Double-Edged Sword: Nuclear Weapons and Regional Security‪.‬

THE DISPUTE BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN appears to have come full circle since the 1950s and 1960s to rest once again on the contested state of Kashmir. But the destructive power possessed by both states has grown enormously since that earlier era, and now includes short-range nuclear weapons and sophisticated conventional arsenals. This growth of military power has meant not just a greater capacity to coerce, deter, and defend, but also a realization that the enormous costs of war will probably outweigh any rational geopolitical gains. With this double-edged nuclear dimension, South Asia stands poised between danger and opportunity. Although South Asia is not part of the three great formations of North America, Europe, and East Asia that form the core of the international system, the region matters for security, economic, and political reasons. Indian and Pakistani conventional military power have always determined security in and around South Asia, but the current or potential nuclear capabilities of these two nations now affect international security as well. The region also matters because of its economic potential: India and Pakistan have embarked on economic reforms and are growing at rates between four and seven percent per year. With more than a billion people between them, they constitute a market as large as China's. Finally, South Asia merits attention because three nations in the region, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, have made transitions to democracy since 1988, while two other democracies, India and Sri Lanka, survive in difficult circumstances. The success of South Asia's new and old democracies in the midst of some of the most hostile conditions on earth could greatly strengthen the cause of democracy worldwide.