Indian Nuclear Weapons: Costs vs. Benefits

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Indian Nuclear Weapons: Costs vs. Benefits

The history of Indo-Pakistani relations has been a dominated by turbulence and bitter rivalry. After the partition in 1947, millions of people migrated to their new home in either the Islamic state of Pakistan or the secular state of India. Only two weeks after independence, India and Pakistan fought a war over Kashmir in 1948. India and Pakistan fought two more wars with each other in 1965 and 1971, with the latter resulting in the creation of Bangladesh. Since then, India and Pakistan have had very hard feelings against each other due to numerous Hindu-Muslim conflicts, the territorial dispute over Kashmir, and other bilateral tensions.

Some people can argue that the whole notion of using nuclear weapons on the subcontinent was first mentioned in 1971 by Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Zulficar Ali Bhutto during his speech to the UN that promised "'a thousand year war with India' and subsequently declared his people would 'eat grass if necessary,' but would 'have the bomb.'" Although one of Pakistan's leaders may have initially been vociferous about his country's intentions, it was India who took the first step in the nuclear path when in 1974 it tested a "peaceful nuclear device" at Pokhran, in the Rajasthan desert. India claimed that the explosion was not for military purposes, but was rather "designed to air civilian atomic energy programs."1 Pakistan then saw itself at a much greater security risk and needed some kind of equalizer, since it was a much smaller state and was disadvantaged in conventional military terms. Considering that since the partition, there has been tension between India and Pakistan, and that they fought wars in each of which Pakistan was the...

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...xis.

Dahlburg, John-Thor, "Sanctions casting a pall over South Asia," Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1998. Online. Available on: Lexis-Nexis.

Singh, Vir., "In Face of harsh sanctions, India vows it won't buckle," Houston Chronicle, May 14, 1998. Online. Available on: Lexis-Nexis.

Dahlburg, John-Thor, "Sanctions casting a pall over South Asia," Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1998. Online. Available on: Lexis-Nexis.

Ibid. Quoted from Mushtaq Khan, chief economist of ABN-Amro Bank in Islamabad.

Dugger, Cecilia W, "India's Testing Issue," The New York Times, December 5, 1998. Online. Available on: Lexis-Nexis.

Ibid.

Ibid. Quoted from U.S. Deputy Secretary of State StrobeTalbott.

Ibid.

Erlanger, Steven, "U.S. to Lift Some Sanctions Against India and Pakistan," The New York Times, November 7, 1998. Online. Available on: Lexis-Nexis.

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