Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf addressed Pakistani Air Force veterans on Dec. 30, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan. Musharraf said that he had been prepared to use atomic weapons if India had invaded Pakistan earlier that year.
AP Photo
"Posturing for Peace?"
India's and Pakistan's divergent nuclear postures have led to a stark difference in their deterrence capabilities. India has maintained an assured retaliation posture, but Pakistan has shifted from a catalytic to an asymmetric escalation posture, allowing it to pursue aggressive policies without significant fear of retaliation. The implications for South Asian and international stability are grim.
FEATURED PUBLICATIONS
AP Photo/Bill Allen
Winter 2009/10
"Same As It Ever Was: Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation, and the Cold War"
International Security, issue 3, volume 34
By Francis Gavin, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1998-1999
Nuclear alarmists argue that proliferation is the most dangerous threat facing the United States, but they largely ignore such past threats and overstate their claims. A better understanding of the history of nuclear proliferation and of how the international community escaped calamity during a far more dangerous time-the Cold War-would lead to more effective U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policies than those currently proposed by the alarmists.
AP Photo
Winter 2009/10
"Posturing for Peace? Pakistan's Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability"
International Security, issue 3, volume 34
By Vipin Narang, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed states, but their divergent nuclear postures have led to a stark difference in their deterrence capabilities. India has maintained an assured retaliation posture, but Pakistan has shifted from a catalytic to an asymmetric escalation posture, allowing it to pursue aggressive policies without significant fear of retaliation. Furthermore, to make its posture credible, Pakistan has had to relinquish some central control over the security of its nuclear arsenal. The implications for South Asian and international stability, therefore, are grim unless India and Pakistan can minimize the dangers of their current postures, and the United States can help Pakistan to better secure its nuclear arsenal.
AP Photo
Winter 2009/10
"Understanding Support for Islamist Militancy in Pakistan"
International Security, issue 3, volume 34
By Jacob N. Shapiro and C. Christine Fair
Western interest in Pakistan increased dramatically with the rise of the Taliban and other militant groups. Current U.S. policy toward Pakistan rests on four factors that purportedly explain Pakistani support for militancy: poverty; personal religiosity and approval of sharia law; support for legal Islamist political parties; and failure to support democracy. A survey of the sentiments of the Pakistani public, however, shows that these conventional wisdoms may be mistaken. To undermine support for militant groups, therefore, policymakers must pay greater attention to determining who supports militant organizations.
Winter 2009/10
"The Myth of Military Myopia: Democracy, Small Wars, and Vietnam"
International Security, issue 3, volume 34
By Jonathan D. Caverley, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007-2008
The problems of fighting an insurgency with a firepower- and capital-intensive strategy are well known, yet democracies have failed to adopt more effective strategies. Scholars have identified military bureaucracy and culture to explain this tendency, but it can also be attributed to a desire to shift the cost of war away from the less-wealthy voter, who is more apt to support less-effective, but less labor-intensive strategies, if they lower the cost of fighting. This theory explains Lyndon Johnson's decision to pursue a suboptimal counterinsurgency strategy in the Vietnam War.
Winter 2009/10
"Powerplay: Origins of the U.S. Alliance System in Asia"
International Security, issue 3, volume 34
By Victor Cha
The United States generally prefers to pursue multilateral security alliances to support its national and international interests. In East Asia, however, it chose a different approach after World War II. Both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations cultivated a "hub-and-spokes" system of bilateral alliances with South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan based on a "powerplay" rationale: Washington wanted to contain the Soviet threat while preventing leaders of the so-called rogue allies from involving the United States in an unwanted war. The United States' bilateral alliances with South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan remain in place today.
