|
|
|
|
Strategic Analysis:
A Monthly Journal of the IDSA
Clinton's Visit and the Nuclear Narrative
By C. Uday Bhaskar
*
The Clinton visit to India and the subcontinent has since concluded (March 20-25) and there is a sense of cautious optimism that the world's two largest but "estranged democracies" 1 have begun the long-awaited process of sustained engagement. This was reflected in Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee's words soon after he met the visiting dignitary, wherein he noted: "I think with President Clinton's visit and our meeting today (March 21, 2000) we have laid a firm foundation for the future." 2 Considering that the bilateral relationship was soured in the past, since both nations perceived their core security and national interests in palpably divergent ways–particularly over the nuclear and missile factor, it remains to be seen how this aspect will be handled post the Clinton visit. This article examines the ambivalent manner in which the narrative about the nuclear issue emerged against the backdrop of the first US Presidential visit in 22 years and outlines a tentative hypothesis for the near future.
It is averred at the outset that the nuclear and missile, or WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) issue will continue to remain the central difference between India and the US and its management will determine the degree of realisation of the joint vision statement released during the Clinton visit. 3 This centrality was more than reiterated by Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State well before the visit when she cautioned: "We do regard (WMD) proliferation–anywhere–as our Number One security concern. And for this reason, we must accept that significant progress in this area is necessary, before India and the United States can realise fully the vast potential of our relationship." 4
The nuclear issue came up sharply on the eve of the Clinton visit when a number of western commentators and analysts highlighted the volatile situation in the subcontinent. Kashmir was seen as the perennial flash-point and concern expressed about the high probability of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan–unless the Clinton healing touch was applied. A random sampling of headlines and comments were "Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan Is a Real Possibility" warned the Washington Post in an op-ed and the author opined "Experts believe existing safeguards are inadequate to prevent events from escalating rapidly to a nuclear exchange on the Asian Subcontinent." 5 The Economist cautioned gravely in its first editorial under the banner "The world's most dangerous place" and observed "there must be responsible management of the nuclear genie India has unleashed....exploring ways to avoid stumbling inadvertently into nuclear war...Kashmir is the most likely trigger of such a war." 6 And a widely syndicated columnist's views were headlined "Clinton's visit unlikely to avert nuclear war" and he added of India and Pakistan's verbal exchanges: "Sabre-rattling that makes Khrushshchev's shoe-banging look tame. But war is likely to intervene". 7
At one level this is a variation of the May 1990 nuclear scare between India and Pakistan that was ostensibly averted by the timely visit to Islamabad and Delhi of then US President George Bush's special envoy–Mr. Robert Gates–reported first by Mr. Seymour Hersh in March 1993 8 . This was, and is, the dominant perception in the US and Western strategic community about the volatility of matters nuclear in the region. It is a different matter that the purported crisis of May 1990 is being revisited by recent scholarship and it is now being suggested–perhaps for the first time by a senior US official–that the Gates mission was not about averting nuclear war. Mr. Richard Haass, then a National Security Council aide who was part of the 'crisis' management team, revealed recently: "One of the many areas where Hersh was wrong was that the nuclear dimension was the centerpiece of our visit. It wasn't. We wanted to be sure they would not stumble into war. We were concerned that they were on the brink of war, not nuclear war." 9 Yet the dominant perception about May 1990 continues to be what it was - a near nuclear conflagration averted in the nick of time.
India and Pakistan are now States with Nuclear Weapons (SNWs) post May 1998 and the events that soon followed are not happy augury. The Kargil war of May 1999, initiated by Pakistan that aborted the February 1999 Lahore peace process and the subsequent articulation about a limited war between nuclear armed neighbours, has only helped to entrench this perception about a war that could escalate to a nuclear threshold, leading to the shrill tenor in the commentary that has preceded the visit.
