Are India and Pakistan likely to enter into a U.S.-Soviet type of nuclear arms race?
Despite some heated rhetoric immediately after the tests, neither India nor Pakistan has announced a firm decision to build and deploy nuclear weapons. Both nations claim they can now deploy nuclear weapons within a matter of days, suggesting that additional “pits” of fissile material, and the explosive component packages to trigger them, have already been fabricated but not assembled. India and Pakistan each could have between 12 and 18 nuclear weapons, according to an estimate made after the tests by Paul Beaver of the Jane s Information Group. Given that these nations share a 1,500 mile border, have fought three wars in the last 50 years, and exchange fire daily over the Kashmir border, an Indo-Pakistani nuclear arms race is likely to prove destabilizing. Whether a full-fledged arms race begins depends on many factors, including international pressure, domestic politics, national economies, and civil-military relations.
Related Questions
- Are India and Pakistan now more likely to join international arms control agreements, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)?
- How dangerous has the nuclear arms race in South Asia been between China, India and Pakistan?
- Are India and Pakistan likely to enter into a U.S.-Soviet type of nuclear arms race?
