http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x107257This Business of a US-India Nuclear Deal
By J. Sri Raman
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Saturday 04 August 2007
In his farewell address on January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered the prophetic warning: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." He was talking of the influence of the complex (for which his epithet was to prove enduring) in Washington's corridors of power.
We in India had to wait until the second term of a distant successor with very different views on the subject to discover the relevance of the warning to us. The US military-industrial complex (along with its strategic-business partners elsewhere) has just given us proof of its influence in the councils of government in New Delhi as well. The influence has, in fact, been as important a factor behind the dramatic advance towards the finalization of the US-India nuclear deal as the diplomatic skills said to have been displayed on both sides.
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Less than due publicity was given to the fact that the military complex was conducting its own parallel negotiation process. Buried in reports on the advance was a semiofficial acknowledgement of this accompanying exercise.
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We have noted before in these columns the expectations of corporations and experts from the deal, and these bear repetition. Expert projections made in December 2006 envisage an increase in India's nuclear arsenal by 40 to 50 weapons a year as a result of the deal. The country is also expected to acquire 40 nuclear reactors over the next two decades or so.
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