Despite some political turbulence around India, the real factors of risk that threaten systemic stability come from larger, global issues like terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. (Hence the significance of Pakistan as these issues enter our region from Pakistan.)
As the world globalizes, technology ensures that our threats also globalize. Our security planning must therefore increasingly deal with cross-cutting or transnational issues: energy security, the environment, non- proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and, most significantly, terrorism. It seems apparent that no single country can deal with these issues alone and that they require global solutions which involve all the major powers.
Some trans-boundary issues have the greatest part of their solutions in our immediate and extended neighborhood. These include food security and water issues. Our effort is to create a web of cooperative partnerships in areas such as water and flood control. There are others such as energy security and climate change which are global in their nature and impact.
For instance, let me give you an idea of the challenge that India faces in seeking energy security. The average consumption of electricity per capita each year in India is currently only 550kwH against a global average of 2430kwH, a US average of 13070kwH and a Chinese figure of 1380kwH. At a projected growth rate of 8 per cent a year through 2031-32, the minimum necessary to eradicate poverty, India needs to increase its primary energy supply by 3 to 4 times, and its electricity generation capacity by 5 to 6 times current levels.
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By 2031 -2, power generation capacity must increase to nearly 800,000Mwe from the current capacity of 160,000Mwe. And more than half of this will still have to come from coal. I must add here that even though we have been growing by over 8 per cent there has been effective decoupling of our GDP growth from energy consumption and we have not followed the fuel fuelled growth seen in the OCED. Since earlier this century’s most hydrocarbon exports from the Gulf region have begun to flow eastwards. The major consumers and major producers of energy are all in Asia.
There are fears of a competitive scramble, spiraling prices and plummeting growth. The debate on climate change has acquired starker dimensions in this background. For India clean, convenient and affordable energy is a critical necessity for improving the lives of our people. This would imply massive imports of oil and even coal, which is not as abundant as was believed.
Can India afford to follow this path? What are the other options available given that we are short of energy resources like oil, gas and uranium? What does each of these options entail? In our discussions with the UK, European Union and the US on energy security, we have come to the conclusion that international cooperation in civil nuclear energy can be a significant addition to our own efforts.
This is the fundamental premise behind the India- US understanding on civil nuclear energy cooperation. We would need to build other partnerships as well, on technology cooperation in renewable and efficient use of energy, and on cooperative development of energy supply chains with new suppliers in West Africa, Central Asia and Latin America. The EU in particular is a valued partner in our energy dialogue. India is an active participant in the International Thermonuclear Energy Research project to develop fusion energy as a future source of clean and cheap energy sponsored by the EU.
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Linked to energy security is the issue of global warming and climate change. The international community already has an instrument to deal with the challenge of climate change in the form of the painstakingly negotiated Kyoto Protocol.
More than 50 pc of GHG emissions are currently from OECD countries. India with 17 pc of the world’s population accounts for only 4 pc of such emissions. And yet the adverse effects of global warming caused by accumulated and continued high emissions by industrial countries will largely be felt by developing countries.
These unsustainable patterns of consumption and production must be tackled on an urgent basis. It is imperative that the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol urgently commit themselves to truly higher levels of GHG reductions as compared to the first commitment period and conclude these negotiations quickly. This will also spur the enlargement of the carbon market and give a fillip to private sector involvement in clean technologies and investment.
We all need additional paradigms for tackling climate change comprehensively. These include access to clean technologies by developing countries both through new R&D efforts, including collaborative R&D focusing on the resource endowments of developing countries, and by addressing the IPR issue. The IPR issue has been dealt with some success in the case of HIV/AIDS. A similar effort is required for clean technologies that would balance the rewards for the innovators with the common good of humankind.
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We have recently begun hearing of linkage between climate change and international peace and security. Developed countries reducing their GHG emissions and energy consumption will considerably reduce such threats through a reduction in the need for privileged access to energy markets. Nothing in the GHG profile of the developing countries even remotely reflects a threat to international peace and security though their taking on GHG mitigation targets will adversely affect their development.
To meet the twin challenges of energy security, and climate change India and the EU have an energy panel which focuses on collaboration in clean coal technologies, nuclear energy, energy efficiency and the petroleum sector. There is also a separate India- EU working group under the joint commission dealing with environmental issues. As for the threat from weapons of mass destruction to international security, we believe that general and complete disarmament including nuclear disarmament must remain on the international agenda.
India’s status as a nuclear weapon state does not diminish its commitment to the objective of a nuclear weapon-free world. Aspiring for a non-violent world order, through global, verifiable and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament continues to be an important plank of our nuclear policy that is characterized by restraint, responsibility, transparency, predictability and a defensive orientation.
We maintain our voluntary moratorium on tests, are ready to engage in negotiations in a nondiscriminatory Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, and we enforce strict and comprehensive export controls, which have now been harmonized with those of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime. We have scrupulously not transferred enrichment and reprocessing technologies to Countries that do not have them, and have supported international efforts to halt their spread.
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Recent events have shown that a new global consensus on non-proliferation is required, based on an equal partnership of responsible States. As a responsible nuclear power with impeccable credentials on non-proliferation, we are ready to be a partner against proliferation, working closely to create a new consensus on which to move forward.
Many of the challenges I have described terrorism, peace and stability in our extended neighborhood, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, energy security and environment are integral to our discussions with the major powers, and the EU. The engagement between India and the EU collectively, as also with its member states, notably France, Germany and the UK, is intensifying on a number of strategic issues.
With shared democratic values and as multi-ethnic plural societies, India hopes to be able to draw on the emerging cohesiveness of the European perspective on major strategic issues. India and the EU are natural partners and factors of stability in the present world order, and the UK is India’s natural bridge to the EU. In sum, in our approach to emerging and larger security issues worldwide, as new trans-national threats emerge, fueled in part by the informative age and globalization, a new mix of players will be central to achieving our goals.
In an environment where most conflicts will be “low intensity” regional affairs, the real challenge will be “winning the peace,” and marshalling and deploying soft-power assets will be as important as “hard power” assets.
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Beyond regional instabilities and conflicts guised by failed or failing States, the greater problems are associated with the new set of trans-national threats that grow in importance proportionately to the pi-ogress of the informative age and globalization trends that fuel them just as they drive economic expansion, pore most among these is the terrorist threat, from a new generation of technologically empowered, globally mobile non-state actors.