For decades, leaders of India and Pakistan have been bewitched by the power of the bomb. Regardless of their various other differences, they seem to have believed that the threat of massive destruction represented by nuclear weapons is a force for good, and that the weapons themselves are vital to the well-being of their respective countries. President A P J Abdul Kalam, for instance, has claimed that nuclear weapons are "truly weapons of peace". For his part, President Pervez Musharraf has declared that his country's nuclear weapons are as critical and important as national security, the economy and Kashmir.
For those not blinded by the Bomb, however, the pursuit of nuclear weapons has brought nothing but a competition in destructive capabilities and crisis after crisis. The Cold War seemed proof enough, but the lessons have been lost to those who rule in India and Pakistan. New Delhi's nuclear ambitions have served only to encourage Islamabad to follow blindly. The 1974 nuclear test at Pokhran sharpened Pakistan's determination not to be left behind and, as many had feared, the bomb was not willing to be left in the shadows for long. First India and then Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in May 1998.
Things went from bad to worse. The Kargil War followed barely a year afterwards, proving that two nuclear armed countries could indeed fight wars – contrary to the suggestions of some. Many hundreds of soldiers died on each side, as the leadership in the two countries threatened apocalypse. A little over two years later, India and Pakistan prepared to fight again. An estimated half-million troops were rushed to the border and, as days turned into weeks and months, nuclear threats were made with abandon. What lessons were learned from the extended standoff at the border? None, it seems – other than perhaps that each country needed to be better prepared to fight a nuclear war.
In 2005, both countries carried out major war games that assumed the possible use of nuclear weapons. An India-Pakistan nuclear war, in which each used only five of their available nuclear weapons, would kill an estimated three million people and severely injure another one-and-a-half million. Meanwhile, even as Southasian and world public opinion press both countries to step back from the nuclear brink, New Delhi and Islamabad respond with efforts to portray themselves as 'responsible' nuclear states. At the same time, they continue to push forward as hard as possible with their arms race.