This perception was further reinforced by Mr. Clinton's remarks on the eve of his departure to Delhi. He described South Asia and especially the Line of Control bordering Kashmir as "the most dangerous place in the world right now." 10 The nascent nuclear weapon status of the subcontinent continued to elicit Presidential interest and later at the Carnegie non-proliferation conference he asserted that the nuclear status quo is "unacceptable." 11 He added for good measure: "There are those in the region who hope we will simply accept its nuclear status and so on. I will not do that." 12
US policy towards India has oscillated between the demands of inflexible nuclear non-proliferation zealots and those who have taken a more pragmatic approach to the region and the entire issue of WMD. Thus it may be inferred that Mr. Clinton's pre-visit position was derived from the basic template outlined by the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in her remarks at the Asia Society in New York on March 14. This is a long address and merits wide circulation here in India for the strategic underpinning of the prevailing view from Washington about the future of India-US ties.
On the nuclear issue, Madeleine Albright who is remembered for her blunt turn of phrase that described India's May 1998 nuclear tests as a case of digging itself into a 'hole', exuded her characteristic candour: "The United States continues to seek universal adherence to the NPT. We believe the South Asian nuclear tests of May 1998 were a historic mistake. And the UN Security Council Resolution 1172 makes it plain that the international community agrees with us." 13
Two other themes in the Albright address merit scrutiny here. US foreign policy objectives were identified by Madeleine Albright as including building a healthy and growing world economy, halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction, supporting democracy, and working with others to combat international terror, pollution, drugs and disease. 14 And in relation to India she added: "I can think of few greater gifts to the future than a strong and cooperative strategic relationship between India and the US." 15 Commiserating with the failure of the Cold War decades when both sides "failed to lay a fresh foundation for managing our differences", she made a very pertinent observation that "In some quarters in India, there was a lingering suspicion of US intentions in world affairs, and on the American side, some could not or would not understand India's compulsions and aspirations." (emphasis added). 16
In a way this inability or deliberate reluctance on the part of those shaping US policy towards the region to recognise uncomfortable and awkward realities has contributed in no small measure to the estrangement between two democracies, that could have been natural allies. This was more than palpable even in the run-up to the Clinton visit among those who shape the dominant perception or discourse in the Washington Beltway and this theme will be addressed later in the course of this article.
Albright candour apart, a more realistic approach as regards the nuclear issue was also evident in other remarks made by senior officials and academics/analysts who were providing inputs prior to the Clinton visit. Mr. Strobe Talbott, the US Deputy Secretary of State who has held extended talks with Mr. Jaswant Singh, the Indian External Affairs Minister since the nuclear tests of May 1998, told the Washington Post that US administration officials "recognise that India is unlikely to abandon its nuclear option, no matter how much pressure they apply." 17 A 22 member Independent Task Force that included Mr. Richard Haass of the Brookings Institute submitted their report to the US President on the eve of his visit and cautioned: "It is essential to resist the temptation to place ambitious nuclear-weapons related goals at the center of US aims. Any attempt to persuade India to eliminate its nuclear arsenal will fail (and poison the atmosphere of constructive discussion of other issues) given India's concerns of both China and Pakistan and the inclination of many Indians to associate nuclear weapons with great power status." 18
But even as the nuclear issue bobbed up and down in public articulation, the overall objectives of the Clinton visit were spelt out by Mr. Karl Inderfurth, the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs–in a way the point-man for putting down the fine print of US policy for the region. Significantly, the focus and thrust was not predicated on a single issue. Emphasis was laid on the fact that the US was seeking "a broad, constructive engagement with India based on broadly conceived US interests. Our overall relations with India will not be hostage to our relations with any other country." 19 This was significant since India-US relations in the past had been held hostage to the centrality of the nuclear issue and the even-handed approach that Washington followed wherein India-Pakistan had become the equivalent of a hyphenated word that was synonymous with South Asia. However the nature of the divergence over the nuclear issue was also noted with an optimistic caveat that: "As with all countries, India and the US have areas where they do not see eye to eye. We want to narrow differences where we can and address areas of disagreement in a candid and constructive manner." 20
