ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Glenn Snyder’s original formulation, analyze the genesis of the concept, and explores the most important of his insights. It revisits four India-Pakistan crises since the mid-1980s to see if they yield any evidence of the stability-instability paradox in operation. The chapter analyses beyond the stabilityinstability paradox to examine other pieces in the India-Pakistan instability puzzle. It focuses on such issues as incompatible nuclear doctrines, the difference between status quo and revisionist strategies, the offence-defence balance at different levels of escalation, and the ‘plausible deniability’ inherent in asymmetric warfare. The chapter examines the very different meanings that nuclear weapons have for India and Pakistan and asks what it would take to build a robust deterrence relationship between the two states. Mutual deterrence, in the words of Jervis, ‘can be used as a platform for hostility, coercion, and even limited wars’.
