Nuclear Non-Proliferation in India and Pakistan: South Asian Perspectives

Description

Issues related to Nuclear Non-Proliferation in South Asia arising from the nuclear programmes and ambitions of India and Pakistan have long been the subject of emotive policy debate and intense scholarly research.

Both Islamabad and New Delhi acknowledge that they have the capability to build nuclear weapons and the need to retain the ‘nuclear option’; at the same time, they also deny having actually done so. The complexities arising out of such ambiguities are compounded by the fact that neither India nor Pakistan have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With the end of bi-polar confrontation in the post-Cold War world the possibilities for achieving restraints on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction at the global level have opened up. The objective of the nonproliferation debate has focused more closely upon South Asia where the two traditional rivals with their long history of active hostilities are capable of emerging as nuclear weapon powers. This collaborative study presents Indian and Pakistani perspectives on the subject contributed by some of the leading experts in the two countries. The focus is specifically on the technological and perceptual aspects, and the policy-postures of the two countries.

This book also contains contributions on this issue by scholars from Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Author Biography

P. R. Chari was Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi and a Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. His publications include Indo-Pak Nuclear Standoff: The Role of the United States (1995), and Brasstacks and Beyond: Perception and Management of Crisis in South Asia (1995) (co-author).

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema is the Director General of the Academy of Educational Planning and Management, Islamabad. Pakistan. Dr Cheema is the author of several books, including Pakistan’s Defence Policy, 1947-58, and Brasstacks and Beyond: Perception and Management of Crisis in South Asia (1995) (co-author).

Iftekharuzzaman is the Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (ROSS), Colombo. His recent publications include the edited volume South Asia’s Security: Primacy of Internal Dimension (1994).