The sincere attempt by both India and the US to lay a new foundation for managing their post Cold War, post May 1998 relationship was given full vent in the Clinton speech to Indian Parliament and the joint vision statement. It is instructive that the vision statement–which must be seen as a consensual draft approved by both sides–deals with the nuclear issue in a carefully calibrated manner such that the convictions and concerns of both sides–differences included–have been accommodated. It refers to the nuclear issue towards the middle of the document and states: "India and the United States share a commitment to reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons, but we have not always agreed on how to reach this common goal. The United States believes India should forgo nuclear weapons. India believes that it needs to maintain a credible minimum nuclear deterrent in keeping with its own assessment of its security needs." 21
This semantic construction and the choice of word/ phrase is instructive in many ways and reflects a deft attempt at trying to square the circle. To assuage India's commitment towards disarmament, the opening reference is to the shared commitment of both nations to the reduction and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons–again with the caveat that while the end is crystal clear–the Holy Grail of zero nuclear weapons–the means adopted will be different. This may well be the first time that the US has committed itself to nuclear disarmament in such a manner and this may be interpreted as a reiteration of the US commitment to Article VI of the NPT–and that too a little before the NPT Extension Review Conference is to open in New York on April 24, 2000. However, the inability to accept the Indian position is also contained in the very next sentence that the US believes India should "forgo nuclear weapons", but it adds immediately thereafter that India "believes" that it needs a minimum credible deterrent for its security needs et al.
The vision statement embeds the nuclear issue in a much larger framework that highlights the many potential correspondences and convergence that can bind the two states and notes somberly of the nuclear issue: "We will seek to narrow our differences and increase mutual understanding on non-proliferation and security issues. This will help us to realise the full potential of Indo-US relations and contribute significantly to regional and global security." 22
The manner in which the nuclear issue is dealt with in the Clinton speech to Indian Parliament is equally instructive. For a start, the matter finds mention in the latter half of the speech and the disarming nature of the opening remarks suggests an accomplished speech-writer in the Clinton entourage. The US President endeared himself to his audience–the elected representatives of a billion strong country by noting the irony that he was speaking to them "on behalf of a nation that has possessed nuclear weapons for 55 years and more." 23 Many of the assertions and statements made by Mr. Clinton during his speech to Indian Parliament may not stand rigorous scrutiny, more so when contrasted with the reality of the value accorded to nuclear weapons by the major powers, but the Clinton speech was cognisant of Indian sensitivities on the subject, even while presenting the US position in the most favourable light. Thus for instance Mr. Clinton observed with utmost sincerity that "Most of the world is moving towards the elimination of nuclear weapons" 24 even as the Washington Post was to report a few days later that the US Energy Department will renovate and refurbish more than 6,000 aging nuclear warheads over the next 15 years to make up the necessary US 'inactive reserve'. 25
This development is at sharp variance (and has an unintended ironical twist) with the Clinton assertion to ABC news in Delhi where he squarely faced the contradiction that most critics level at the US position on nuclear weapons–that the Beltway deems nuclear weapons are necessary for US security but denies this rationale to other states such as India. With characteristically endearing panache, tailor-made for television, Mr. Clinton observed: "Any country can say to us–particularly another democracy–oh, you are a hypocrite, you've got nuclear weapons, you don't want us to have any. Well, I am trying to reduce the store of nuclear weapons the US has, the store Russia has. The Russians have supported this." 26 The unintended irony and the contradictions inherent in the nuclear narrative of the post-Cold War world was evident not only in the US decision to add to its reserve warheads but on the other side as well when the newly elected Russian President Mr. Putin drew attention to the increasing importance of the Russian nuclear arsenal. Soon after his election, Mr. Putin visited Chelyabinsk 70, one of Russia's nuclear cities and observed: "We must increase the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrence potential." 27 The inference was that the nuclear industry was of strategic importance and Russia's status as a state capable of defending itself rested on the sector's success.
