Beyond Foreign Policy: A Fresh Look at Cross-Cultural Negotiations and Dispute Resolution Based on the India-United States Nuclear Test Ban Negotiations

This paper has three goals: first, to study the negotiation of CTBT from Indian and U.S. perspectives; second, to analyze the influence of culture on the processes and outcomes of nuclear negotiations; and third, to provide an approach that would have produced a better result in the CTBT negotiations, and which could be used with more success in future bilateral and multi-lateral negotiations. The approach and lessons from my analysis can also be applied towards other cross-cultural disputes, especially to those that involve national culture. I conclude that the CTBT negotiation between India and the U.S. (among other nations) was a missed opportunity, which, had it been if concluded successfully, could have averted the 1998 nuclear testing by India and Pakistan.