Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence Stability in South Asia

This book examines the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan, two highly antagonistic South Asian neighbors who recently moved into their third decade of overt nuclear weaponization. It assesses the stability of Indo-Pakistani nuclear deterrence and argues that, while deterrence dampens the likelihood of escalation to conventional—and possibly nuclear—war, the chronically embittered relations between New Delhi and Islamabad mean that deterrence failure resulting in