Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons

by Sumit Ganguly, Devin T. Hagerty

Overview

With the nuclearization of the Indian subcontinent, Indo-Pakistani crisis behavior has acquired a deadly significance. The past two decades have witnessed no fewer than six crises against the backdrop of a vigorous nuclear arms race. Except for the Kargil war of 1998-9, all these events were resolved peacefully.

Nuclear war was avoided despite bitter mistrust, everyday tensions, an intractable political conflict over Kashmir, three wars, and the steady refinement of each side's nuclear capabilities. Sumit Ganguly and Devin T. Hagerty carefully analyze each crisis, reviewing the Indian and Pakistani domestic political systems and key decisions during the relevant period.

This lucid and comprehensive study of the two nations' crisis behavior in the nuclear age is the first work on Indo-Pakistani relations to take systematic account of the role played by the United States in South Asia's security dynamics over the past two decades in the context of unipolarization, and formulates a blueprint for American policy toward a more positive and productive India-Pakistan relationship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295801193
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	01/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	234
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sumit Ganguly is professor of political science and Rabindranath Tagore Chair of Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington. Devin T. Hagerty is associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Introduction

2. Wars without End?

3. 1984: India, Pakistan, and Preventive War Fears

4. Threat Perceptions, Military Modernization, and a Crisis

5. The 1990 Kashmir Crisis

6. Out of the Closet: The 1998 Nuclear Tests Crisis

7. The Road to Kargil

8. The 2001-2 Indo-Pakistani Crisis: Exposing the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy

9. Lessons, Implications, and Policy Suggestions

Index

What People are Saying About This

Steve CollPulitzer Prize-winning

This book provides a timely review of how India and Pakistan have several times nearly allowed their grievances to lead to war—-and how, each time, they managed to dodge disaster.

Robert Jervis

"Explains a great deal about . . . important events, many of them not well known, and about international rivalry in general. This is an important and informative study."

Steve CollPulitzer Prize—winning

"This book provides a timely review of how India and Pakistan have several times nearly allowed their grievances to lead to war—-and how, each time, they managed to dodge disaster."

Steve CollPulitzer Prize—winning

This book provides a timely review of how India and Pakistan have several times nearly allowed their grievances to lead to war—-and how, each time, they managed to dodge disaster.

Ashley J. Tellis

Represents a superb effort to understand the impact of nuclear weapons on South Asian stability. By using available public information about regional crises in a theoretically sensitive way, this book makes a major contribution to the deterrence literature.

John J. Mearsheimer

"An outstanding book which shows that nuclear weapons are a force for peace, but with major qualifications."

Editorial Reviews

Reflecting the careful scholarship that has characterized the works of both authors, this is an engaging book, genuinely international and interdisciplinary in its scope. One hopes that it will be read by leaders in New Delhi, Islamabad, and Washington.

The International History Review

Reflecting the careful scholarship that has characterized the works of both authors, this is an engaging book, genuinely international and interdisciplinary in its scope. One hopes that it will be read by leaders in New Delhi, Islamabad, and Washington.

-- "The International History Review"

From the Publisher