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The Science and Politics of Testing in India: What to Expect After the Nuclear Deal?

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Abstract: Nuclear testing has a special place in the Indian nuclear discourse. India's activism on disarmament issues can be traced back to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's 1954 call for a test ban. In recent times, at three critical junctures: CTBT negotiations (1994-96), the dialogue with the U.S. after the nuclear tests of May 1998 (1998-2000) and the negotiations on the civil nuclear agreement with the U.S. (2005-2008), the testing issue has made a demand for answers on fundamental questions. Gill and Gopalaswamy believe that the debate on the politics and science of nuclear testing in India reflects two larger questions: firstly, in the manner in which India should relate to the wider nonproliferation regime pending nuclear disarmament and secondly what should be the nature and extent of the Indian nuclear deterrent in a world with nuclear weapons? Neither of these questions has been satisfactorily answered and thus it is still an open debate.

There are significant international dimensions to this debate. The first aspect is the fate of the CTBT, which India refused to sign after two and half years of engagement. The second aspect is the perceptions of the credibility of India's deterrent in a fluid strategic landscape. Gill and Gopalaswamy argue that while India has begun to be relatively more engaging with the nonproliferation regime, it is unlikely that New Delhi will ratify the CTBT anytime soon. Rather, engagement with India on fissile material/fuel cycle control and delegitimization of nuclear weapons may turn out to be a more productive use of scarce political capital in New Delhi and elsewhere in the short run. As this engagement develops, the CTBT would be seen less as a step child of the regime from which India was kept apart but more as one among a number of regimes that involve India in a network of mutual restraints, thus improving the prospects for India's participation in a formal, global ban on testing.

On the scientific aspects, Gill and Gopalaswamy argue that a ‘perceptual set' induced by U.S. nuclear history is at the heart of the controversy over the two-stage device tested on May 11, 1998. They believe that in the light of new data made available by Indian scientists, the option of renewed explosive testing should be considered by India only as a demonstration of intent to maintain the credibility of India's deterrent if certain redlines were to be crossed. The fact that India has such redlines in mind would act to induce more responsibility on part of the other nuclear weapon states relevant to India's decisions, thus reducing the probability of renewed testing by India.

Amandeep Singh Gill is a visiting fellow at CISAC. He is a member of the Indian Foreign Service and has served in the Indian Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, the Indian Embassy in Tehran and the High Commission of India in Colombo. At headquarters in New Delhi, he has served twice in the Disarmament and International Security Affairs Division of the Ministry of External Affairs from 1998 to 2001 and again from 2006 to 2008 at critical junctures in India’s nuclear diplomacy. He was a member of the Indian delegation to the Conference on Disarmament during the negotiations on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He has also served as an expert on the UN Secretary General’s panels of experts on Small Arms and Light Weapons and on Missiles.

His research priorities include disarmament, arms control and non proliferation, Asian regional security and human security issues.  He is currently working on the interaction of nuclear policies of major states, particularly in Asia.

Before joining the Indian Foreign Service, Amandeep Gill worked as a telecommunications engineer. He retains an abiding interest in the interaction of science, security and politics. He is founder of a non-profit called Farmers First Foundation that seeks to reclaim agriculture for the farmers and demonstrate the viability of integrated agriculture in harmony with nature.

Bharath Gopalaswamy is a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University's Peace Studies Program. He has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Numerical Acoustics. He has previously worked at the Indian Space Research Organization's High Altitude Test Facilities and the European Aeronautics Defense and Space Company's Astrium GmbH division in Germany.

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Amandeep Singh Gill Visiting Scholar, CISAC Speaker
Bharath Gopalaswamy Postdoctoral Associate, Cornell University's Peace Studies Program Speaker
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The Breakdown in Defense Acquisition Programs: Why Everything Costs So Much, Is Delivered So Late, and Frequently Doesn't Work

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Philip Taubman is a consulting professor at CISAC, where is working on a book project about nuclear threats and the joint effort of Sid Drell, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Bill Perry and George Shultz to reduce nuclear dangers. Before joining CISAC this fall, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including intelligence and defense policies and operations. At the Times, Taubman served as a Washington correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, deputy editorial page editor, Washington bureau chief and associate editor.

