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Failure by a purchaser to agree to Washington's conditions meant no U.S. sale. Congress made the full-scope provisions of the act retroactive; that brought the U.S. into conflict with a number of its long-standing nuclear supply agreements, most notably involving India, Brazil and South Africa. In the Reaganauts' view, the Carter strategy destroyed the credibility of the U.S. as a reliable supplier of nuclear technology and fuel, thus diminishing Washington's ability to exercise influence favorable to nonproliferation practices among developing nations. Says Ambassador Kennedy: "Regardless of its intent, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act was perceived by some countries as a unilateral abrogation of understandings and agreements that had existed for years. We lost enormous amounts of influence." Substantial volumes of business were lost too, as Third World countries turned to Western Europe in search of nuclear fuel and technology that had fewer strings attached. More important, the denial approach does not appear to have contributed significantly to a slowdown in the rate of global proliferation.
The Reagan Administration has attempted to regain leverage. But on the ) whole, U.S. policy has changed little since the Carter years, except in terms of public emphasis. As most experts see it, the approach today differs mainly in using less confrontational tactics and a low-key, even invisible diplomatic style. Says Charles Van Doren, a former deputy director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency: "There's much less of a difference than most people would have suggested."
Last summer, for example, at a secret meeting in Luxembourg, the U.S. reportedly asked 13 other industrialized nations to adopt the demand for international inspection of all of a potential customer's nuclear facilities as a sales condition. Only Britain, Canada and Australia supported the idea. Says Leonard Spector, a Washington-based expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "Over all, with Reagan, there has been a little more of the carrot approach, a little less of the stick."
The problem is not so much a matter of policy as of the nature of proliferation itself. Where the desire to seek nuclear weapons is strong enough, almost no combination of prohibitive policies has been completely successful in thwarting it. Pakistan is a case study of that uncomfortable conclusion. In 1977 and again in 1979, in an effort to keep Pakistan from pursuing a build-the-bomb strategy, the U.S. cut off military and economic aid following earlier restrictions on nuclear trade. Apparently to little avail.