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Xenia Dormandy on the U.S. and South Asia

Just over a year ago, President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a broad strategic relationship that covered issues ranging from energy and the economy to addressing HIV/AIDS. What received the most attention, however, was the agreement to move past India's 1998 nuclear tests to a new understanding on civil nuclear issues. Since that agreement, events in the region have brought many pressures to bear on both governments.

Xenia Dormandy is the executive director for research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and an expert on South Asia. She formerly served as director for South Asia at the National Security Council.

Q: How serious is the issue of nuclear proliferation in the region of South Asia?

Dormandy: It's very serious. The biggest problem we've seen to date stems from a network that was created by A.Q. Khan, Pakistani's 'nuclear father' as it were. He created the Pakistani nuclear program, and subsequently built an off-shoot black market, that was shut down a few years ago. The U.S. worked very hard, along with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the Pakistanis to dismantle the program, and we have every indication that this has happened.

Nevertheless, the Pakistanis have not locked up A.Q. Khan; they have him under house arrest. The U.S. and the IAEA have not had an opportunity to talk with him, although they have had the opportunity to ask some questions through the Pakistani military and the Pakistani government. So we believe we've shut down everything, but we're not 100 percent sure and I don't think we ever will be.

That's the historical problem, and that's what most people think about when they think of proliferation in the region. That being said, a lot has happened over the last two or three years. Both the Indians and the Pakistanis have done a lot to improve their export controls; both countries have done a lot to improve the security around their nuclear weapons. So we are seeing enormous progress over the last few years in the area of nuclear protection. This is very positive.

Looking forward, the biggest opportunity we have is really for India to become a partner in interdicting nuclear or other materials that we'd prefer not to travel, whether from North Korea or Iran or any other country. Given their extremely versatile, extremely large military, and their willingness to use this military, there's huge potential to work with India in this area. It's not something we've done much in the past, but the opportunity is out there. It's actually one of the reasons why the U.S.-India relationship is so important.

Q: How does the recent North Korean nuclear test affect the U.S.-India nuclear agreement?

Dormandy: The most likely impact of the North Korean nuclear test is to delay the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement moving forward. The agreement was voted on in the [U.S.] House some months ago and went through cleanly with a lot of bipartisan support. It looked like the bill might be voted on in the Senate in September, but it was delayed.

It's possible the bill will be voted on in November, but given the nuclear test by North Korea, that seems unlikely at this time. So the Senate vote will probably be delayed until the next session of Congress in the new year, but it's extremely unlikely that the deal will be off the table because of North Korean actions. The logic behind why we built this relationship with India, why we agreed to the civil nuclear deal, the argument is still as strong: you can't put North Korea and India in the same bag.

Q: You have written that a stable India-Pakistan relationship is one of the most important elements for long-term global stability. What progress has been made since the two countries' standoff in 2001?

Dormandy: A lot of progress was made in the first few years after that. I'd say the progress has slowed significantly in the past year. In the years following the '01 standoff the two sides agreed on a number of military areas of cooperation-from having military leaders from both sides of the line of control meet with one another, to opening up a telephone 'red line' as it were between leaders in both countries, to letting one another be more aware earlier in advance of missile tests. So there were a number of areas of progress in the military arena; there's a number of areas of progress in trade and in repatriation of families, engaging families on both sides of the line of control that splits the two parts of Kashmir. So there are bus and train lines going between the two sides, and this is a first for all of these exchanges. So there was a lot of progress initially made.

That being said, in the last year there's been very little progress. Following the Mumbai bombings, there's been no progress at all. I think if we're going to continue to see a slow engagement between the two sides, we really do need to see some concrete steps being taken in the next six months. There's some hope: in September of this year the two leaders met in Cuba at the Non-Aligned Movement meeting, and they agreed to re-start what they call the Composite Dialogue between the India and Pakistan, between the foreign secretaries. That's a very positive movement that was stopped after the Mumbai bombings this summer. They've also agreed to launch counter-terrorism cooperation. That is going to be very important. It will be vital to see whether Pakistan really steps up to the plate and engages seriously on counter-terrorism, particularly on the Mumbai bombings. And the Indians are looking for that. The Pakistanis on their side are looking for India to really take seriously a dialogue on Kashmir which they've been resistant to doing.

Q: Your research reflects that you see the U.S. alliance with India as the lynch-pin relationship in the region. Why do you identify such crucial regional importance in the US-India strategic relationship?

Dormandy: If you look at what are the greatest global challenges today, most if not all arguably stem from Asia-or at least Asia has a role in resolving them or addressing them, or creating them. So whether you look at Iran, which is on the outskirts of the region, or North Korea, or energy, terrorism, piracy, environment-all of these issues involve Asia. So that's a region that is increasingly of import to the United States.

Historically, our close relationship has been with Japan. That being said, Japan in the last decade or more has been going through a number of domestic upheavals, particularly in the economic area, in addition to which they have not had a very assertive foreign policy. They've not used their military overseas-they've got a very capable military, but they do not use their military overseas-and so they haven't been a partner with whom we can engage with outside of either Japan or the United States.

India, on the other hand. is a country that does use their very capable military-we saw it in action during the tsunami response in Dec. of '04; we saw it again in action after the earthquake last year. They've had the will and the capability to use their military. So there are many things that we can do with India that maybe we are less able to do with Japan. I would not say that our relationship with India is transplanting our relationship with Japan, but they both bring different things to the table and they both have capabilities and areas in which we can work with them to strengthen and to address many of the global challenges we have today.

Reporters:

Please contact 617-495-1115 to arrange an interview with Xenia Dormandy.