Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
This book examines the forces—political, strategic, technological, and ideational—that led to India's dramatic nuclear policy shift and describes how New Delhi's force-in-being will be fashioned, particularly in light of the threat India faces from its two most salient adversaries, China, and Pakistan.
Having decided to emphasize military security, India's and Pakistan's nuclear threats must now be complemented by enhanced diplomatic engagement between India and China on one side, and India and Pakistan on another.
These are not happy days for global arms-control advocates. As far back as the early 1960s, policymakers warned that the true threat to the United States was not only that third-world despots might acquire the bomb but that advanced industrial countries might do so.
Why did India bid for nuclear weapon status at a time when 149 nations had signed a ban on nuclear testing? What drove India's new Hindu nationalist government to depart from decades of nuclear restraint, a control that no other nation with similar capacities had displayed? How has U.S. nonproliferation policy affected India's decision making?
The most likely setting for the world's first nuclear war, observers generally agree, is South Asia.