NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, THE KARGIL CONFLICT, AND SOUTH ASIAN SECURITY

摘要

The impact of nuclear proliferation on South Asian security has be-come a leading subject of international concern, prompting President Bill Clinton famously to dub the region "the most dangerous place in the world." Despite extensive debate in the international relations literature, however, current scholarship does not offer a clear assessment of proliferation's effects on the subcontinent. Some scholars argue that nuclear weapons make war in South Asia extremely unlikely. Kenneth Waltz, for example, claims that both India and Pakistan "will be deterred [from aggression] by the knowledge that aggressive actions may lead to [their] own destruction." According to Devin Hagerty, "Indo-Pakistani nuclear dynamics lend further support to our cumulative evidence that ... nuclear weapon states do not fight wars."