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The United States and India have now agreed on a separation plan to draw a bright line between India’s civilian and military nuclear facilities. Critics have complained that the proposed nuclear deal between the US and India will gut global efforts to combat the spread of nuclear weapons. Defenders have countered that the deal will enlist Delhi as a vital ally in that fight. Can their differences be reconciled? At issue is implementation of an agreement struck last July 18 in Washington. It proposed that US drop a 30-year-old embargo on civil nuclear trade in exchange for Indian nonproliferation commitments, including the submission of some nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.Why do nonproliferation concerns remain? Because India will not safeguard all of its nuclear facilities, as required by a US law inspired by the first Indian nuclear test in 1974 and -- after much US prodding -- by the multilateral Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG). Both the US Congress and the NSG must concur if the July 18 agreement is to succeed.Since all 184 non-nuclear-weapon state parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) do safeguard all their nuclear facilities, many believe that allowing nuclear trade on easier terms for India would undermine the cornerstone of global nonproliferation efforts. Who could then object if NPT parties facing nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran insisted on keeping some nuclear plants outside of safeguards as a hedge to protect their own security? Others counter that these concerns are outweighed by the desirability of partnering with India to fight terror and proliferation, to promote democracy and free trade. They add that somehow the world must adapt to the reality that India has tested nuclear weapons.One way to reconcile these dueling views may be found in the July 18 commitment India made to support international efforts to limit the spread of the uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies, vital to nuclear bomb production. The world – led by Asia – is now building more nuclear power plants. If, in parallel, more countries begin enriching uranium and reprocessing plutonium, the chance of bomb material falling into the wrong hands would increase enormously. India could help avert that danger if it offered to lease nuclear fuel from abroad. Suppliers would lease enriched uranium fuel to Indian reactors, but title to the material would never pass. The spent fuel extracted from the reactor could either be stored in India or exported for storage in another country. Either way the material would remain safeguarded, and India would have no right to extract or access the plutonium contained in the spent fuel. The IAEA could guarantee a back-up fuel supply to reassure Delhi against the risk of an arbitrary cut-off of leased fuel.By voluntarily refraining from enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium for its civilian program, Delhi would show international leadership. It would kick-start US efforts to provide fuel assurances in exchange for country pledges to refrain from enrichment and reprocessing. By offering an economical, reliable nuclear fuel solution to countries like Iran and Brazil, nuclear fuel leasing would reduce any justification for engaging in fuel-cycle activities that would support nuclear weapons development.Over time, leasing could also help reduce Indian stocks of bomb materials, by providing a market-driven mechanism that could convert nuclear materials that are surplus to India’s military program into civilian reactor fuel. This would follow the successful US-Russian deal that has already converted 10,000 bombs-worth of highly-enriched uranium into fuel for use in US nuclear power stations, and could serve as a model showing how a commercial demand for nuclear fuel could help reduce global stocks of bomb-usable materials. This contribution to global nonproliferation efforts would help justify resuming peaceful nuclear cooperation with India. Moreover, it would not erode the NPT bargain, since India would show greater restraint than the treaty requires by voluntarily refraining from enrichment and reprocessing, neither or which are expressly prohibited by the treaty. Nuclear fuel leasing is no panacea. It will neither curtail India’s nuclear weapons program, nor will it block dedicated bomb builders in other parts of the world. It would, however, help reduce the risk that the global growth of atomic energy will lead to nuclear catastrophe. Daniel Poneman, a principal at The Scowcroft Group and Senior Fellow at the Forum for International Policy, held nonproliferation responsibilities on the National Security Council Staff for Presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
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