India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia (Contemporary Asia in the World)
Ganguly and Kapur are scholars who disagree about whether nuclear weapons have stabilized or exacerbated the long-running tensions between India and Pakistan. Ganguly, representing the optimist camp, argues that because both India and Pakistan now possess nuclear weapons, recent flare-ups over disputed territories (the 2001–02 crisis, for example) have stopped short of all-out war in large part due to the familiar cold war logic of nuclear deterrence. Strategic pessimist Kapur claims that holding nuclear weapons actually functions as a shield of sorts, escalating regional disputes by permitting the parties (Pakistan in particular) to take especially aggressive actions that would otherwise provoke stronger retaliation. With this account, the authors concisely summarize their respective positions and neatly highlight points of fundamental disagreement. They also attempt to advance the conversation by noting some points on which they agree: for example, on the risks posed by militants that operate independently of governments, which they call South Asia’s sorcerer’s apprentice problem. The result is a lucid and compact, if occasionally repetitive, distillation of an important policy debate. --Brendan Driscoll--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.