Publisher Fact Sheet The definitive history of India's long flirtation with nuclear capability, culminating in the nuclear tests that surprised the world in May 1998.

This book presents an analytical account of the causes and dangerous consequences of nuclear proliferation in South Asia.

There is concern about the proliferation of nuclear arms in the sub-continent. This book examines what influences arms policies there and argues that, although both India and Pakistan are determined to retain their nuclear option, both would welcome a situation which allowed them to de-militarize.

"In May 1998, India and Pakistan put to rest years of speculation about 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, Sumit 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." "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."--Cubierta.

This edited volume explores competing perspectives on the impact of nuclear weapons proliferation on the South Asian security environment. The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the world’s foremost security concerns. The effect of nuclear weapons on the behaviour of newly nuclear states, and the potential for future international crises, are of particular concern. As a region of burgeoning economic and political importance, South Asia offers a crucial test of proliferation’s effects on the crisis behaviour of newly nuclear states. This volume creates a dialogue between scholars who believe that nuclear weapons have stabilized the subcontinent, and those who believe that nuclear weapons have made South Asia more conflict prone. It does so by pairing competing analyses of four major regional crises: the 1987 "Brasstacks" crisis, the Indo-Pakistani crisis of 1990, the 1999 Kargil war, which occurred after the nuclear tests; and the 2001–2 Indo-Pakistani militarized standoff. In addition, the volume explores the implications of the South Asian nuclear experience for potential new nuclear states such as North Korea and Iran.