September 1998

After the Tests: US Policy Toward India and Pakistan

This paper describes how the 1998 nuclear tests in India and Pakistan made South Asia, and the world, a more dangerous place. The authors recommend that the objectives of US foreign policy should be to encourage India and Pakistan to cap their nuclear capabilities at or near their established levels, and to reinforce the global effort to stem the horizontal and vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems. At the same time the authors also emphasize that the US has other important interests in South Asia, in addition to those relating to proliferation. The report hence stresses that the US must continue to work towards regional conflict prevention, democratization, economic growth, and international trade and investment, and therefore also actively cooperate with India and Pakistan on global challenges.

After the Tests: US Policy Toward India and Pakistan

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