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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 de facto nuclear weapon state - is regarded as an impetuous shift in the US nuclear nonproliferation policy. Thus, the 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 empirical and theoretical deficit in understanding the rationale for the change in the US nuclear nonproliferation policy toward India. This nuclear deal has been viewed as a neorealist design of the Bush administration to develop a strategic partnership with India and as a regional counterbalance to China. On the contrary, the author examines the agreement in a triadic relationship between the US, India, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime. In the discourse India has been mainly viewed as a challenger to the nuclear regime, but the author argues that this reflects paucity in understanding India's approach to the issue of nuclear weapons. The book traces the nuclear estrangement between the United States and India to the disjuncture between their respective approaches to nuclear weapons, evident during the negotiations that led to the framing of the NPT. The change in the US approach toward India, a nuclear outlier, has been solely attributed to the Bush administration, which faced considerable scathe for sidelining the nonproliferation regime. This book instead traces the shifting of nuclear goalposts to the Clinton administation following the Pokhran II nuclear tests conducted by India. Furthermore, contrary to the widespread perception that offering 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. In this context, the 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.

NUCLEAR ENERGY--INDIA --- NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION--INDIA --- NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION--USA --- USA--FOREIGN RELATIONS--INDIA --- INDIA--FOREIGN RELATIONS--USA