Faults & failures

Abstract

The nuclear weapons tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May have raised a host of complex, far-ranging issues: whether the world’s nuclear nonproliferation regime has been breached irreparably; why national intelligence organizations such as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency failed to predict the Indian tests; why world leaders so signally failed to anticipate their occurrence, despite clear warnings from India’s leaders; whether something can now be done to forestall an incipient nuclear arms race on the subcontinent; and so on.