As the structure evolves, so would the global nuclear order — and not necessarily in a systematic and organised manner.
India’s journey within the global nuclear order has been remarkable. From once being viewed as a pariah state, India has integrated with the order like no other state with nuclear weapons outside the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In 2008, India acquired a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to the condition of putting all its nuclear facilities under the purview of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for engaging in global nuclear commerce. This status was previously enjoyed only by the five nuclear weapon states under the NPT. And while India’s rise has been remarkable, the challenge to its further integration remains daunting as well. With over a decade of cooperation with the NSG, India applied for the Group’s membership in 2016. However, China’s vocal opposition to India’s entry has resulted in a roadblock which is unlikely to be overcome in the near future. This article examines the case of India’s integration with the global nuclear order to argue that structural realism better explains both India’s relationship with the order and the challenges that the order will likely face in the future.
If liberalism postulates that international institutions are effective because they lead to positive gains for all states living under an anarchical international structure, constructivists believe that international institutions work as they engender a shared understanding among states based on similar norms and rules. Structural realism, on the other hand, argues that international institutions, like all other aspects of international politics, are primarily an avenue of power politics and help codify existing power structures. Changes within institutions therefore do not emanate out of concerns of positive gains or an inclination to follow norms and rules necessarily; changes are much more predicated upon the interests of their constituents and the balance of power among them, both of which are variables.
It has been argued that structuralism fails to explain India’s rise in the global nuclear order since India’s case does not reflect the typical elements of a classical revisionist state challenging the status quo, even if India, like all rising powers, has sought to revise the global nuclear order to better its relative position. However, it is important to highlight here that the global nuclear order like other institutions is a consequence of the structure of the international system as well. And even though India openly challenged the global nuclear order in 1998 by operationalising its nuclear weapons capability and has sought to better its position in the order since, it has largely remained a status quo power insofar as the structure of the international system is concerned.
That India’s rise was not viewed as a threat to the structure of the international system by the sole superpower was evident from the efforts the United States undertook to facilitate India’s rise. On the other hand, Washington DC has viewed rise of China with great anxiety because Beijing has challenged the US supremacy on a number of fronts. Restraining China’s rise and counter-balancing its growing economic-military power, therefore, forms one of the reasons why the United States has promoted India’s rise in the international system. Accommodating India in the global nuclear order can be seen as a consequence of the same US strategy.
Structuralism, meanwhile, also explains why India’s integration, as envisioned, could not be completed in the recent years. India sought to join the NSG to establish itself as a norm-setter vis-à-vis the global nuclear order and to play a more active role within the order. Soon after India applied for the membership to the NSG in 2016, the Chinese government issued a public statement noting that it had concerns over India joining the NSG as that would have detrimental effects on the NPT. The spokesperson of China’s foreign ministry, Lu Kang, added that “All the multilateral non-proliferation export control regime including the NSG has regarded NPT as an important standard for the expansion of the NSG.”
While China defended its opposition on normative grounds, several factors allude to a more structural reasoning behind China’s position.
Firstly, arguably the 2008 NSG waiver had similar, if not greater, implications for the NPT. If indeed China’s opposition to India’s NSG membership was principled, then why did it not block the 2008 waiver? A possible explanation is that the US wielded significant influence on all NSG members in 2008 and China did not want to stand alone in blocking that consensus. However, by 2016, China had amassed significant power and influence to take a more vocal position. Not only did Beijing express its willingness to lead the opposition to India’s entry to the NSG, it reportedly also attempted to use its influence over certain members of the NSG, channeled through its economic power, to generate support for its opposition.
Secondly, in response to the fury of writings coming out of New Delhi on China’s opposition to India’s entry to the NSG, especially after the Seoul plenary of June 2016, Beijing’s official mouthpiece, the Global Times, expressed its frustration that partly captured China’s apprehension to the US’ intentions behind promoting India. For instance, an editorial in the Global Times, notes that:
US backing adds the biggest impetus to India’s ambition. By cozying up to India, Washington’s India policy actually serves the purpose of containing China. The US is not the whole world. Its endorsement does not mean India has won the backing of the world. This basic fact, however, has been ignored by India.
This captures the centrality of the structural framework in explaining the contours of the debate over India’s bid to join the NSG and China’s opposition to it. The perception that the US is promoting India to counter China’s rise in the international system exists in Beijing as well. From that perspective, Beijing’s vocal opposition to India’s entry to the NSG is just a case in point to its larger strategy of blocking the US attempts of promoting India and India’s rise in general. Thirdly, China has played its own balance-of-power card by linking India’s membership application to the NSG to that of its ally, Pakistan — this forms part of China’s larger strategy of countering the US attempts at promoting India in the international system.
India’s partial integration into the extant global nuclear order and the challenges that remain to its complete integration are, therefore, better explained by the structural framework. The dominant structural framework captures the global nuclear order to be more a product of the structure of the international system. In essence, as the structure in question evolves, so would the global nuclear order and not necessarily in a systematic and organised manner. Washington DC’s decision to promote India in the global nuclear order, while sacrificing some of its long-held non-proliferation norms, is a case in point. Similarly, Beijing’s decision to flout the NSG guidelines to promote Pakistan in response further substantiates this argument. There are limitations to how much institutions like the NPT can be challenged, especially by the established powers in their respective pursuits of structural interests. But even those limited challenges would have significant consequences for the stability of the global nuclear order.
A longer version of the study is published in the Third World Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 12. — Special Issue: Rising Powers in International Conflict Management: Converging and Contesting Approaches.
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Professor Harsh V. Pant is Vice President – Studies and Foreign Policy at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He is a Professor of International Relations ...
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