ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the slow and Pakistan-centric pattern of India’s nuclear behaviour and argues for the explanatory power offered by Mohammed Ayoob’s subaltern realist reading situated in Barry Buzan’s and Ole Waever’s regional security complex theory, in which state- and nation-building processes are central to conflict. It describes three issues: the credibility of Pakistan’s implied first-use doctrine in the context of a conventional war which it is losing; whether nuclear deterrence stability creates incentives for low-intensity warfare and limited conventional warfare; and whether United States (US) presence will enhance Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence capability or undermine it. The book provides a foundation based on international relations (IR) theory for the doctrine of credible minimum deterrence which, despite being the official Indian as well as Pakistani nuclear doctrine, has never had its assumptions and principles clearly enunciated.
