Remarks to a Joint Session of Parliament in New Delhi

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, March 27, 2000

Americans understood the pain and agony you went through during the Indian Airlines hijacking. And I saw that pain firsthand when I met with the parents and the widow of the young man who was killed on that airplane. We grieve with you for the Sikhs who were killed in Kashmir, and our heart goes out to their families. We will work with you to uld a system of justice, to strengthen our cooperation against terror. We must never relax our vigilance or allow the perpetrators to intimidate us into retreating from our democratic ideals.

Another danger we face is the spread of weapons of mass destruction to those who might have no reservations about using them. I still believe this is the greatest potential threat to the security we all face in the 21st century. It is why we must be vigilant in fighting the spread of chemical and biological weapons. And it is why we must both keep working closely to resolve our remaining differences on nuclear proliferation.

I am aware that I speak to you on behalf of a nation that has possessed nuclear weapons for 55 years and more. But since 1988, the United States has dismantled more than 13,000 nuclear weapons. We have helped Russia to dismantle their nuclear weapons and to safeguard the material that remains. We have agreed to an outline of a treaty with Russia that will reduce our remaining nuclear arsenal by more than half. We are producing no more fissile material, developing no new land- or submarine-based missiles, engaging in no new nuclear testing.

From South America to South Africa, nations are foreswearing these weapons, realizing that a nuclear future is not a more secure future. Most of the world is moving toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. That goal is not advanced if any country, in any region, it moves in the other direction.

I say this with great respect. Only India can determine its own interests. Only India can know if it truly is safer today than before the tests. Only India can determine if it will benefit from expanding its nuclear and missile capabilities, if its neighbors respond by doing the same thing. Only India knows if it can afford a sustained investment in both conventional and nuclear forces while meeting its goals for human development. These are questions others may ask, but only you can answer.

I can only speak to you as a friend about America's own experience during the cold war. We were geographically distant from the Soviet Union. We were not engaged in direct armed combat. Through the years of direct dialog with our adversary, we each bad a very good idea of the other's capabilities, doctrines, and intentions. We each spent billions of dollars on elaborate command and control systems, for nuclear weapons are not cheap.

And yet, in spite of all of this--and as I sometimes say jokingly, in spite of the fact that both sides had very good spies, and that was a good thing--[laughter]--in spite of all of this, we came far too close to nuclear war. We learned that deterrence alone cannot be relied on to prevent accident or miscalculation. And in a nuclear standoff, there is nothing more dangerous than believing there is no danger.