Yet the US President was empathetic to India's security concerns and its sensitivity over sovereignty and he noted gravely: "I say this with great respect. Only India can determine its own interests." 28 This statement was met with spontaneous applause by an audience that was drawn in the main from Indian parliamentarians and the speech continued: "Only India can determine if it will benefit from expanding its nuclear and missile capabilities, if its neighbors respond by doing the same thing." 29 Making the predictable references to the US experience in the Cold War with nuclear weapons, Mr. Clinton conceded that despite the geographic separation from the former USSR and the elaborate command and control mechanisms, "we came far too close to nuclear war. We learned that deterrence alone cannot be relied on to prevent accident or miscalculations." 30
But interestingly, there was no assertive prescriptive tenor in the Clinton speech and on the other hand, reference was made to India's responsibility as a 'great nation' in a handsome turn of phrase: "India is a leader, a great nation, which by virtue of its size, achievements, and its example, has the ability to shape the character of our time." 31 And in a gesture that would have pleased most Indians, the Nehruvian vision was invoked with a poignant turn of phrase: "Great nations with broad horizons must consider whether (their) actions advance or hinder what Nehru called the larger cause of humanity." 32 Urging India to join the CTBT (neither side referred in public to the fact that the US Senate had rejected the CTBT) and assume a leadership role in the global non-proliferation cause, Mr. Clinton's exit line on the nuclear issue warrants full quotation and perhaps more content analysis for its import. "India can pursue defense policies in keeping with its commitment not to seek a nuclear or missile arms race, which the Prime Minister has forcefully reaffirmed just in these last couple of days. Again, I do not presume to speak for you or to tell you what to decide. It is not my place. You are a great nation and you must decide. But I ask you to continue our dialogue on these issues. And let us turn our dialogue into a genuine partnership against proliferation. If we make progress in narrowing our differences, we will be both more secure, and our relationship can reach its full potential." 33
It may be noted that this exhortation to follow a policy of restraint finds a correspondence with the vision statement as well, wherein it is mentioned of the two nations: "We will pursue our security needs in a restrained and responsible manner and will not engage in nuclear and missile arms race." 34 Is strategic restraint the tentative new formulation that the US is also willing to adopt? If so this would be as major a shift in nuance as the US commitment to disarmament - however slippery the path–but the reality check with the carefully calibrated and well-received rhetoric will have to follow later.
It is significant that in his public utterances, Mr. Clinton did not refer to the NPT and India's steadfast opposition to it, or the UN Security Council Resolution 1172–issues that would be analogous to the skunk in the air-conditioner. The response from the Indian leaders on the nuclear issue was equally non-confrontational yet unambiguous about the conviction that underpinned New Delhi's position. In his welcome remarks, the Indian PM Mr. Vajpayee noted: "President Clinton and I had a frank discussion on the issues of disarmament and non- proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The dialogue which is in progress between our countries on these issues has enhanced the mutual understanding of our respective concerns. I've explained to President Clinton the reasons that compel us to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent. I have reiterated our firm commitment not to conduct further nuclear explosive tests, not to engage in a nuclear arms race and not to be the first to use nuclear weapons against any country." 35 The Indian commitment to disarmament was again reiterated by Mr. Vajpayee apropos the India-US dialogue when he added: "We have resolved to continue a dialogue and to work together in cooperation with other countries to help bring about a peaceful and secure world completely free of the threat of all weapons of mass destruction." 36
These positions on disarmament and the Indian deterrent were also reflected in the address of the Indian President Mr. KR Narayanan who noted inter alia: "We are publicly committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons together with other nuclear powers who possess them in awesome stockpiles capable of destroying the world many times over. India does not threaten any other country and will not engage in an arms race, but India will maintain a minimum credible nuclear deterrent–no more, no less–for her own security." 37 The Indian President added: " We continue to be anxious to work with the USA to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and to promote a goal of a world free of weapons of mass destruction. On this historic, auspicious occasion of your visit to India Mr. President, let us appeal to the world to take steps, concrete and substantive, towards nuclear disarmament along with nonproliferation, so that we do not consolidate the existing inequalities and sanctify the possession of nuclear weapons in the armories of the nations." 38
Perhaps one may infer an interesting accommodation by India wherein the commitment to disarmament is tempered with the imperative of acknowledging the reality of non-proliferation goals–in effect the kind of harmonisation that was envisaged by the non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) when they voted for the permanent extension of the NPT in 1995 and which will be reviewed in April-May 2000. However India still remains firmly opposed to the NPT and is not a signatory–though in continuation of the many contradictions and ironies that envelop the post-Cold War nuclear issue–it is, perhaps, the more faithful state in being true to the spirit of the NPT.
