India and the Nuclear Deal

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They're both big players and I wouldn't exactly say "pawn." Rather: mutually beneficial contract with two big players to strenghten them even more in relation to other, weaker ones. Richer get richer, poorer get poorer. The usual power-play.

[ March 16, 2006, 13:29: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

The big thing about this deal is not the fuel. Yeah we are light on Uranium and Tarapore's two civilian reactors (the biggest in capacity iirc) are standing idle but India hasn't been looking at going Nuclear in a big manner because of the existing supply conditions.

The big fallout of relaxation of US and then IAEA rules will be in open access of dual use technology. Technology right from supercomputers and large datamining software (which may be use for predicting weather patterns or nuclear bomb effect) to nanotechnology (again with the possibility of being used anywhere from brain surgery to nucear warships) has been kept out of Indian hands due to the US laws with regard to non-NPT signatories.
Once the changes in US laws goes through, Indian companies will be able to import all these cutting edge technlogies giving a fillip to industries as varied as petrolium refineries to automobiles. This is what every one is looking at.

If India does not have access to nuclear energy, we will simply depend on coal and gas. Not only might this be eventually bad for the world ecology but the rising gas prices are definately bad for US economy right now. That is why Bush is pushing this through.

 

First of all i would like to clarify that the stereotype of Muslims i have is not that of a terrorist. Irresponsibility is an issue that has to do with people not religions.

All i wanted to say is that the influence of a Zealot Muslim priest (Mullah) expressing angered words against the evil West will be far less than in Pakistan. The psycology of the masses if you get my meaning .

I was partly (if someone looks at the figures) wrong about the pawn remark i made for India. The truth is that India is the second biggest country in population and economy growth. That means that is a very powerfull ally. Especially for USA, since India is right next to China (a country which is considered as a threat by the Foreign office).

I don't know for sure, but i think India is a little bit stressed over the energy resources. Which means that te economical growth India experiences could hold back due to the lack of energy, and the constantly increasing cost of gas.

But by USAs move to give Indias nuclear fuel (Plutonium, Uranium), makes India also a hostage to USA. Since if at some point the energy output of the nuclear plants is so critical to have, then India will find it hard to resist any demand US may make (not an outrageous one but sometimes even a vote at the security counsil can be painfull).

This is only a personal opinion of course. I surely can't imagine the plans that have been made behind this move.

As for the ecology issue i am sure that US did not proposed this deal for ecology reasons. After all the US administration has rejected the Kyoto agreement too many times, in order to give us a clear picture of what the goverment thinks about ecology and the future of this planet.

As for gas and coal. Well these two resources are expentable. They are diminishing and at the not so distant future, human civilization will have to find alternative sources of energy. Furthermore US now has Iraqs oil too under control so it has only a small concern about the prices, and don't forget the fact that US is among the biggest oil producers. They just don't sell.

 

Tangent: the Economist's March 11th cover about the nuke deal was, bar none, the best magazine cover I've yet seen.

Behold the glory that is the March 11th issue.