This book provides a detailed examination of the compound crisis between India and Pakistan that brought the region to the brink of a nuclear war in 1990. Placing the crisis in the context of concurrent international events such as the fall of the Soviet Union, the authors draw out the lesson for present-day South Asian affairs. The book also makes a significant contribution to the debates on the role of nuclear weapons, confidence and security building strategies and the place of ethnicity in contemporary international relations.

P R Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, Stephen P Cohen

Introduction1. The Strategic Context2. A Region in Turmoil on the Eve of Crisis3. Kashmir: From Simla to Chaos4. From Domestic Insurgency to International Concern5. America's Deepening Engagement6. 1990 as a Nuclear Crisis7. Lessons for the Real War?