The suggestion by Mr. Clinton that the subcontinent is the most dangerous place in the world and that the principal interlocutors are poised on the brink of a war was suitably qualified by the Indian leaders in their respective remarks and speeches. At the joint press conference, Mr. Vajpayee in response to a question on the volatility of the region answered: "I am sure after visiting this part of the world, the (US) President will come to the conclusion that the situation is not so bad as it is made out to be. There are differences; there have been clashes; there is the problem of cross-country terrorism...But there is no threat of any war." 39 The Indian President Mr. Narayanan also dwelt on this aspect and in his address observed: "It has been suggested that the Indian subcontinent is the most dangerous place in the world today, and Kashmir is a nuclear flashpoint. The alarmist descriptions will only encourage those who want to break the peace and indulge in terrorism and violence. The danger is not from us who have declared solemnly that we will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but rather it is from those who refuse to make any such commitment." 40
The nuclear issue will remain the proverbial elephant in the drawing room of the bilateral relationship, and what was evidenced was an earnest desire and some hope that this visit will help to either narrow the differences as Mr. Clinton aspires to do, or that the divergence would be embedded in a wider framework of consultation and cooperation. That the US is constrained by its international nuclear obligations, as for instance the NPT matrix, is well recognised and it would be wishful thinking to expect that with the NPT Extension Review Conference coming up in April the US could make any radical departure in public from its earlier position reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1172. This stance is supported by other nuclear powers, most noticeably China that has grave reservations lest the US tacitly accept India's nuclear status.
Hence the nuclear issue is nettlesome in a complex way but what makes it thornier is the manner in which the dominant US narrative is still packaged–the real elephants in the drawing room are just not acknowledged. For example, it is instructive that a Washington Post article 41 that provides a curtain-raiser to the Clinton visit is derived from the basic boiler-plate of mainstream US media reportage about the region viz.: India and arch rival Pakistan locked in intractable hostility over Kashmir, emergence of a Hindu nationalist government in India (hence the implication of a Hindu bomb pitted against an Islamic one?) and a narrative framework that confines the Indian nuclear capability to Pakistan and Pakistan alone.
China as an entity and its nuclear capability, the nature of the Sino-Indian relationship and the existential strategic challenge that Beijing in its present avatar presents to India is completely ignored. The article includes a chronology of the nuclear punctuation in the subcontinent and for an Indian it is perplexing that no mention is made of China's arrival as a nuclear weapon power in 1964, or India being rebuffed by the major western powers when it sought credible security guarantees soon after the Chinese nuclear tests. The only reference for 1964 is that India's first plutonium plant began operations! Furthermore, in trying to contextualise India's anxieties on the WMD score, no reference is made to the abiding Sino-Pak strategic cooperation in the nuclear-missile field, nor the reality that after the traumatic defeat in the 1971 Bangladesh war, Pakistan was determined to acquire nuclear weapons as an equaliser–and that this was independent of India's 1974 test. In effect the manner in which the narrative is selectively shaped leads to a distortion that grows into a permanent fester in the bilateral relationship and this needs to be lanced at the earliest–with no acrimony–for the Cold War had its own power compulsions, morality and hence narrative.
