This talk reviews three decades of Indian nuclear decision-making. It argues that India’s slow pace of weaponization in the face of Pakistani nuclearization and Sino- Pakistani nuclear cooperation in the 1980s, the slack in building an institutional capacity to wield nuclear weapons after they came into existence in the 1990s, and the reluctant attempts at developing an operational arsenal even after formally claiming nuclear power status and almost going to war with a nuclear Pakistan in the last decade, constitute puzzling behavior. Existing proliferation models explain facets of Indian nuclear behavior. However, they don’t explain it in its totality. The different facets of Indian nuclear decision making in the last three decades can be collapsed into a single dependent variable: the lag in strategic decision-making. This talk operationalizes the concept of ‘lag’, critically reviews existing explanations of Indian nuclear behavior, and offers an alternative framework for understanding Indian nuclear decision-making.

Gaurav Kampani is a sixth year doctoral student at Cornell University's Department of Government. His major and minor fields are International Relations and Comparative Politics. Kampani's research interests cover international security and focus on the relationship between domestic institutions and strategic policy, military strategy, operations planning, and weapons development.

Kampani's dissertation project studies Indian civil-military institutions and nuclear weapons-related operational practices in the decade prior 1998 and the decade since.

Between 1998-2005, Kampani worked on South Asia-related nuclear and missile proliferation issues at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey CA.

Today nuclear negotiations with North Korea, begun twenty years ago, have returned to their starting point. The Geneva Agreement of 1994 collapsed as a result of North Korea’s clandestine uranium enrichment program, and the PRC-hosted Six Party talks have failed to halt nuclear tests by North Korea. Neither the engagement policy of the Clinton Administration nor the coercive policy of President Bush succeeded in resolving the North Korean nuclear conundrum. The North now claims it should be treated as a nuclear weapons state.

North Korea is currently waging a "peace offensive" to deflect criticism from the international community for its reckless military provocations against South Korea last year. The North may also need dialogue with the international community more than we do, to obtain economic assistance, since starving people would not support their regime and nuclear weapons cannot feed its people. The United States and South Korea agree, however, that under present circumstances, engagement with North Korea would be futile. They maintain that their refusal to resume talks with North Korea is a deliberate and strategic decision. Looking back on real-world experience, North Korea has consistently used provocations as "leverage" to arrive at negotiations on its terms. In most cases, it has gained considerable concessions, using its well-known brinkmanship tactics.

Now that North Korea has confirmed the existence of its uranium enrichment program and announced it will begin constructions of LWRs on its own, neighboring countries are deeply concerned about nuclear safety—not to mention nuclear security—in North Korea. This provides a reason for an unconditional dialogue with North Korea, apparently precisely the situation North sought. In this light, Mr. Yu will review the last twenty years of negotiations with North Korea to draw lessons for dealing with the regime in the future.

Mr. Yu is a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Korea. He served as Korea's Ambassador to Israel, Japan and Philippines.

CISAC's Siegfried Hecker presented the findings of his recent trip to North Korea, where he was given a tour of a nuclear facility reportedly capable of enriching uranium. In his remarks he described two new nuclear facilities, a small light-water power reactor in early stages of construction, and a "modern, clean centrifuge plant" for uranium enrichment. Following his presentation he and Robert Carlin, a CISAC visiting professor, spoke about North Korean nuclear programs and the international reaction to North Korea's nuclear ambitions. This event occurred the day after North Korean military attacks on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.

Image