Economic and vation programs.22 This would also be majority of nations seeking global and Political Weekly, July 2, 2005. cheaper than building new generating regional . 15. Xavier Dias, “DAE’s Gambit,” Economic and capacity, especially additional nuclear The deal also will create the poten- Political Weekly, August 6, 2005, pp. 3567-3569. capacity. This study also noted that, in tial for the rapid buildup of a much 16. See “India’s Nuclear Forces, 2005,” Bulle- the 1999 Indo-U.S. Joint Statement on larger Indian nuclear arsenal. It will tin of the Atomic Scientists, September/Octo- Cooperation in Energy and Related En- bail out a failing Indian nuclear energy ber 2005, pp. 73-75; David Albright, “India’s vironmental Aspects, India had declared program that has had little regard ei- Military Plutonium Inventory, End 2004,” a goal of a 10 percent share for renew- ther for the economics or the environ- Institute for Science and International able energy by 2012 and a 15 percent mental and health consequences of its Security, May 2005. improvement in energy efficiency by activities. It is also likely to offer little 17. “ATV Project: India Crosses Major Milestone,” 2008 and was seeking U.S. help to meet real benefit to India’s poor. It is not The Hindu, November 25, 2005. these targets. often that so much harm may be done 18. J. Carson Mark, “Explosive Properties of The real challenge facing India is the to so many by so few. ACT Reactor-Grade Plutonium,” Science and Global growing divide between the energy- Security, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1993, pp. 111-124. intensive pattern of development of ENDNOTES 19. George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: its cities, with increasing demands for The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley, electricity and petroleum, and the con- 1. See George Perkovich, “Faulty Promises: Calif.: University of California Press, 1999). tinuing dependence on fuel-wood and The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal,” Policy Outlook, ARMS CONTROL TODAY January/February 2006 20. T. S. Subramaniam, “Identifying a Civil- September 2005; Fred McGoldrick et al., animal-dung energy by the majority ian Nuclear Facility Is India’s Decision,” The “The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal: Taking Stock,” who live in its many villages. Nuclear Hindu, August 12, 2005. Arms Control Today, October 2005; and Wade energy as a large, centralized, and cost- Boese, “U.S. Puts Onus on India for Nuclear 21. M. V. Ramana et al., “Economics of ly source of electricity will do little for Ties,” Arms Control Today, December 2005. Nuclear power From Reactors,” meeting the basic energy needs of rural 2. See “Issues and Questions on July 18 Pro- Economic and Political Weekly, April 23, 2005, India because connecting these areas posal for Nuclear Cooperation With India” at pp. 1763-1773. to a central power grid is expensive, www.armscontrol.org (Nov. 18, 2005, letter involves high transmission losses, and 22. V. Raghuraman and Sajal Ghosh, “Indo- to members of Congress). is financially unsustainable. The UN U.S. Cooperation in Energy-Indian Perspec- 3. See Robert J. McMahon, The Cold War on the Periph- tive,” Confederation of Indian Industry, 2003. Development Program’s World Energy ery (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Assessment in 2000 observed that “past 23. “Rural Energy in Developing Countries,” 4. George Perkovich, India and the Bomb efforts to deliver modern energy to in World Energy Assessment: Energy and the (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California rural areas have often been ineffective Challenge of Sustainability (UN Department Press, 1999). and inefficient” and that, “above all, of Economic and Social Affairs and World 5. “Excerpts From Pentagon’s Plan: Prevent planning for rural energy development Energy Council, 2000.) 17