The linkage between political compulsions–that is the power grid–and narrative is further accentuated in yet another fortuitous revelation - again in the US Senate–and here one must acknowledge the transparency that obtains in such matters in the US. The transfer of M-9 and M-11 missiles with ranges varying from 600 to 300 miles by China to Pakistan in the early 1990s is common knowledge and yet this fact was assiduously ignored by the US. In a memorable turn of phrase, former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher when questioned on the subject observed wryly that the US was (and is?) unable to arrive at a determination. Perhaps this made for prudent politics since recognising this elephant would have called for imposing sanctions against China as mandated by US law for violation of the MTCR strictures. The Christopher watch in the first Clinton term had its hands full in keeping Sino-US ties on track and hence the narrative about the Chinese missiles had to be selectively shaped.
This matter came up for discussion in the US Senate on March 22, 2000 (the day Mr. Clinton addressed Indian parliamentarians) and the Director of the US CIA Mr. George Tenet in his testimony revealed that his agency–the CIA–reported to the Clinton administration the delivery of Chinese M-11 missiles to Pakistan several years ago, but the Government chose not to admit it publicly for political reasons. In his reply he added: "Indeed in that case our job was to detect the transfer of those M-11s back in the early 1990s, and we did that and reported it. Then it becomes a matter of how you (the Clinton administration which has to certify the transfer) pursue a policy toward China." 42 To date successive administrations in the White House have chosen to obfuscate the Sino-Pak strategic relationship in the WMD realm.
The post-Hiroshima nuclear and missile age has spawned an enormous amount of literature on these capabilities and their impact on global/regional stability. The accepted shorthand is that such capabilities are desirable and hence interpreted as positive, normative attributes when acquired by some state actors and the converse interpretation is invoked in other cases. Cold War history and post-Cold War contemporaneity are at one level the systole and diastole of the power-narrative symbiosis. The tension between those endowed with such strategic capability and those aspiring to acquire the same, and the shaping of the subsequent narrative is best summed up by the French theorist Michel Foucault who observed: "Discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized." 43
Apropos the WMD realm, more than possession of these capabilities, the dominant narrative that has prevailed has only illustrated the Foucauldian insight that discourse is power, and that systems of domination are perpetuated through a control over discourse. India, occupies a distinctive niche in the prevailing nuclear hierarchy but the perception about India and its nuclear profile is circumscribed by a dominant narrative that is often skewed or selectively presented through a particular geo-political filter. In effect this is a case of cutting the foot to fit a pre-ordained shoe and the results are predictable, as Ms. Albright perceptively noted about the US reluctance to acknowledge certain realities in the Indian case.
India and the US have many potential strategic convergences that span the political, economic, military, technological, societal and environmental strands of the collective post Cold War security endeavour. India's experience as a large, diverse, secular, pluralistic state with a low resource base is the ultimate laboratory in which to test the many hypotheses associated with modernity, globalisation and the free-market and this was amply reflected in the joint India-US vision statement and the Clinton speeches. The need to translate this vision into a sustainable cooperative action programme is more urgent now than ever before but this will be blurred if the nuclear narrative is not corrected. The immediate aftermath of the Clinton visit is an opportunity that must not be squandered for this wake and the ripples it has generated are unlikely to be replicated in the near future. Wishful thinking about the post Clinton visit fall-out on the bilateral relationship has to be tempered with the reality that Indo-US ties will forge ahead in those sections where the efficacy of the state is diluted as part of the free-market, globalisation, info-tech dynamic. The ultimate proof of the Clinton pudding will be on how its aftermath impacts the abiding Indian challenge–poverty alleviation and addressing existing socio-economic inadequacies.
But on core security and strategic issues, both sides will have to take note of the nuclear elephant and acknowledge it in a manner that their respective national interests are either advanced or protected. Patience and perseverance will be the watchwords to narrow India-US differences and reconcile the narrative on the nuclear issue.
Endnotes
Note *: Dy. Director, IDSA Back.
