Jayita Sarkar

Assistant Professor, Boston University

10. Sarkar, J. “From the Dependable to the Demanding Partner: The Renegotiation of French Nuclear Cooperation with India, 1974-1980," Cold War History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (2021), forthcoming. Advance Access Link

 

This article examines the shift in French nuclear export policy during 1974-1980 leading to renegotiation of bilateral contracts between India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and France’s Commissariat à l’énergie atomique (CEA). This reassessment of French-Indian nuclear partnership by Giscard d’Estaing’s government initially resulted from its concerns that France might be implicated in India’s 1974 nuclear explosion. Neither country had signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the CEA and the DAE were longtime technology partners, and both opposed multilateral safeguards. The French reassessment later received a major thrust from improved U.S.-French bilateral relations in which global nonproliferation played a prominent role.

 

 

 

9. Sarkar, J. "The Economic Strategies of U.S. Nonproliferation Policy during the Nixon-Ford Years," Journal of Global Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 2021): 1-6. Link

 

Much of international relations scholarship attributes the United States’ commitment to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons as the outcome of US national security interests. Yet, US nonproliferation policy comprises a compelling set of economic goals and strategies, beyond economic sanctions. Without incorporating economic factors and actors, and their convergence with the Cold War US national security state, the understanding of US nonproliferation policy remains incomplete. The 1970s challenged US postwar economic preeminence through the “Nixon shock,” the end of dollar convertibility to gold of the Bretton Woods system, and the 1973 oil price shock. Concurrently, the United States’ market share in terms of global nuclear reactor sales declined while those of West European suppliers like France and West Germany increased. This essay argues that US nonproliferation efforts, which in the Nixon-Ford era took the form of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) after India's 1974 nuclear explosion, were guided as much by security concerns about proliferation as by Washington's aim to reclaim its market share to protect US nuclear industry against West European competition.

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8. Sarkar, J. “U.S. Policy to Curb West European Nuclear Exports, 1974-78,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Spring 2019): 110-149. Link

H-Diplo Review

 

After India’s 1974 nuclear explosion publicly demonstrated the proliferation risks from nuclear assistance, the United States government increased its efforts to control nuclear exports worldwide. In doing so, U.S. policymakers faced challenges from two of its major West European allies, France and West Germany, who pursued their commercial interests through nuclear exports to countries like Pakistan, Brazil, Iran and India, among others. Despite multilateral efforts like the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and bilateral negotiations with the supplier countries’ governments, the administrations of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter only obtained partial success. Commercial interests of the firms, influence of pro-exports coalitions inside the supplier countries, and the emerging importance of the Soviet Union and countries of the Eastern bloc as alternative suppliers influenced the outcome. The United States was, however, relatively more successful with respect to Paris through a series of quid pro quo but far less effective vis-à-vis Bonn. Using newly declassified archival documents, this research sheds new light on U.S. nonproliferation policy in the aftermath of the 1973 oil price shock.

 

 

 

7. Blarel, N. & J. Sarkar. “Sub-State Organizations as Foreign Policy Agents: New Evidence and Theory from India, Israel and France," Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 15, No. 2 (July 2019): 413-431. Link

H-Diplo Review

 

The extant scholarship in international relations does not completely account for the role of sub-state organizations (SSOs) in foreign policymaking of states. Yet, international cooperation, especially, in specialized areas like defense, space and nuclear technologies that are intrinsically complex frequently witness extensive involvement of SSOs. In other words, SSOs often act as foreign policy agents driving the international partnerships. Why does this happen, and what are its causal mechanisms? In this study, we conduct a plausibility probe on the role of SSOs through examining India’s partnerships with France and Israel in the specialized domains of nuclear, space and defense technologies, and find that the foreign policy executives (FPEs) within the governments frequently defer to relevant SSOs when specialized knowledge and expertise are required, thereby, conferring foreign policy agency to the SSOs. We also find that the SSOs select their international partners based on their goals of efficiency, common institutional designs and organizational cultures. Our conclusions lead us to draw scholarly attention to this largely ignored yet significant actor in foreign policy decision-making.

