Research Analyst Shawn Rostker wrote an op-ed in The Diplomat about the dangers of the India-Pakistan-China nuclear triad and ways all three countries can cooperate in the future.
Recent attention to nuclear dangers has been largely devoted to expanding Chinese forces, Russian nuclear threats, and the growing momentum toward a comprehensive nuclear buildup in the United States. At the same time, there is a similar but largely unseen dynamic unfolding on the Asian Subcontinent – one that emulates the great power conundrum and should be more acutely observed. The China-India-Pakistan triad raises strategic risks and instabilities, posing a perhaps more concerning threat to nuclear non-use than the ongoing competition between China, Russia, and the United States.
Long considered the most likely theater for nuclear use, the same precarities, tensions, and territorial disputes that defined the three-way relationship between India, China, and Pakistan decades ago continue to shape their interactions. A quarter-century after the nuclearization of the Asian Subcontinent, a three-sided combination of evolving nuclear postures, military-technological modernizations, and strategic competition now compound these drivers of instability and are bringing the region closer to a nuclear crisis. Read more
