Orange Sky On The Horizon: India, The United States And Our Nuclear World
By Philip Shaw M.Sc.
With Dr. A.K. Enamul Haque Ph.D
It seems like a long time ago now. I was in New Zealand and Enamul was back in Ontario, cleaning things up before he left once again for Bangladesh. When I got to the small town of Te Anua, New Zealand there was a fax waiting for me at my hotel. Bon Voyage, my friend, see you again someday.
Long story short, I was on my honeymoon, he was in Canada where he was in the wedding a few weeks before. He then headed back to Bangladesh and got married himself. At the time he seemed a million miles away, just like I felt.
Te Anua New Zealand is on the far side of the earth. It’s in the rugged southeast of the South Island of New Zealand. It’s so far away from anything, it seems the world’s problems are so far away.
While there I picked up a book by New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange explaining New Zealand’s nuclear free policy. What struck me in the book was Lange’s description of seeing orange light in the eastern night sky during his youth. It was from the French nuclear explosions in far off French Polynesia. Living in the south Auckland suburb of Otahuhu, he thought it preposterous what he was seeing from his peaceful neighourhood in one of the most remote countries on earth.
On reading that, I felt the same way. I’ve been to French Polynesia and I thought dropping nukes in paradise was truly bizarre. However, on reading Lange’s comments, I couldn’t even imagine his consternation on seeing the orange night sky.
Simply put, nukes and nuclear power scare people. Just look at the world today. In western circles some world leaders especially in the United States are petrified that Iran might be developing nuclear energy, if not nukes. Meanwhile, this past week the United States and India signed their own “nuclear deal.” What would David Lange think if he was still alive? Has the world gone crazy?
It’s interesting how the debate about “nuclear” has changed. When I was a student and for most of my life, anything nuclear was bad, bad, and bad, especially the nukes. However, today in 2008 the nukes are still very, very bad, but “nuclear energy” has enjoyed a renaissance. Aside from the nuclear waste, the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear energy are few. In fact, in many circles now, its seen as the new “clean energy.” In Ontario Canada where I’m from, the government has renewed its commitment to building more nuclear facilities. There is no public outcry. It seems the anti-nuke people have grown old and now they want the cheap energy nuclear affords.
If only the western world could see that for other “rogue” nations. This surely stirs visions of hypocrisy among my developing world friends. For instance shouldn’t Iran with its growing economy have the option for clean, safe and cheap nuclear energy? It makes sense to many people in Europe and Asia. However, it makes no sense to the United States and Israel. With a President who openly espouses anti-Semantic views, help for Iran in the west is a non-starter.
So what’s up with India? When you start to pick and choose who is “allowed” nuclear and who isn’t, our policy world gets messy. Pakistan has nukes, but oh yeah, they are helping the west in the war on terror. North Korea is starving their own people but boy, do they love those explosions. Israel of course denies that they have them and in our pick and choose world, seems to get away with it. India of course is a whole different world.
When you are in the west, India is like “over there”. It’s on the other side of the world and off the media’s radar screen. That’s been changing especially with India’s economic influence growing. Clearly though, India is the regional superpower of South Asia. In fact its Bollywood culture stretches from Morocco to Indonesia. In South Asia, India gets anything they want.
That’s one reason why the United States recently signed its nuclear cooperation deal with India. It will allow India to receive American supplies for its burgeoning nuclear industry ending a boycott India was under because of their reluctance to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Call it a double standard. It is what it is.
My last footprints in Bangladesh were in 2003. When I got up to leave for the airport everything went black, no power. In fact in Bangladesh they are used to that. The power grid is intermittent, affecting economic growth, affecting lives. Ditto across much of Asia. So is the answer more nuclear? Will that make things better?
The answer of course is somewhere in the middle. Shouldn’t Iranians have the same light of day with a flip of a switch as the Indians, Pakistanis, Canadians and British? I think so. However, the spectre of former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange standing in his backyard looking at the orange sky to the east burns in my mind. Nothing when it comes to nuclear is simple. In this changing world, it’ll probably remain so.
Nuclear Hegemony or General Disarmament?
By Dr. A.K. Enamul Haque PhD
United International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Congratulations Phil, for your courageous and clear writing on the Nukes. The race for nuclear technology is clearly a fuzzy one. It is still not clear to me whether mastering nuclear fission technology is a necessary condition for a country to have nuclear energy. Common sense would tell you that knowledge about nuclear technology is needed for countries to depend on nuclear energy. This is true for all countries in the world that have nuclear power stations.
The demand for power is growing and countries are forced to build new power stations. Currently, nuclear power is one of the cheapest and cleanest technologies. In 1973, 0.9% of the total energy was produced using nuclear technology; in 2005 it is 11 percent. In 1973 92.8% of the nuclear energy were produced in OECD countries, now it 84.7%. Today 16% of the total electricity of the world is produced with nuclear technology using 439 reactors. Countries like Egypt, Libya, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, UAE, Jordan, Israel, Poland and also Bangladesh are considering installing nuclear reactors to produce electricity. Given the crisis of electricity in every country, the crisis of fuel in world, it is imperative that the countries are allowed to use this technology.
Here you might say that signing of NPT’s (Non-Proliferation Treaties) is a precondition for countries to have nuclear technology. This is no longer true because a) Iran signed NPT and yet is not allowed to have this technology and b) India did not sign NPT and yet they are receiving the technology from the US, and possibly from France and Russia in the future.  This is where the US and its allies have failed the world that were looking for this technology and at the same time wanted a nuclear arms free world. The approach of the West is totally hypocritical and it will lead us to a world full of nuclear hegemony.
However, it is still unclear to me if civilian nuclear power facilities can be used to produce nuclear bombs. If yes, then having civilian nuclear facilities is in the strategic interest of the countries, which want to build up a nuclear defense system. I had the opportunity to listen to a lecture given by a nuclear physicist in Sweden this year that explained to us (mostly economists) that even civilian nuclear power facilities are capable of making nuclear bombs. However, it requires the existence of nuclear scientists in that country. If this is so, then I believe the race is over now. In today’s world, knowledge cannot remain hidden in a box. Each and every nation will develop expertise on it. Today nearly 15000 nuclear warheads exist in the world. 5000 of them are with US, 8000 of them are with Russia and the rest are with France, UK, China, India, Pakistan and Israel (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons ) In this case, the only safeguard provision for the world will be a general disarmament by all. Let us hope that this will happen.