Note 1: 'Estranged democracies' is the phrase often used to describe the nature of India-US relations in the Cold War. This is taken from the title of the book Dennis Kux, Estranged Democracies: India and the United States (Washington D.C.: NDU Press, 1992). Back.
Note 2: Wireless File (WF) issued by Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy, New Delhi. Hereafter referred to as WF and all dates indicate New Delhi date of issue. WF, March 22, 2000, p. 16. Back.
Note 3: Vision statement is the term used to describe the statement entitled "India-US Relations: A Vision for the 21st Century" signed by US President Mr Bill Clinton and the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi on March 21, 2000. Hereafter referred to as VS. This text is taken from Hindu, (New Delhi), March 22, 2000, p. 15. Back.
Note 4: Text of Ms Albright's address to the Asia Society, New York, WF, March 15, 2000; p. 17. Back.
Note 5: "Nuclear War Between India And Pakistan Is a Real Possibility" by Paul D Taylor in the Washington Post; reprinted International Herald Tribune, March 16, 2000. Back.
Note 6: "The World's Most Dangerous Place", The Economist, March 18, 2000, p. 17. Back.
Note 7: "Clinton's visit unlikely to avert nuclear war" by Jonathan Power, Statesman, (New Delhi), March 17, 2000, p. 9. Back.
Note 8: The purported May 1990 nuclear crisis was first brought to public notice by US investigate journalist Mr Seymour M Hersh in his article " On the Nuclear Edge," in The New Yorker March 29, 1993 p. 56 to 73. Subsequently, this subject received detailed alarmist commentary by the Western media, analysts and scholars. A counter view is offered in C.U. Bhaskar, "The May 1990 Nuclear Crisis: An Indian Perspective", Journal of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, (Washington D.C.), vol. 20, no. 4, Oct-Dec 1997, p. 317-332. Back.
Note 9: Richard Haass quoted in "India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation" by George Perkovich, (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), p. 310. Back.
Note 10: "Clinton finds LoC most dangerous place in world", by Ramesh Chandran in Times of India, (New Delhi), March 11, 2000, p. 1. Back.
Note 11: "S. Asia N-Status Quo Unacceptable: Clinton", PTI report in Times of India, (New Delhi), March 17, 2000. Back.
Note 16: Ibid., p. 15-16. Back.
Note 17: "India will never give up N-option: Talbott", PTI report in Times of India, (New Delhi), March 16, 2000. Back.
Note 18: Sreedhar Krishnaswamy, "Don't Corner India on N-Issue" Hindu, (New Delhi), March 15, 2000, p. 1. Back.
Note 19: Official Text, Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy, New Delhi, "Inderfurth Outlines President's Goals for South Asian Visit" March 10, 2000, p. 1. Back.
Note 23: Text of Mr Clinton's speech taken from WF, March 23, 2000, p. 14. Back.
Note 25: "US to refurbish 6,000 aging nuclear warheads" AFP report in Hindustan Times, (New Delhi), March 27, 2000, p. 14. Back.
Note 26: Text of ABC Interview in WF, March 23, 2000, p. 20. Back.
Note 27: "Russia Needs Better Nuclear Arsenal: Putin" Agency report in Hindustan Times, (New Delhi), April 1, 2000 Back.
Note 35: WF, March 22, 2000, p. 16. Back.
Note 41: John Lancaster "A President's Passage to India: Clinton Seeks to Melt Chill Between Democracies, Promote Nuclear Test Ban Treaty", Washington Post, March 15, 2000, p. A-03 taken from website <http: // search. washingtonpost.com> Back.
Note 42: "US knew about sale of M-11s to Pak" PTI report in Hindu, (New Delhi), March 24, 2000. Back.
Note 43: Michel Foucault, "The Order of Discourse" in Robert Young ed., Untying The Text; A Post Structuralist Reader (Boston and London: Roytledge and Keagan Paul, 1981), p. 52-53. Back.