The advent of nuclear weapons has not made the Indian Subcontinent a safer or a more stable place. Pakistan, in fact, views its nuclear weapons as a great equalizer vis-à-vis India's superiority in conventional forces, something which facilitates its support to militancy in Kashmir. Crises over Kashmir have subsequently grown both more frequent and more intense. The two countries clashed in Kargil in 1999 under the nuclear shadow and again fully mobilized their forces during 2002.

The sobering fact, however, is that there are no instances of a successful, limited war between nuclear states. The need for reducing the risks of nuclear conflagration in South Asia is therefore urgent and calls for cooperation, political will and wisdom on the parts of Indian and Pakistani leaders and people. Equally, it requires a clear understanding and implementation of measures that can reduce the risk of a nuclear war. In this book, a dozen experts from India, Pakistan and the US provide precisely such a road map:

• How nuclear risk can be reduced by building on common ground

• What South Asia can learn from the experience of the Cold War

• Risk reduction in Kashmir

• How to craft a policy of a minimal, credible nuclear deterrence

• Missile threat reduction and monitoring

• Indian and Pakistani perspectives on missile defence

• Nuclear risk reduction between China and India

• How to tackle conventional military clashes in a nuclear environment.

Nuclear Risk Reduction in South Asia is essential reading for policy makers, government officials, diplomats, security analysts and military thinkers, academics, researchers, political commentators and all those who seek a safer future for the Subcontinent.