Last summer the United States and India agreed to an historic deal, one that was designed to transform their relationship. The core of the agreement was a reassessment of India's nuclear program. The U.S. sought to end India's pariah status and to normalize Delhi's relations with the global proliferation order.
Supporters argued it acknowledged reality and India's exemplary efforts to guard against nuclear proliferation; critics counter that it undermined nonproliferation and encouraged other countries to copy India. Last week the two countries continued their efforts to implement that agreement. It is unclear whether the surrender of nonproliferation principles to nuclear reality will prove as beneficial as Washington and Delhi claim.
India has been a persistent objector to the global nuclear nonproliferation order. It refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), complaining that the treaty institutionalizes nuclear apartheid between nuclear "haves" and "have nots." Determined to claim its rightful place on the international stage and convinced of the utility of such weapons, India developed its own nuclear arsenal. Delhi detonated a "peaceful nuclear explosion" in 1974 and exploded a nuclear bomb in 1998.