Does Nuclear Deterrence Work?
What of the argument that nuclear deterrence makes war between India and Pakistan less likely? Why would not the allegedly proven ability of nuclear balance, which is supposed to have kept peace in the world, be effective also in the subcontinent? I beli eve that this question can be answered from four different perspectives. First, even if it were the case that the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan reduces the probability of war between the two, there would be a trade-off here between a lower chance of conventional war against some chance of a nuclear holocaust. No sensib le decision-making can concentrate only on the probability of war without taking note of the size of the penalties of war should it occur. Indeed, any significant probability of the scenario captured by Arundhati Roy’s description of “the end of imaginat ion” can hardly fail to outweigh the greater probability, if any, of the comparatively milder penalties of conventional war. Second, there is nothing to indicate
