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This article offers a discussion of nuclear doctrines and their significance for war, peace and stability between nuclear-armed states. The cases of India and Pakistan are analysed to show the challenges these states have faced in articulating and implementing a proper nuclear doctrine, and the implications of this for nuclear stability in the region. We argue that both the Indian and Pakistani doctrines and postures are problematic from a regional security perspective because they are either ambiguous about how to address crucial deterrence related issues, and/or demonstrate a severe mismatch between the security problems and goals they are designed to deal with, and the doctrines that conceptualize and operationalize the role of nuclear weapons in grand strategy. Consequently, as both India's and Pakistan's nuclear doctrines and postures evolve, the risks of a spiralling nuclear arms race in the subcontinent are likely to increase without a reassessment of doctrinal issues in New Delhi and Islamabad. A case is made for more clarity and less ambition from both sides in reconceptualizing their nuclear doctrines. We conclude, however, that owing to the contrasting barriers to doctrinal reorientation in each country, the likelihood of such changes being made-and the ease with which they can be made-is greater in India than in Pakistan. (International Affairs (Oxford) / SWP)

The March 2006 US-India nuclear accord has been criticised for ist likely adverse effect on the nuclear non-proliferation regime, especially the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Without such an accord, however, India, as a rising power, will remain outside the regime and remain less than fully integrated, strategically, politically, economically and technologically, in the international system. The damage critics envision to the non-proliferation regime from the US-India accord pales in comparison to the damage that can be done by India's actions and rhetoric as a dissatisfied state. But in fact the deal upholds and strengthens rather than undermines the regime. Attempts by the United States to integrate India into the non-proliferation regime as a lead actor augur well for the longevity of both the nonproliferation regime and the international order, and suggest to other rising powers that the system is flexible enough to allow for inevitable changes in the global distribution of power. (Survival / SWP)