Taubman also serves as Stanford associate vice president for university affairs, working on special projects for Stanford's president, John Hennessy.

Taubman was a history major at Stanford, Class of 1970, and served as editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily in 1969. Before joining the New York Times, he worked as a correspondent for Time magazine and was sports editor of Esquire. He was a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees, 1978-1982. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage. (Simon & Schuster, 2003.) Taubman is married to Felicity Barringer, the national environmental correspondent of the New York Times and a fellow Stanford graduate, Class of 1971.

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Philip Taubman

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Philip Taubman is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. He served as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief, among other posts. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003), The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012),  In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (2023), as well as co-author (with his brother, William Taubman) of McNamara at War: A New History (2025).

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US Civil - Military Relations and the Implications of the Private Military Contractors

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Thomas Bruneau is a Distinguished Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He has researched and written extensively on Latin America, especially Brazil, and Portugal. Dr. Bruneau has published more than fifteen books in English and Portuguese as well as articles in journals including Latin American Research Review, Comparative Politics, Third World Quarterly, Encyclopedia of Democracy, South European Society and Politics, Journal of Democracy, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Democratization, and Military Affairs.

In addition to his position as Professor in the NSA Department, Professor Bruneau was the Academic Associate for the curriculum in International Security and Civil-Military Relations from its founding in 1996 until 2002. Between 1998 and 2001 he served as rapporteur of the Defense Policy Board that provides the Secretary of Defense and his staff with independent and informed advice on questions of national security and defense policy.

He has three recently published books. He is co-editor, with Scott Tollefson, of Who Guards the Guardians and How: Democratic Civil - Military Relations (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006). His second book, also published by University of Texas Press, with CDR Steve Boraz, is Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness. His co-edited book with Harold Trinkunas, Global Politics of Defense Reform, was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in February 2008.

A native of California, Professor Bruneau received his BA from California State University at San Jose and his MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley

Stephen Krasner is a former director of CDDRL, former deputy director of FSI, an FSI senior fellow, and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.        

He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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Thomas C. Bruneau CISAC Visiting Scholar; Distinguished Professor of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School Speaker

Stephen D. Krasner

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-0676 (650) 724-2996
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
krasner.jpg MA, PhD

Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999),  Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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Stephen D. Krasner Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations and Former Director, CDDRL; Former Deputy Director, FSI; FSI Senior Fellow; Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Commentator
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Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945-1975

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Kelly Moore is Associate Professor of Sociology and Affiliate of Women's Studies at the University of Cincinnati.  She is the author of Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945-1975 (Princeton University Press, 2008), and the co-editor of The New Political Sociology of Science: Institutions, Networks, and Power (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006).   Her articles have appeared in Research in Organizational Sociology, American Journal of Sociology and other journals.  She currently serves as Chair of the American Sociological Association section on Science, Knowledge and Technology, and is writing a book about neoliberalism, food, and nutrition in U.S. from 1980 to 2005. 

Rebecca Slayton is a lecturer in the Science, Technology and Society Program at Stanford University and a CISAC affiliate. In 2004-2005 she was a CISAC science fellow. Her research examines how technical judgments are generated, taken up, and given significance in international security contexts. She is currently working on a book which uses the history of the U.S. ballistic missile defense program to study the relationships between and among technology, expertise, and the media. Portions of this work have been published in journals such as History and Technology and have been presented at academic conferences. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 2004 she completed an NSF-funded project entitled Public Science: Discourse about the Strategic Defense Initiative, 1983-1988.

As a physical chemist, she developed ultrafast laser experiments in condensed matter systems and published several articles in physics journals. She also received the AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship in 2000, and has worked as a science journalist for a daily paper and for Physical Review Focus. She earned her doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University in 2002.

