Someone else’s weapons

In May 1998, first India and then Pakistan tested nuclear weapons. War erupted in the Kargil region of Kashmir a year later. This was the first war between two nuclear-armed states anywhere in the world, and raised the prospect that the next conflict would be a catastrophe beyond reckoning. Since Kargil, both states have continued to build nuclear weapons, to develop and test ballistic missiles with ranges up to several thousand kilometres, and to accelerate their build-up of conventional arms.

The tests, war, crises and the on-going arms race are only the latest expressions of a more than 60-year-long conflict between Pakistan and India, which has plagued efforts to build democratic and just societies in these countries and has hampered the progress of Southasia as a whole. A settlement of the Kashmir dispute would help ease tensions, but would not necessarily be enough for India and Pakistan either to give up their nuclear-weapons status or to end their mutual hostility. The experience of the Cold War and the nearly two decades since its end makes this abundantly clear. The US and Russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons each, despite the fact that the Soviet Union is no more. The logic of nuclear weapons has had an enduring effect in preventing the establishment of peace in any meaningful sense. This suggests that the Indian and Pakistani nuclear stockpiles ensure that the future of the region will remain in jeopardy until these weapons are eliminated.