SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE ABORTED SALE OF RUSSIAN CRYOGENIC ROCKET ENGINES TO INDIA

In July 1993 Russia decided to suspend a contract signed more than two years before, that would have supplied cryogenic rocket engines and r elated technologies for India's civilian space program. Moscow's decis ion to second guess the original deal was reached on the eve of U.S. e conomic sanctions that would have gone into effect should Russia have decided to honor its agreement. The United States had threatened to im pose an embargo on grounds that the proposed Russian sale would violat e the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), one of its major post- cold war foreign policy considerations. The importance of the suspende d deal lies in its multiple ramifications and some of these are explor ed in this article. Among others, the aborted contract indicates shift ing alliances in the post-cold war world as the established Indo-Sovie t/Russian bond has weakened and Moscow and Washington have moved towar d greater cooperation and understanding. It even may have had the effe ct of motivating India toward developing cryogenic rockets indigenousl y and also acquiring an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Should that happen the security issue in South Asia will acquire a new dimension as Paki stan may follow suit, setting off a chain reaction whereby other count ries with nuclear ambitions may wish to satisfy them, and, in the proc ess, severely undermining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) an d MTCR.