Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia by Michael Krepon and Julia Thompson (eds.)

Ever since India and Pakistan went overtly nuclear in 1998, a plethora of studies by scholars, both from the subcontinent and outside, have pondered the issues of ‘deterrence stability’ and ‘escalation control’ in South Asia. While the majority of them extrapolated the Cold War type of scenario to the South Asian nuclear discourse, the book under review stands out—for not attributing ‘the primary dangers … to a lack of professionalism on the part of those responsible for nuclear stewardship’ (p. 9). The editors posit future escalatory dangers in South Asia in the absence of normal relations, the presence of spoilers, and a few triggering events like terrorism or Kargil-type intrusions.