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Sanctions ineffective, says Senator Biden

Senator Joseph Biden, Delaware Democrat and the new chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has described the sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan after their tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998 as "ineffective" and urged the US to find new ways to promote non-proliferation in South Asia.

In a speech to the 2001 Carnegie International Non-proliferation Conference in Washington, Biden, who took over as head of the Senate panel from the cantankerous Senator Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, said -- though without mentioning the Kashmir dispute by name -- that the US must remain engaged in "the peaceful resolution of conflict" in the subcontinent because another war there could involve weapons of mass destruction.

"We must encourage India, Pakistan and the countries that support them to search for new approaches to security in the region," he said. "We must also find a way to promote non-proliferation in South Asia without relying upon ineffective sanctions."

He said one way to do so could be to offer "inducements". "Are there positive inducements that would make a difference for South Korea? For Iran? For India and Pakistan? There may be," he said.

"It might help, of course," he added, "if we would show leadership in the field of arms control, which is so closely tied to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

Biden, who is considered a non-proliferation hawk, argued that "there is no excuse for our failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty".

He acknowledged that "there are legitimate concerns regarding stockpile stewardship and verification capabilities. But we must address those concerns and then ratify the treaty."

"Were we to do that," he predicted, "I have no doubt that we could then convince India and Pakistan to do the same."

Biden, a fierce critic of President George W Bush's proposed National Missile Defence system, argued that there is "no excuse for choosing a missile defence that leads China to vastly increase its nuclear forces, with a ripple effect on India and Pakistan".

He said that while America's desire for a missile defence is "understandable", that does not "make it prudent to deploy a mediocre defence or to needlessly abrogate the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty".

According to Biden, "it may be possible to craft a defence -- and an amended ABM Treaty -- so as not to threaten Russia or China's nuclear deterrent capabilities".

He said the point he was making was that "our actions on missile defence may well affect our non-proliferation efforts. To succeed in non-proliferation, we need the co-operation of both Russia and China. Any rational missile defence policy will take that need into account."

Biden, however, did not advocate a total abandonment of sanctions, saying, "Other countries also have a role to play in the imposition and enforcement of international sanctions.

"The history of unilateral sanctions is hardly encouraging. But when the world stands firm, sanctions can succeed."

The trouble, of course, he acknowledged, echoing something US businesses have been complaining about following the imposition of sanctions on India, "is that it hurts a country to impose sanctions. We get back to that first lesson: proliferation is an uncomfortable issue. It is uncomfortable for other countries, just as it is for the United States."

Biden noted that "it is an irritant in our relations with countries and it almost always pulls us away from closer relations, be they with Russia, China, India, and Pakistan".

But "precisely because proliferation is an uncomfortable issue, we must institutionalize it", he said. "That is the only way to ensure this issue a seat at the table when foreign policy decisions are made."

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