Causes of Nuclearisation of South Asia and its impact on regional security and stability

Abstract

This article is an attempt to look at the causes of south Asian nuclearisation and its impact on south Asian regional security and stability. It would help to understand why India and Pakistan goes nuclear. The findings would be based on the vivid arguments of prominent scholars. The paper also presents the nuclerisation debate of South Asia in briefly. It also discusses the relevance of classical nuclear deterrence theory in the context South Asia.
South Asia has an important role in world politics. India and Pakistan are nuclear countries of Indian subcontinent from May 1998. After the nuclear explosion by India and Pakistan in May 1998 significant changes were seen in geo-politics of this sub-continent region. After nuclear explosion in 1998 Arms – Proliferation Race started in this region. Generally Nuclear weapons are considered as the power of currency of a nation. Some scholars consider nuclear weapons helpful in maintaining peace and stability in a region. On the other side some scholars reject this argument and consider nuclear weapons as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). They suggest that nuclear weapons do not establish peace and stability in a region instead they bring insecurity and instability. According to them spread of nuclear weapons are dreadful and unsafe. Regarding to nuclear proliferation classical nuclear deterrence theory considers that if two nations have nuclear weapons than the chances of war are less likely as the cost of war rise in relation to possible gains.