In May 1998, India and Pakistan put to rest years of speculation as to whether they possessed nuclear technology and openly tested their weapons. Some believed nuclearization would stabilize South Asia; others prophesized disaster. Authors of two of the most comprehensive books on South Asia's new nuclear era, Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, offer competing theories on the transformation of the region and what these patterns mean for the world's next proliferators.

Ganguly begins with an outcome-based approach emphasizing the results of militarized conflict. In his opinion, nuclear weapons have prevented Indo-Pakistani disputes from blossoming into full-scale war. Kapur counters with a process-based approach stressing the specific pathways that lead to conflict and escalation. From his perspective, nuclear weapons have fueled a violent cycle of Pakistani provocation and Indian response, giving rise to a number of crises that might easily have spun into chaos. Kapur thus believes nuclear weapons have been a destabilizing force in South Asia and could similarly affect other parts of the world.

With these two major interpretations, Ganguly and Kapur tackle all sides of an urgent issue that has profound regional and global consequences. Sure to spark discussion and debate, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb thoroughly maps the potential impact of nuclear proliferation.

Reviews

"Did the spread of nuclear weapons to India and Pakistan deter war or provoke aggression? Two prominent scholars of South Asian politics address this important question in a debate filled with insight and wit. Some readers will agree with Šumit Ganguly's optimistic assessment, and some will agree with S. Paul Kapur's more pessimistic appraisal. All will come away with a more nuanced understanding of the complex political effects of nuclear weapons."
- Scott D. Sagan, The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

"India, Pakistan, and the Bomb is remarkably well written. Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur discuss complex issues and contested history in a nuanced and lucid fashion."
- Arthur Rubinoff, University of Toronto

"Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur give us an unusually productive dialogue between deeply informed scholars who disagree about an issue of great theoretical interest and policy relevance. The stability of the South Asian nuclear balance is debated with such a fruitful combination of analytical rigor and empirical evidence that students of both the region and the general topic of proliferation will learn a great deal."
- Robert Jervis, Columbia University

"This is a great book for learning about the India-Pakistan conflict as well as nuclear deterrence theory. Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, both first-class strategists, examine the effects of nuclear weapons on the rivalry between Islamabad and New Delhi and reach carefully reasoned yet opposing conclusions."
- John J. Mearsheimer, University of Chicago

"These eminent scholars of nuclear proliferation achieve a masterful blend of policy-relevant theory, empirical research, and rigorous analysis. In doing so, they drive the optimism/pessimism debate to a refreshing new level of subtlety and sophistication. Policymakers and professors alike will be delighted to have this compelling book at hand." - Devin T. Hagerty, University of Maryland

The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most significant challenges to global security in the 21st century. Limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials may be the key to preventing a nuclear war or a catastrophic act of nuclear terrorism. Going Nuclear offers conceptual, historical, and analytical perspectives on current problems in controlling nuclear proliferation. It includes essays that examine why countries seek nuclear weapons as well as studies of the nuclear programs of India, Pakistan, and South Africa. The final section of the book offers recommendations for responding to the major contemporary proliferation challenges: keeping nuclear weapons and materials out of the hands of terrorists, ensuring that countries that renounce nuclear weapons never change their minds, and cracking down on networks that illicitly spread nuclear technologies.

Nearly all the chapters in this book have been previously published in the journal International Security. It contains a new preface and one chapter commissioned specifically for the volume, Matthew Bunn's "Nuclear Terrorism: A Strategy for Prevention."

CISAC contributors: Consulting Professor Chaim Braun, Co-Director Scott Sagan.

Other contributors, including former CISAC scholars: Samina Ahmed, Matthew Bunn, Christopher F. Chyba, Matthew Fuhrmann, Šumit Ganguly, S. Paul Kapur, Ariel E. Levite, Peter Liberman, Austin Long, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, Alexander H. Montgomery, Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, William C. Potter, Whitney Raas, Etel Solingen.

Nuclear-armed adversaries India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their creation as sovereign states in 1947. They went to the brink of a fourth in 2001 following an attack on the Indian parliament, which the Indian government blamed on the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist organizations. Despite some attempts at rapprochement in the intervening years, a new standoff between the two countries was precipitated when India accused Lashkar-e-Taiba of being behind the Mumbai attacks late last year.

The relentlessness of the confrontations between these two nations makes Inside Nuclear South Asia a must read for anyone wishing to gain a thorough understanding of the spread of nuclear weapons in South Asia and the potential consequences of nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent.

The book begins with an analysis of the factors that led to India's decision to cross the nuclear threshold in 1998, with Pakistan close behind: factors such as the broad political support for a nuclear weapons program within India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the intense rivalry between the two countries, the normative and prestige factors that influenced their behaviors, and ultimately the perceived threat to their respective national security.

The second half of the book analyzes the consequences of nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent. These chapters show that the presence of nuclear weapons in South Asia has increased the frequency and propensity of low-level violence, further destabilizing the region. Additionally, nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan have led to serious political changes that also challenge the ability of the two states to produce stable nuclear détente. Thus, this book provides both new insights into the domestic politics behind specific nuclear policy choices in South Asia, a critique of narrow realist views of nuclear proliferation, and the dangers of nuclear proliferation in South Asia.