Recasting the Proliferation Optimism-Pessimism Debate

Knopf, Jeffrey W.

doi:10.1080/0963-640291906744

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…It offered the scholars of nuclear deterrence a rare opportunity to investigate how two states armed with nuclear weapons interact with each other during an armed conflict. A large number of scholars argued nuclear weapons provide incentives for conventional conflicts (Ganguly, 2002;Ganguly and Wagner, 2004) and tempted countries to fight limited wars (Waltz, 2003) and confirmed the expectations of the stability-instability paradox (Knopf, 2002). On the contrary, scholars also linked the Kargil crisis with the "instability-instability paradox" by arguing that "instability at the strategic level enabled limited conventional instability" (Kapur, 2005).…”

Section: Strategic Dynamics Of Crisis Stability Between India and Pak...mentioning

confidence: 97%

Strategic Dynamics of Crisis Stability in South Asia

Ali

Sidhu

2021

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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In contrast to the pervasive confidence that the development of nuclear weapons ensures peace and stability by making wars too expensive to fight for, South Asian strategic stability has drifted into nasty security competition through arms race with an episodical crisis that continues at the sub-conventional level. Deterrence studies that were relegated to the bins of history soon after the end of the Cold War received a renewed interest of scholars on the subject since the demonstration of deterrent capabilities by South Asian rivals in 1998. A new wave of deterrence studies has developed in the current multipolar world with some scholars adopting Cold War models of analysis in the contemporary realms of South Asia, whereas other are attempting new analytical approaches. This article aims to offer a fresh look at how to provide a clear concept of strategic stability, how strategic stability is applicable in contemporary South Asia and what the recent crisis between India and Pakistan being interwoven with terrorism tells us about crisis stability between the two countries under the shadows of nuclear weapons.

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Section: Strategic Dynamics Of Crisis Stability Between India and Pak...mentioning

confidence: 97%

Strategic Dynamics of Crisis Stability in South Asia

Ali

Sidhu

2021

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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“…Waltz (2013b) and Freedman (2013), for example, both take the absence of nuclear conflict since 1945 as evidence that it is reliable. Yet if nuclear war is a low-frequency, high impact risk, we would not expect it to occur over seventy-five years (Knopf, 2002). In a recent analysis, Kydd (2019, p. 647) entertains the possibility that the benefits of nuclear deterrence exceed its costs, observing that "[i]f a nuclear war would be catastrophic but never happens, we are safe'.…”

Section: What Is To Be Done?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nuclear war as a predictable surprise

Rendall

2022

Global Policy

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Like asteroids, hundred-year floods and pandemic disease, thermonuclear war is a low-frequency, high-impact threat. In the long run, catastrophe is inevitable if nothing is done − yet each successive government and generation may fail to address it. Drawing on risk perception research, this paper argues that psychological biases cause the threat of nuclear war to receive less attention than it deserves. Nuclear deterrence is, moreover, a 'front-loaded good': its benefits accrue disproportionately to proximate generations, whereas much of the expected cost will be borne in the distant future. Recent surveys indicate that the US and Russian publics assign a surprisingly high likelihood to nuclear war.Nevertheless, earlier research suggests that it is probably not believed to be just around the corner. This, along with the absence of easy solutions, encourages governments and publics to give priority to more pressing concerns. The danger is that the pattern will continue clear up to the point that nuclear war arrives.

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“…Sumit Ganguly (2002) argues that the Kargil conflict buttresses South Asia’s stability–instability paradox. He underscores that nuclear weapons “create incentives for conventional conflicts in peripheral areas as long as either side does not breach certain shared thresholds.” Similarly, Jeffrey Knopf (2002) recounts that “fare-ups in South Asia since the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests of 1998 indicate the continued relevance of Glenn Snyder’s stability/instability paradox.” A close observer of South Asia, Neil Joeck (2013), maintains thatIndia and Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities have not created strategic stability [and] do not reduce or eliminate factors that contributed to past conflicts . .…”

Section: Consilience Of Challenges For Nuclear Deterrence Stability I...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Nuclear Deterrence Stability in South Asia

Sadiq

Ali

2022

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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The interplay of several international, regional, and local factors poses daunting challenges for deterrence stability in South Asia. The emerging revolution in the military affairs compounded with prolonged crises vis-à-vis the absence of any conflict resolution mechanism between India and Pakistan; the nuclear deterrence is budding a fragile relationship between the two nuclear-armed pugnacious belligerents of South Asia. The Indian aspirations to accumulate maximum power based on its strategic partnerships with the technologically advanced countries in the world are characterized by the classic Indian strategic thinking to establish its leadership in the region. At the same time, Pakistan’s reliance on China in its quests for acquiring military hardware required for the deterrence equation seemingly remains insatiable within the framework of the stability–instability paradox. Without a holistic analysis of the political and strategic challenges, casus belli of the crises, and nuclear command and control systems dynamics between the two, it would amount to a petitio principii to draw theoretical assumptions. Therefore, this study attempts to comprehensively explain the phenomena by analyzing the challenges of nuclear deterrence stability in South Asia at different levels.

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Recasting the Proliferation Optimism-Pessimism Debate

Cited by 14 publications

References 1 publication

Strategic Dynamics of Crisis Stability in South Asia

Strategic Dynamics of Crisis Stability in South Asia

Nuclear war as a predictable surprise

Challenges of Nuclear Deterrence Stability in South Asia

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