 

 

 

6. Krige, J. & J. Sarkar. “U.S. Technological Collaboration for Nonproliferation: Key Evidence from the Cold War,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 25, no. 3-4 (2018): 249-262. Link

Winner of the 2018 McElvany Grand Prize

 

Although the existing international-relations scholarship argues that technological assistance in the nuclear domain increases the probability of nuclear proliferation, the historical account indicates otherwise. Congressional legislation for nonproliferation, economic sanctions, and poor state capacity—specifically, inept managerial capabilities of the recipient state—explain merely part of the puzzle, but overlook the role of positive inducements offered to impede nuclear proliferation. Historical evidence shows that the United States often provided technological assistance with the deliberate intent to inhibit proliferation. In other words, Washington employed its technological leverage to attain nonproliferation goals. American technological preponderance since the end of World War II made such an approach feasible. This study examines key Cold War cases—Israel/Egypt, India, and West Germany—where the United States offered technological assistance with the deliberate intent to stall nuclear proliferation, thereby underscoring the role of assistance for inhibitive ends.

 

 

 

5. Rabinowitz, O. & J. Sarkar. “‘It Isn’t Over Until the Fuel Cell Sings’: A Reassessment of the US and French Pledges of Nuclear Assistance in the 1970s,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 41, no. 1-2 (2018): 275-300. Link

 

Based on newly declassified archival documents, the aim of this study is to contribute to an improved understanding of the evolution of the non-proliferation regime through an examination of US and French nuclear cooperation agreements in the latter half of the 1970s. The four pledges of nuclear assistance examined – US assistance to Egypt and Israel, and French assistance to Pakistan and South Korea – failed to materialise by the end of the decade. Why did that happen? What caused the four pledges to fail? We find that the 1974 Indian nuclear explosion and the emergence of opposing domestic factions on the nuclear front in the supplier states generated major changes in US and French nuclear export policies, and also contributed to the development of a collaborative partnership between the two competing nuclear exporters, on the other.

 

 

 

4. Sarkar, J. “The Making of a Nonaligned Nuclear Power: India’s Proliferation Drift, 1964-1968,” International History Review, Vol. 37, no. 5 (2015): 933-950. Link

H-Diplo Review

 

The article examines the strategic circumstances leading to non-aligned India's safeguard of its nuclear option during a crucial period in its proliferation trajectory, when it was one of the states closest to nuclear-weapons development, and faced US pressures to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that was being negotiated at the time. Based on Indian, US, and French primary sources, this paper demonstrates that India's regional strategic insecurities and bilateral tensions with the United States were too great for it to sign the NPT. Yet, New Delhi's capability to successfully reprocess weapons-grade plutonium permitted the developing country substantial leverage that it exploited through advancing on a slow dual-use nuclear programme.

 

 

 

3. Sarkar, J. 'Wean them away from French tutelage': Franco-Indian nuclear relations and Anglo-American anxieties in the early Cold War, 1948-1952, Cold War History, 15, no. 3 (2015): 375-394. Link

 

The 1951 Franco-Indian bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement was the first such cooperation outside the Manhattan Project, and preceded President Eisenhower's 1953 ‘Atoms for Peace’ proposal. This cooperation on one hand upset the United Kingdom, which regretted losing leverage over its former colony to its colonial rival, and on the other, enhanced the United States' interest in playing a key role in the region. Based on multi-archival research, this paper explores the significance of Franco-Indian nuclear relations against the backdrop of Anglo-American endeavours to censor information related to atomic energy and to secure control of strategic minerals during the early Cold War.

 

 

 

2. Sarkar, J. "Les Compatriotes de l'atome: La coopération nucléaire franco-indiennce, 1950-1976," Critique internationale 63, no. 2 (2014): 131-149. Link

 

Based on multi-archival research in France, India and the United Kingdom, this paper examines the development of the Franco-Indian nuclear relationship from Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s January 1950 visit to India to the latter’s first nuclear test in May 1974. While the early development of a nuclear program in both countries provided an immediate rationale for bilateral collaboration, diplomatic disagreements persisted between Paris and New Delhi : these initially concerned the fate of “French establishments in India” but were later elicited by French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s shift to a policy of non-proliferation. Thoughout the period studied, however, cooperation continued thanks to excellent relations between the French and Indian atomic energy agencies and the two countries’ shared desire to retain an independent foreign policy in a world dominated by the rivalry of the two blocs.

 

 

 

1. Sarkar, J. "India’s Nuclear Limbo and the Fatalism of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime, 1974-1983," Strategic Analysis 37 (2013): 322-337. Link

 

India's relationship with the nuclear non-proliferation regime deteriorated sharply after its 1974 underground nuclear test which, according to India, was a peaceful nuclear explosion, but which was not accepted as such by the regime. That it did not follow up with immediate weaponisation challenged the core logic of the non-proliferation regime which operates on a Murphy's Law of ‘nuclear fatalism’, i.e. if a country has the know-how to produce nuclear weapons, it will certainly produce them. This article argues that at least until the beginning of its integrated guided missile development programme in 1983, India's nuclear inaction posed a normative challenge to this logic.