Experts Warn That U.S. Moves May Boomerang

It is one thing to impose sanctions against small “rogue” countries--Communist Cuba, Moammar Kadafi’s Libya or even an important oil producer like Iraq.

It is quite another matter, foreign affairs specialists warn, to sever economic and military ties with India--the world’s second-most-populous nation and the dominant power in a region fraught with nuclear instability.

In the wake of India’s decision to conduct underground nuclear tests, these experts are raising serious questions about whether the punitive measures against New Delhi that President Clinton ordered Wednesday in response could, in the long run, inflict greater harm on the United States.

The specialists argue that the sanctions will hardly deter India from its nuclear course. Instead, their main result may be to reduce the United States’ ability to shape events in an increasingly volatile part of the world. “After sanctions, what?” asked a senior U.S. official. “You can’t engage with a country that accounts for a fifth of mankind.”

Robert B. Oakley, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, added, “Sanctions can mean diminished influence; they can mean a reduced ability to weigh in when you need to.”

Such comments reflect a broad and growing sense of disenchantment with the impact of economic sanctions--a diplomatic tool the United States has increasingly employed in the post-Cold War years.

The experts note that, under U.S. law, Clinton would be forced to impose similar measures on Pakistan if it responds to India with its own nuclear tests. Such a move could effectively remove the United States as a player in influencing either adversary in the simmering nuclear standoff, the specialists claim.

Arms control experts join in conceding that the sanctions probably will have little impact on reversing India’s nuclear course, but they present a powerful counter-argument in favor of the measures. Such penalties, these experts contend, are necessary to discourage other “nearly nuclear” states--such as Pakistan--from launching their own tests.

“It’s been a frustrating experience with sanctions generally, but here they are important,” said Thomas Carothers, director of research at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “This is a high-stakes game on both sides. [India’s leaders] say it involves their security, but it’s a pretty major element in our security too.”

There is little doubt that sanctions, even if they don’t spur a change in policy, will hurt India and, if it comes to that, Pakistan. According to State Department officials, the United States is the largest single trading partner of both countries.

Clinton, who had the option of waiting up to 30 days, decided that he needed to order sanctions immediately to demonstrate the seriousness of U.S. concerns about India’s nuclear tests. But whether his move translates into meaningful pressure depends in part on his ability to generate support for strong action at this weekend’s summit meeting of major industrial powers in Birmingham, England.

So far, among the meeting’s participants, France and Russia have expressed doubts about the wisdom of sanctions against India, while Britain has been conspicuously silent on the issue. Only Japan has spoken out strongly in support of the measures.

Japan, the largest donor of aid to India, said Wednesday that it was suspending aid to the country except for humanitarian assistance. However, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said Tokyo would not make any decisions about its loans to India--which dwarf the aid--until it gauges New Delhi’s response to the criticism of India’s actions.

Oakley argued that, while sanctions can be useful in certain situations, their underlying problem is an inherent inflexibility. “Once they’re in place, they are very hard to lift,” he said. “At some point, the administration and Congress have to talk this concept through so it is not just reacting to media events.”

Oakley served as ambassador to Pakistan from 1988 to 1991 and evaluates sanctions from firsthand experience. The United States imposed an array of sanctions against Pakistan in 1990 to halt its drive to develop nuclear weapons. The result, he said, was an erosion of U.S. influence in a friendly nation, historically more receptive to U.S. ideas and thinking than any country in the Islamic world.

South Asia specialists fear that the same loss of influence will occur in India. “There have been a number of high-level exchanges and consultations in the defense field that had built a rapport,” said Craig Baxter, a former U.S. diplomat who has written books about the region. “It creates a climate, a confidence, and that will go” under the sanctions.

Congress has been enamored of punitive economic measures mainly because they contain an easily achieved feel-good factor: They fall short of military strikes, frequently cost little, yet provide a clear signal of political resolve.

In fact, the terms of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994 left Clinton no option but to impose sweeping sanctions against India within 30 days. There was also plenty of strident rhetoric favoring sanctions at a Senate committee hearing on the issue Wednesday.

“As long as there is breath in me, I will never support the lifting of the . . . sanctions on India unless [the country’s leaders] abandon all nuclear ambitions,” thundered Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

Times staff writers Robin Wright in Washington and Valerie Reitman in Tokyo contributed to this report.