Are Nuclear Weapons Relevant for National Security in Todays World?
Srividhya Narasimhan Crisis in South Asia In May 1999, as the world watched with bated breath, India and Pakistan exploded their respective nuclear devices and announced their entry into the ranks of nuclear weapon states. While it was long known that both countries had been trying hard to develop such devices covertly, the explosions caught the world by surprise. India had already tested a nuclear device in the Pokhran desert way back in 1974. Both countries claimed that national security issues forced them to conduct the nuclear tests. India announced that it had to deter the Chinese in the north, who were already rumored to have deployed nuclear-tipped missiles in Tibet, most of them pointed at New Delhi and other Indian cities. Pakistan, on the other hand, said that it had to go public with its nuclear weapons program to deter any new Indian ambitions in South Asia. Irrespective of the postures adopted by these countries and the West, which immediately put into place a regime of sa
