Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream (review)

This wide-ranging set of essays examines the negative effects of the nuclearization of South Asia, which should be placed in its global and historical context. On 18 May 1974, the birth anniversary of Gautama Buddha, India tested its first nuclear bomb, in Pokhran, Rajasthan, under the direction of then prime minister Indira Gandhi. "The Buddha is smiling" was the boldly chosen code name used for the operation.¹ The Indian government claimed that the test was for peaceful purposes, and for the next twenty-four years, although nuclear research continued, there were no publicly known nuclear tests in South Asia. Then in May 1998, unbeknownst even to the international intelligence community, the Indian government conducted five underground nuclear explosions. In response, Pakistan conducted its own nuclear tests later that month.

The weaponization of India's and Pakistan's nuclear programs alarmed the international community. After the 1998 tests, the Indian subcontinent became arguably the world's primary nuclear flashpoint, with millions of likely casualties in the event of nuclear weapons use. The Clinton administration imposed sanctions on the two countries, and nuclear proliferation was on center stage. The September 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent events sent the issue of nuclear proliferation off the global radar, save for the Bush administration's claims about Iraq and nuclear weapons. In 2003 and early 2004, however, North Korea, Libya, and Iran thrust the issue back into the spotlight. Meanwhile, the South Asian nuclear issue has remained a live one, with many unanswered questions.

The debate over a possible Pakistan–North Korea link for the 1998 tests was never resolved and was forgotten until the Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan admitted in January 2004 that he had spread nuclear skills and equipment to North Korea, Libya, and Iran.² The Khan revelations provided fresh evidence that the physical effects (and possible dangers) of nuclear proliferation in South Asia extend beyond the Indian subcontinent. What the orchestrated portrayal of Khan as a lone "rogue scientist" did not reveal, however, was the depth of Pakistani government and military involvement in nuclear proliferation, which serious observers of the region have long known about.³ Clearly, the nuclearization of South Asia is not merely a "regional problem" that can be conveniently ignored by non–area specialists.

M. V. Ramana, a physicist based at Princeton University, and C. Rammanohar Reddy, deputy editor of the Hindu, one of India's leading newspapers, are the editors of this thought-provoking volume, which includes contributions from journalists, economists, physicists, political scientists, and a medical doctor. The essayists range from Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize–winning economist, to Admiral L. Ramdas, former chief of the Indian Navy. What binds these commentators together is disclosed by the dedication: "For a world free of nuclear weapons." These writers believe that the nuclearization of South Asia has had deleterious outcomes, and they do not see nuclear weapons as inevitable elements of modern civilization.

A strong case has been made by the hawkish lobby in India, and indeed by South Asia specialists in the United States, that India's nuclear program has contributed to an increase in India's security. Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, for example, argues, "The 1998 tests increased India's prestige and status, thus indirectly improving its net security."⁴ Cohen points out that if the Indian government can use its nuclear status to leverage a seat on arms control bodies, "then the decision will prove to have been a correct one from the perspective of helping to elevate India to the rank of major power."⁵ There have been several books since the 1998 tests on various aspects of South Asian nuclearization.⁶ The views of the hawkish lobby in India are well represented in a 2002 volume edited by D. R. Sardesai and...