On May 11 and 13 of this past year, India conducted, by its own claim, five underground nuclear tests at Pokaran near the Pakistani border. Almost two weeks later, Pakistan responded with an alleged six nuclear tests at Baluchistan on May 28 and 30. While the events and reasons leading up to these tests are numerous, including three Indian-Pakistani wars since Independence from Great Britain in 1947, the aftermath of the decision by two nation-states to test nuclear weapons will prove to be great. 

The initial reaction in India to the nuclear tests is one that is hard to imagine for most modern western nations: joy. With almost 80 percent approval ratings, the tests boosted nationalism after a campaign promise of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to make India a nuclear power. The reaction elsewhere did not match Indian enthusiasm.

For Pakistan, the tests from its rival had proven what had long been alleged since a 1974 nuclear weapons test which India claimed was for scientific research. In China, anger grew over allegations that it had instigated the testing by its weapons trade with Pakistan. For the United States, Congress was faced with no choice but to implement the provisions in the Glenn and Pressler Amendments which ban economic aid and military sales by the United States to any nation-state which uses nuclear devices illegitimately. One of the results desired by the tests, Nuclear Weapons State status, was immediately shot down by the five great powers, which condemned the action in the United Nations Security Council along with 152 nations worldwide. India had become the pariah of the international community, but Pakistan was still about to follow suit.

Despite incentives such as conventional arms technology and economic aid from the United States, weak Pakistani leaders bent to the will of the people who demanded an answer to the threat of Pakistan's national security. On May 28 and 30, Pakistan made the Indian sub-continent the most dangerous place in the world with an additional six nuclear tests. Citing issues of national security, Pakistan joined the ranks of the unofficial Nuclear Weapon States with India, North Korea, Israel, Iran and Libya. The same sanctions used upon India in previous weeks were then applied to Pakistan as well.

External results from the testing varied. For rogue states such as Iran, the tests became an opportunity to call for a Muslim weapon of mass destruction that would guard Muslim nations as the US nuclear umbrella guarded its allies (i.e.- Taiwan and Japan). In Israel, the decision of whether or not to come out with its own nuclear arsenal publicly was a point of debate for a short time. The non-proliferation regime which saw growing success with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) ratification in 1996 and the CTBT signing that same year, now was witness to its own lack of control over the nations of the world.

When initial reactions were given to the situation on the Indian sub-continent, analysts had expected the worst to come from the tests. To some extent, the pessimists were right. India refused to give up its nuclear arsenal, claiming that the Pakistani tests had proved it had a legitimate concern sandwiched between two hostile nuclear powers. Prime Minister Vajpayee of India called for a credible nuclear deterrent to assure stability in the region; perceiving the standoff to resemble the US-Soviet Cold War where deterrence prevented bloodshed. The problem with this logic is that it took the US almost $5.5 trillion to maintain that deterrent and it cost the Soviet Union its existence. If two superpowers could barely keep a policy of nuclear deterrence for forty years, many scholars doubt that two developing countries in debt with sanctions on them would be able to perform a similar feat. Whereas Vajpayee and India may have seen an opportunity for gain, others saw nothing but a loss. According to Samina Ahmed, author of Pakistan and the Bomb, "Since the tests, relations with India (and Pakistan) have sunk to a new low. She further states that the aggressive nuclear posturing of India has left Pakistan on edge. To date, the largest issue of contention between India and Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir, has no solutions after three high level meetings between the two countries since the tests.

Despite these negative effects, the positive movement between Pakistan and India may be greater than the negative. Since the tests, there has been a great transparency in discussions between the two sides. The Lahore Declaration was signed on February 21, 1999 after Vajpayee took a new bus route that will connect India and Pakistan from Delhi to Lahore. This was the first time an Indian leader had been on Pakistani soil in ten years. At Lahore, Vajpayee met with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and created confidence building measures (CBMs) designed to prevent the outbreak of war or accidental nuclear strike. An addendum to the Lahore Declaration called the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the foreign ministers of the two countries. The MoU stated that either side would immediately notify the other in the event of any "accidental, unauthorized, or unexplained incident." There is also a stipulation in the MoU which calls for both countries to maintain unilateral moratoriums on conducting further nuclear tests unless supreme interests are jeopardized. Other points covered in the two agreements included improvement of existing hotlines between military officers, announcements of military maneuvers along borders, and plans for a return trip by Sharif to India. Aside from the bilateral talks with each other, there have also been gestures of good will such as a cricket match between the Indian and Pakistani national teams in New Delhi. On March 16, the bus which Vajpayee rode into Pakistan began its commercial run, making it the fourth existing transportation route between the two countries.

To help continue this positive trend, the United States has removed sanctions for commitments to the CTBT and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). These measures help the US two-fold by bringing India and Pakistan closer to the non-proliferation regime while saving the economies of Pakistan and India from collapse, which would in turn lead to the temptation of selling weapon and missile technologies to rogue states (i.e.- Vietnam from India).

Despite the positive gains made by the CBMs and lifting of sanctions, India and Pakistan will not be able to keep a lasting peace until one issue is settled: Kashmir. No solutions are currently on the table on how to deal with the territory that has torn apart relations between the two countries for the past fifty years. With the advent of nuclear weapons in Pakistan, a lack in conventional force may be compensated with a weapon of mass destruction in a fourth war between India and Pakistan. This is a realistic possibility when one considers that Pakistan has refused to commit to a "no first-use" policy despite the pleas of India for one. In order to avoid a fourth war, which could be nuclear, concessions must be made on both sides, as witnessed in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; however, even these negotiations did not solve all of the conflict.

Cooper, Kenneth J. and Mufson, Steven. "Nuclear Cloud is Cast Over India's Relations with China," The Washington Post, 1 June 1998, A14.

"Leaders: Nuclear complacency," Economist, 17 October 1998, 20.

Mehta, Pratap Bhanu. "India: The Nuclear Politics of Self-Esteem," Current History, December 1998, 403.

Seigle, Greg. "Pakistan must do more before USA lifts sanctions," Jane's Defense Weekly, 9 December 1998.

Talbott, Stobe. "Dealing with the bomb in South Asia," Foreign Affairs, March/April 1999, 110.

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