The signing of the US–India civilian nuclear agreement in 2008 is a milestone in the geopolitics of the twenty-first century—one that has virtually rewritten the rules of the global nuclear order. It has also transformed the relationship between the world's oldest and largest democracies. Harsh V. Pant's book is the first detailed examination of this major policy initiative as well as the process by which this pact came to fruition. Pant identifies a range of issues at the structural, domestic, political, and individual levels that have shaped the recent trajectory of the US–India relationship. He analyses the three-year long negotiating process with a special focus on how political leaderships in both states managed domestic opposition to the pact. The author locates the agreement in the context of the broader debate over the role of international institutions in global politics.

The United States–India nuclear cooperation agreement to resume civilian nuclear technology trade with India—a non-signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and a defacto nuclear weapon state—is regarded as an impetuous shift in the US nuclear nonproliferation policy. The 2008 nuclear agreement aroused sharp reactions and unleashed a storm of controversies regarding the reversal of the US nonproliferation policy and its implications for the NPT regime. This book attempts to overcome the significant empirical and theoretical deficits in understanding the rationale for the change in the US nuclear nonproliferation policy toward India. This nuclear deal has been largely related to the US foreign policy objectives, especially establishing India as a regional counter-balance to China. The author examines the US–India nuclear cooperation agreement in a bilateral context, with regard to the nuclear regime. In past discourse India has been mainly viewed as a challenger to the nuclear regime, but this reflects the paucity in understanding India’s approach to the issue of nuclear weapons. The author relates the nuclear estrangement to the disjuncture between the US and India’s respective approach to nuclear weapons, evident during the negotiations that led to the framing of the NPT. The change in the US approach towards India, the nuclear outlier, has been exclusively linked to the Bush administration, which faced considerable criticism for sidelining the nonproliferation policy. This book instead traces the shifting of nuclear goalposts to the Clinton administration following the Pokhran II nuclear tests conducted by India. Contrary to the widespread perception that the decision to offer the nuclear technology to India was an impromptu decision by the Bush administration, the author contends that it was the result of a diligent process of bilateral dialogue and interaction. This book provides a detailed overview of the rationale and the developments that led to the agreement. Employing the regime theory, the author argues that the US–India nuclear agreement was neither an overturn of the US nuclear nonproliferation policy nor an unravelling of the NPT-centric regime. Rather, it was a strategic move to accommodate India, the anomaly within the regime.

India is not a great power yet, but it has the potential to emerge as one. That is why, United States pays closer attention to India's role in the regional balance. The strategic significance of the nuclear deal, signed between India and the US, can be appreciated only in the context of the changing US geopolitical strategy and the evolving US-India relationship. This book addresses the wide-ranging issues concerning the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Making a critical assessment of India's energy policy, it describes in detail the agreement with IAEA, NSG waiver, the political fallouts of the deal, its implications for South Asia, and the China factor. The texts of the agreement, the Hyde Act, and India-IAEA Safeguards Agreements have also been appended.

This book examines the US-India nuclear deal that marked a watershed moment in the relations between the two democracies.

The US–India nuclear deal, popularly known as the 123 Agreement, announced by George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh on 18 July 2005, was a defining moment in the relationship of the two countries, as also India’s relationship with the non-proliferation regime. The Bush administration’s implied recognition of India’s nuclear weapons, and its abrupt reversal of three decades of sanctions to restore Indian access to nuclear fuel, reactors, and dual-use technologies despite being a non-proliferation treaty non-signatory, led to contentious debates in both India and the USA. A Debate to Remember emphasizes the multifaceted debate in India over the nuclear deal using concepts from science and technology studies. It focuses on the intense contestation over the civil-military mix of India’s separation plan, the competition between the Iran–Pakistan–India pipeline and the nuclear deal, the role of retired nuclear scientists, and the issue of liability that has stalled the full implementation of the nuclear deal. The impact of domestic factors on issues ranging from the civil-military status of breeder reactors to the Indian insistence on no restriction on future nuclear testing in the 123 Agreement is also revealed in this book.

This book analyzes the 2008 US-India nuclear cooperation agreement. Employing the regime theory, it argues that the agreement was not an impromptu overturn of the US nuclear nonproliferation policy or of the NPT-centric regime but, rather, a strategic move to accommodate the anomaly within the regime based on a long process of bilateral dialogue.

This book interrogates the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement from its inception in July 2005 to its conclusion in the latter part of 2008 through 12 articles, each of which focuses on different aspects of the deal. They discuss the factors that facilitated the deal, the roadblocks that were encountered, and the implications of the deal for the future of India’s foreign policy, its energy security and the international non-proliferation regime. Together, they address the internal political dynamics in India and the United States in order to present perspectives of both countries.