A Nuclear Third Way in South Asia

Abstract

The threat posed by nuclear weapons has shifted dramatically in the aftermath of the Cold War. The longstanding prospect of Armageddon has all but disappeared, while the chance of local nuclear conflict among undeclared nuclear weapon powers has grown. The primary threat is no longer from conflict in Central Europe but from conflict in Asia-the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Korean peninsula, and the South Asian subcontinent. The danger is especially acute in South Asia, which, in strategic terms, embraces the subcontinent and parts of China, Central Asia, and the Middle East. As a March 29, 1993, New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh warned, India and Pakistan have the means and possibly the motives to engage in nuclear conflict. Both countries have the knowledge and nuclear materials required to construct nuclear weapons quickly. Both are developing, or are seeking to acquire, ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Conventional forces or insurgents backed by each country shoot at each other almost daily in three troubled regions: Kashmir, the Siachen Glacier (in northern Kashmir), and the Punjab. In Kashmir, as the New Yorker reported, the conflict flared so hot in 1990 that Pakistan