I thought this article by Dr Sumit Ganguly might be worth reading. He seems to be strongly in favour of the N-Deal. Meanwhile, The Economist is again reiterating its strong opposition to the deal.
I admit, I'm leaning towards the deal myself. I don't think it's some ideal or fantastic bargain, but it's enough to get us through the door, and without extracting an extremely heavy price.
2 comments:
but it does extract too heavy a price: loss of nuclear freedom.
Rajeev, when the Atlanticists are howling against this deal, when Pak is howling against this deal, when China is howling against this deal (including thru its CPI-M cadres), then I can't believe it's because they're trying to save us from our own folly. I can't believe they're trying to do us any favours. I don't think it's because they hope to trick with some juvenile reverse-psychology.
Pak has always called for us to sign NPT, but yet they're howling against this deal. It's obvious that everyone thinks this deal will give us an edge that we didn't have before.
As for constraining the independence of our foreign policy, it might force us to tone down some of our more careless rhetoric, but I don't think that the US would have the power to enslave us. Besides, I don't see any sharp divergences looming between our respective foreign policies for several years. In the meantime we can shave off a couple of decades in our development time and not squander that "opportunity cost".
Once India has more wealth, then it will have the latitude to decide as it pleases to. Just like the Shimla Accord we foolishly signed with Pak, once they outgrew it, then we were helpless to stop them from discarding it.
Once we break out of the nuclear containment cordon, then there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Our enemies realize this all too well.
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