Nuclear Politics In Asia

An important and critical re-evaluation of South Asia's post-tests nuclear politics, in contrast to other books, this volume emphasises the political dimension of South Asia's nuclear weapons, explains how the bombs are used as politico-strategic assets rather than pure battlefield weapons and how India and Pakistan utilise them for politico-strategic purposes in an extremely complex and competitive South Asian strategic landscape. Written by a group of perceptive observers of South Asia, this volume evaluates the current state of Indo-Pakistani nuclear deterrents, the challenges that the two countries confront in building their nuclear forces, the post-test nuclear doctrines of the two strategic rivals, the implications of Indo-Pakistani politics for regional cooperation, the role of two systemic actors (USA and China) in the region's nuclear politics and the critical issues of confidence-building and nuclear arms control.

Asia has the world’s highest concentration of nuclear weapons and the most significant recent developments related to nuclear proliferation, as well as the world’s most critical conflicts and considerable political instability. The containment and prevention of nuclear proliferation, especially in Asia, continues to be a grave concern for the international community. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the state of nuclear arsenals, nuclear ambitions and nuclear threats across different parts of Asia. It covers the Middle East (including Israel), China, India-Pakistan and their confrontation, as well as North Korea. It discusses the conventional warfare risks, risks from non-state armed groups, and examines the attempts to limit and control nuclear weapons, both international initiatives and American diplomacy and interventions. The book concludes by assessing the possibility of nuclear revival, the potential outcomes of international approaches to nuclear disarmament, and the efficacy of coercive diplomacy in containing nuclear proliferation.

This important book analyzes nuclear weapon and energy policies in Asia, a region at risk for high-stakes military competition, conflict, and terrorism. The contributors explore the trajectory of debates over nuclear energy, security, and nonproliferation in key countries—China, India, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other states in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Arguing against conventional wisdom, the contributors make a convincing case that domestic variables are far more powerful than external factors in shaping nuclear decision making. The book explores what drives debates and how decisions are framed, the interplay between domestic dynamics and geopolitical calculations in the discourse, where the center of gravity of debates lies in each country, and what this means for regional cooperation or competition and U.S. nuclear energy and nonproliferation policy in Asia.

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.

Nuclear-armed adversaries India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their creation as sovereign states in 1947. They went to the brink of a fourth in 2001 following an attack on the Indian parliament, which the Indian government blamed on the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist organizations. Despite some attempts at rapprochement in the intervening years, a new standoff between the two countries was precipitated when India accused Lashkar-e-Taiba of being behind the Mumbai attacks late last year. The relentlessness of the confrontations between these two nations makes Inside Nuclear South Asia a must read for anyone wishing to gain a thorough understanding of the spread of nuclear weapons in South Asia and the potential consequences of nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent. The book begins with an analysis of the factors that led to India's decision to cross the nuclear threshold in 1998, with Pakistan close behind: factors such as the broad political support for a nuclear weapons program within India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the intense rivalry between the two countries, the normative and prestige factors that influenced their behaviors, and ultimately the perceived threat to their respective national security. The second half of the book analyzes the consequences of nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent. These chapters show that the presence of nuclear weapons in South Asia has increased the frequency and propensity of low-level violence, further destabilizing the region. Additionally, nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan have led to serious political changes that also challenge the ability of the two states to produce stable nuclear détente. Thus, this book provides both new insights into the domestic politics behind specific nuclear policy choices in South Asia, a critique of narrow realist views of nuclear proliferation, and the dangers of nuclear proliferation in South Asia.

Nuclear Logics examines why some states seek nuclear weapons while others renounce them. Looking closely at nine cases in East Asia and the Middle East, Etel Solingen finds two distinct regional patterns. In East Asia, the norm since the late 1960s has been to forswear nuclear weapons, and North Korea, which makes no secret of its nuclear ambitions, is the anomaly. In the Middle East the opposite is the case, with Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Libya suspected of pursuing nuclear-weapons capabilities, with Egypt as the anomaly in recent decades. Identifying the domestic conditions underlying these divergent paths, Solingen argues that there are clear differences between states whose leaders advocate integration in the global economy and those that reject it. Among the former are countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, whose leaders have had stronger incentives to avoid the political, economic, and other costs of acquiring nuclear weapons. The latter, as in most cases in the Middle East, have had stronger incentives to exploit nuclear weapons as tools in nationalist platforms geared to helping their leaders survive in power. Solingen complements her bold argument with other logics explaining nuclear behavior, including security dilemmas, international norms and institutions, and the role of democracy and authoritarianism. Her account charts the most important frontier in understanding nuclear proliferation: grasping the relationship between internal and external political survival. Nuclear Logics is a pioneering book that is certain to provide an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, and practitioners while reframing the policy debate surrounding nonproliferation.