India has recently seen a succession of visits by the top leaders of the permanent Security Council members. The British prime minister was in India in late July, and the American president came calling in early November. Visits by the French president and the Chinese premier followed earlier this month. In contrast to the high-profile U.S. visit, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew into India almost unnoticed on Dec. 21. Although the Soviet Union was India’s staunchest ally during the Cold War, India has drifted away from post-Cold War Russia. This stands in stark contrast to India’s ties with the U.S., [...]
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is the latest head of state to visit India at a time when the latter is looking to award lucrative contracts in energy, infrastructure, security and other areas. As with U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit last month, Sarkozy sought to develop positive atmospherics by making the “right noises” on issues New Delhi holds dear, such as permanent membership on the U.N. Security Council and entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group as well as terrorism emanating from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. The visit also saw forward movement on a number of bilateral deals valued at around $20 billion. [...]
Two developments this week illustrated the “one step forward, one step back” nature of global nuclear nonproliferation efforts. On the one hand, Iran announced further progress in its domestic nuclear program, increasing Tehran’s potential ability to make nuclear weapons should it ultimately decide to do so. On the other, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) took an important step toward discouraging the further spread of uranium-enrichment technologies, which could be used to pursue nuclear weapons capabilities, by voting to establish the first completely multinational nuclear fuel bank. Although the IAEA move will not solve the immediate problem presented by Iran, [...]
