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The Limits of International Society: Understanding China’s Response to Nuclear Breakout and Third Party Non-Compliance
by Tanya Ogilvie-White

Despite warnings of unchecked nuclear proliferation and the potential for state-sponsored WMD terrorism, official statements and consistent diplomatic activities show that China remains resolutely committed to a patient and peaceful strategy for dealing with third-party non-compliance and nuclear breakout. Although it has adopted more stringent national controls and has signed up to an ever-increasing array of international non-proliferation agreements, China prevents the decisive application of the enforcement mechanisms available to the UN Security Council, and is highly critical of non-proliferation initiatives that attempt to bypass these mechanisms. To put it another way, China is resolutely opposed to nuclear non-proliferation with teeth, preferring to keep the regime muzzled. This article examines the rationale behind China’s approach to this issue, drawing on the English School’s interlinking concepts of international system, international society, and global society to help explain China’s advocacy of peaceful non-proliferation and the resulting tensions in its relationship with the United States and other parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

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US–Indian Army-to-Army Relations: Prospects for Future Coalition Operations
by Christine C. Fair

In light of the US requirement to operate in coalitions and given the impressive movement in Indo-US relations, this essay examines the prospects of operational partnerships between the Indian and US armies. It situates the possible futures of Indo-US army-to-army relations generally, and of potential coalition operations specifically, within the context of India’s strategic culture and its national security strategy as well as the role of the armed forces and the army in particular in the execution of this national security strategy. This essay recognizes that both armies are evolving and considers the evolutionary trajectories of both forces.

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Do Nuclear Weapons Stabilize South Asian Militarized Crises? Evidence from the 1990 Case
by Paul S. Kapur

Scholars have claimed that nuclear weapons help to stabilize South Asia by preventing Indo-Pakistani militarized crises from escalating to the level of all-out conventional war. This article argues that while nuclear weapons have had cautionary effects on Indian and Pakistani decision makers, proliferation also has played a role in fomenting some of the very crises that scholars credit nuclear weapons with defusing. Moreover, nuclear deterrence was not always essential to preventing these crises from escalating to the level of outright war. The article illustrates its argument with evidence from the Indo-Pakistani militarized crisis of 1990.

Leading scholars and analysts have argued that nuclear weapons help to prevent South Asian militarized crises from escalating to the level of all-out conventional war.1 This claim has important implications for the regional security environment and beyond. Given the volatile nature of Indo-Pakistani relations, reducing the likelihood of crisis escalation would make the subcontinent significantly safer. The claim also suggests that nuclear weapons could lower the probability of war in crisis-prone conflict dyads elsewhere in the world.

This article takes a less sanguine view of nuclear weapons’ impact on South Asian militarized crises. It argues that while nuclear weapons have at times had important cautionary effects on Indian and Pakistani decision makers, proliferation has played a role in fomenting a number of the very crises that scholars credit nuclear weapons with defusing. Moreover, it is not clear that nuclear deterrence was essential to preventing some of these crises from escalating to the level of outright war. I illustrate my argument with evidence from the period when India and Pakistan were acquiring nascent nuclear weapons capabilities. I show that during the late 1980s, Pakistan’s emerging nuclear capacity emboldened Pakistani decision makers to provide extensive support to the emerging insurgency against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In early 1990, India responded with large-scale force deployments along the Line of Control and International Border, in an attempt to stem militant infiltration into Indian territory, and potentially to intimidate Pakistan into abandoning its Kashmir policy. Pakistan countered with large deployments of its own, and the result was a major Indo-Pakistani militarized standoff. Although scholars have credited Pakistani nuclear weapons with deterring India from attacking Pakistan during this crisis, the preponderance of available evidence suggests that Indian leaders never seriously considered striking Pakistan, and therefore were not in fact deterred from launching a war in 1990. Thus nuclear weapons played an important role in fomenting a major Indo-Pakistani crisis during this period, but probably were not instrumental in preventing the crisis from escalating to the level of outright war.

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Regional Stability in the Asia-Pacific: Towards a Conceptual Understanding
by Robert Ayson

Abstract:This article evaluates regional stability as a concept for Asia-Pacific security analysis. Stability can be viewed as a system's tendency towards equilibrium, including its ability to find a new equilibrium in changing conditions. This approach is reflected in five types of Asia-Pacific stability - the avoidance of major war, the stability of the distribution of power, the stability of institutions and norms, political stability within countries, and economic stability. While all of these factors constitute stability in the Asia-Pacific, it is not clear that any of them constitute the stability of the Asia-Pacific region as a coherent unit of analysis.