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Kelly Moore Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Cincinnati Speaker
Rebecca Slayton CISAC Affiliated Faculty; Lecturer, Science, Technology, and Society Program, Stanford University Commentator
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Proliferating Markets: the Transnational Trade in Uranium from Africa

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Gabrielle Hecht is Associate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.  Her first book, The Radiance of France:  Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (MIT 1998), won awards from the American Historical Association and the Society for the History of Technology.  The French translation appeared with La Découverte in 2004, and MIT will publish a new English-language edition in 2009.  Her current project, entitled Uranium from Africa and the Power of Nuclear Things, draws on archival and field work conducted in Africa, Europe, and North America.  Focusing especially on Gabon, Madagascar, South Africa, Namibia, and Niger, this project examines uranium mining in these places and the flow of uranium from these places. It argues that the view from Africa transforms our understanding of the "nuclear" as a political, technological, and occupational category, as well as our perspective on the transnational power of nuclear things. 

Alexander Montgomery, a visiting assistant professor in 2008-09, was a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC in 2005-2006 and is an assistant professor of political science at Reed College. He has published articles on dismantling proliferation networks and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. His current book project is on post-Cold War U.S. counterproliferation policy, evaluating the efficacy of policies towards North Korea, Iran, and proliferation networks.

He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, an MA in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in sociology and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

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Gabrielle Hecht Associate Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, University of Michigan Speaker
Alexander Montgomery Visiting Assistant Professor, CISAC; Assistant Professor of Political Science, Reed College Commentator
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1989 & the Architecture of Order: The Competition to Lead the Post-Cold War World

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Professor Mary Sarotte teaches in the interdisciplinary international relations program at the University of Southern California (USC).  She earned her BA in History and Science at Harvard University and her PhD in History at Yale University.  Before becoming a historian, Sarotte worked as a journalist in Europe for Time, Die Zeit, and The Economist (where she continues to write as a book reviewer).  A former White House Fellow, Sarotte has also held a Humboldt Scholarship, an Olin National Security Fellowship, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School.  She is the author of two books and a number of scholarly articles.  Sarotte is currently finishing her third monograph, 1989 & the Architecture of Order, to be published by Princeton University Press in the series "Studies in International History and Politics" in 2009.

Norman Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies: a professor of history; core faculty member of FSI's Forum on Contemporary Europe; and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is an expert on modern East European, Balkan, and Russian history. His current research focuses on the history of genocide in the 20th century and on postwar Soviet policy in Europe. He is author of the critically acclaimed volumes: The Russians in Germany: The History of the Soviet Zone of Germany, 1945-1949 (Harvard 1995) and Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in 20th Century Europe (Harvard 2001).  Most recently, he has co-edited books on Yugoslavia and its Historians (Stanford 2003), Soviet Politics in Austria, 1945-1955: Documents from the Russian Archives (in German and Russian, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2006), and The Lost Transcripts of the Politburo (Yale 2008). 

Naimark is a senior fellow by courtesy of the Hoover Institution and Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program at Stanford. He also was chair of Stanford's Department of History and programs in International Relations and International Policy Studies. He has served on the editorial boards of a series of leading professional journals, including: The American Historical Review, The Journal of Modern History, Slavic Review, and East European Politics and Societies. He served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (1997) and as chairman of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe of the American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science Research Council (1992-1997). 

Before joining the Stanford faculty, Naimark was a professor of history a Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3. 

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Mary Sarotte Associate Professor of International Relations, USC Speaker

Norman M. Naimark

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C235
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-6927 (650) 725-0597
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Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies
Professor of History
Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Naimark,_Norman.jpg MS, PhD

Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and (by courtesy) of the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Norman formerly served as the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division, the Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program, the Convener of the European Forum (predecessor to The Europe Center), Chair of the History Department, and the Director of Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Norman earned his Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in 1972 and before returning to join the faculty in 1988, he was a professor of history at Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.

Norman is interested in modern Eastern European and Russian history and his research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century. His published monographs on these topics include The History of the "Proletariat": The Emergence of Marxism in the Kingdom of Poland, 1870–1887 (1979, Columbia University Press), Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III (1983, Harvard University Press), The Russians in Germany: The History of The Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (1995, Harvard University Press), The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe (1998, Westview Press), Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing In 20th Century Europe (2001, Harvard University Press), Stalin's Genocides (2010, Princeton University Press), and Genocide: A World History (2016, Oxford University Press). Naimark’s latest book, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty (Harvard 2019), explores seven case studies that illuminate Soviet policy in Europe and European attempts to build new, independent countries after World War II.

