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By Lakhvinder Singh
Last year in August, India and the United States signed a bilateral agreement on energy cooperation, now known as the India-U.S. nuclear deal. This was the logical next step in a strategic cooperation process, which has been ongoing for more than a decade.
The deal aims to raise relations between the two countries to a higher level, lift the moratorium on nuclear trade with India, and provide assistance to India's civilian nuclear energy program.
However, many critics in the U.S. and around the world have criticized the deal as undermining the half a century of nonproliferation efforts and contributing to the arms race in Asia.
Critics have also pointed out that the deal will make it difficult for the world to deal with other countries who are trying to acquire nuclear weapons by hook or by crook such as Iran and north Korea.
However upon closer examination, such fears are ill founded and show a lack of proper understanding of the deal and India's commitment to keep the world safe from further nuclear proliferation.
As a part of its commitment India has agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its civilian nuclear program for inspection at short notice.
It has also committed to place all future civilian thermal and breeder reactors under IAEA safeguards permanently, something it was not agreeing to do before the deal with the U.S. was signed.
India has also agreed to sign an ``Additional Protocol'' with IAEA for more extensive inspections of its civilian nuclear program.
To further strengthen its commitment to a nuclear free world it has voluntarily agreed to a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear tests. India has also agreed to speed up the process of negotiating a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) with the U.S.
Far from threatening the established global nuclear order, the deal will go a long way in strengthening India's participation in the preservation of the current one. With the deal in place India will be more inclined to accept international safeguards on its nuclear facilities, something it refused to accept before.
Even though it is not a member of the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG), India has agreed to impose the same export standards as followed by the NSG in exporting nuclear technology to other countries. This is considered to be a big step by India in keeping and strengthening the present global order.
If India wants, as a nonmember of the NSG it could easily sell its nuclear technology to the highest bidder from around the world and earn much needed foreign currency. However India's voluntary restrictions not to sell technology to untrustworthy countries can go a long way in preserving peace in the world.
Apart from preserving and strengthening the current global nuclear order, the India-U.S. nuclear deal will also go a long way in strengthening the energy security of the world.
Currently India ranks as the sixth greatest energy consumer of the world. With a growing economy and increasing demand for energy, India is expected to emerge as the third largest consumer of energy after China and the U.S. by 2020.
This increasing demand for energy in India has the potential of creating a world energy crisis. Currently most of India's energy needs are met through conventional energy. With the India-U.S. nuclear pact, India will be able to shift towards nuclear energy and its demand for coal, crude and natural gas could decline considerably.
The worldwide ramification for such an energy production shift in India will be hard to ignore and will impact the world in many ways.
The nuclear deal is expected to increase nuclear power generation in India from 4,000 megawatts to 20,000 megawatts by 2020. It will also spur world economic growth as nuclear plant projects worth more than $150 billion will be up for grabs by developed countries.
The world economy, which is facing a serious downturn, is expected to get a big boost from nuclear energy investments in India.
Convinced of the positive impact the India-U.S. deal will have on the world economy and security, the U.S. has been to trying to persuade fellow members of the NSG to support the nuclear pact and grant India an exemption to conduct civil nuclear trade with the international community.
Except for a few countries, most of the NSG countries seems to have agreed to the proposals and are ready to grant exemption to India.
Korea as member of the NSG group has been positive toward the India-U.S. deal. However its role in NSG negotiations has not been up to its status as the 11th largest economy in the world.
At best it has been only passive in nature. As a net energy importer country, the India-U.S. deal can go a long way in securing Korea's energy needs in the coming decade. It will also help in strengthening its strategic and economic alliance with India and the U.S.
So it should become active and join India and the U.S. in persuading the NSG members who have expressed some reservations on the deal. South Korea is emerging as a great economic power. It must start acting like one by playing active role in world affairs.
Lakhvinder Singh, senior research fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, is president of the Indo-Korean Policy Forum. He can be reached at kapcenterkyu@yahoo.com.
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