 

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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Norman M. Naimark Robert and Florence McDonnel Professor of Eastern European Studies; Professor of History and FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy; Member, CISAC Executive Committee Commentator
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Anti-Great-Power-ism and Alliance Politics in South Korea

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Recent analyses of U.S.-Korea relations have tended to focus on rising anti-American sentiments in South Korea and the changing nature of the overall alliance relationship. Either attributed to a case of Korean exceptionalism or U.S. exceptionalism, the current trend of anti-Americanism in Korea is treated as a unique watershed moment that portends the transformation of bilateral relations. Park argues that mobilization of anti-Americanism in Korea, however, is also a manifestation of anti-Great Power-ism, which is not new in the history of Korean politics. In fact, President Roh’s election platform of finding autonomy and self-reliance demonstrates close parallels with the anti-Qing mobilization in turn-of-the-century Korea. Anti-Great Power-ism (anti-sadae) emerged as a potent tool of political mobilization in the late 19th century, when the newly created Reform/Enlightenment Party made their criticism of the existing policy of “revering Great Powers” (sadae) the centerpiece of their attack against the conservative establishment. Even though sadae was originally a pragmatic policy of accommodating the powerful Qing, marking a departure from a cultural-ideological emulation of Ming China, it was stigmatized during 19th century politics as subservient and Great Power-dependent.

By comparing the progressives’ political mobilization processes in the late 19th century and in 2002-2006, the speaker argues that today’s anti-Americanism is actually a continuation of anti-China-ism seen from a broader historical perspective. At the same time, such anti-Great-Power mobilizations demonstrate the importance attached to relations with the “Great Powers” in Korean politics. Korean leaders have historically sought to generate political legitimacy by achieving different types of status in relations with the region’s dominant power in the context of regional hierarchy. A key implication of this study is that the social context of hierarchy continues to play an important role in alliance politics as well as East Asian security.

Seo-Hyun Park is an acting instructor in the Korean Studies Program at APARC and a PhD candidate in the Government Department at Cornell University. Her dissertation project explores enduring patterns of strategic thinking and behavior in East Asia, examining how the hierarchical regional order has conditioned conceptions of state sovereignty and domestic security politics through comparative case studies of Japanese and Korean relations with China in the traditional East Asian order and with the United States in the post-1945 regional alliance system.

Park received a B.A. in Communications from Yonsei Universitiy in Korea and an M.A. in Government from Cornell University.

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Seo-Hyun Park

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-0938 (650) 723-6530
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Acting instructor
Seo-Hyun_Park.JPG

Seo-Hyun Park is an acting instructor in the Korean Studies Program at APARC and a PhD candidate in the Government Department at Cornell University. Her dissertation project explores enduring patterns of strategic thinking and behavior in East Asia, examining how the hierarchical regional order has conditioned conceptions of state sovereignty and domestic security politics through comparative case studies of Japanese and Korean relations with China in the traditional East Asian order and with the United States in the post-1945 regional alliance system.

Park has been a recipient of the Japan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, the Mellon Fellowship, and the Cornell University Einaudi Center’s Carpenter Fellowship, and most recently, the Predoctoral Fellowship at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. She has also conducted research in Japan and Korea as a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo and the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University.  She received a B.A. in Communications from Yonsei Universitiy and an M.A. in Government from Cornell University.

Seo-Hyun Park Acting Instructor, Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center, Stanford University Speaker
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Korea Program
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Wolfgang Mueller

616 Serra Street
Encina Hall E103
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-8020 (650) 725-2592
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Research Scholar, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Visiting Scholar, Forum on Contemporary Europe
PhD

Dr Wolfgang Mueller, PhD in contemporary history and Russian studies (University of Vienna), is a research associate at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Former professional affiliations include the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, Canada, and the Institute of East European History, University of Vienna. Wolfgang Mueller was a visiting fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of OSCE missions to the CIS area. He teaches Russian history and politics at the University of Vienna.

Research interests: Russian and Soviet foreign policy, international relations, the Cold War, European integration. Current research projects: continuities in Russian foreign policy behavior, the USSR/Russia and European integration; the revolutions of 1989.

Wolfgang Mueller’s book on postwar Soviet policy in Austria Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945-1955 (2005) was awarded the Richard G. Plaschka Prize. Further publications include Sovetskaia politika v Avstrii: Dokumenty iz Rossiiskikh arkhivov (with N. Naimark, A. Suppan, G. Bordiugov eds. 2005); The Austrian State Treaty 1955: International Strategy, Legal Relevance, National Identity (with G. Stourzh, A. Suppan eds. 2005); “Stalin and Austria: New Evidence on Soviet Policy in a Secondary Theatre of the Cold War,” Cold War History 6 (2006) 1; Osteuropa vom Weltkrieg zur Wende (with M. Portmann eds. 2007); “Die UdSSR und die europäische Integration,” in From the Common Market to European Union Building (M. Gehler ed. 2009); Peaceful Coexistence or Iron Curtain? Austria, Neutrality, and Eastern Europe 1955-1989 (Forthcoming).

Dr. Mueller was a visiting scholar with the Forum on Contemporary Europe from October 2008 through March 2009.

Shorenstein APARC hosts Clint Eastwood for final film in Divided Lenses series

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On December 4, Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima was the last of four films to be screened at the Cubberley Auditorium as part of the Shorenstein APARC Divided Lenses: Film and War Memories in Asia film series. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19-March 26, 1945) as experienced by Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi and the Japanese soldiers who served under his command.

Following the screening Robert Toplin, professor of history at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, interviewed Eastwood about the making of the film. Eastwood remarked that Letters from Iwo Jima won Japan's Academy Prize for "Outstanding Foreign Language Film," joking that he was the only foreign thing about the film, as the screenwriter and most of the cast and crew were Japanese.

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Mumbai's Perilous Implications

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CISAC's Paul Kapur and Sumit Ganguly of Indiana University discuss the importance of probing the sources of the violence in Mumbai, and consider the attacks' implications for regional security in South Asia.

Security officials and cleanup crews are now combing through the carnage in Mumbai, following last week’s terrorist attacks in the city. As the citizens of this vast metropolis seek to restore some semblance of normalcy to their lives, it is important to probe the sources of the violence in Mumbai, and consider the attacks’ implications for regional security in South Asia.

How and why did the Mumbai attacks occur? Information at this stage is still incomplete. Nonetheless, a few points seem clear.

There is considerable evidence that Pakistan-based entities were behind the Mumbai attacks. The sole surviving terrorist is Pakistani. He claims that the attackers trained with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for months inside Pakistan prior to launching their assault. And Indian officials have determined that the terrorists took a boat from Karachi to the Mumbai coast, leaving behind cell phones that had been used to call Pakistan.

None of this directly implicates the Pakistani government in the Mumbai attacks. It does, however, suggest that Pakistan bears some measure of responsibility for recent events; the Pakistani government is either unable or unwilling to prevent its territory from being used to launch terrorist attacks against India.

In fact, Pakistan has a long history of supporting anti-Indian militancy. For example, during the 1980s, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) began to provide training, arms, and financial and logistical support to insurgent groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. This transformed what had been a mostly spontaneous, local uprising into a low-intensity Indo-Pakistani war. Despite repeated Indian diplomatic entreaties and military threats, Pakistan has never fully ended its support for such groups.

These outside links notwithstanding, the complexity and organization of the Mumbai attacks suggest that they also employed local Indian support. Thus, even if the operation originated in Pakistan, the terrorists may well have had the assistance of disaffected Indian Muslims.

Since independence, many Muslims have thrived in India, availing themselves of educational opportunities, achieving high levels of prosperity, and blending into the country’s vast, pluralistic society. On a day-to-day basis they have faced little religious discrimination.

Less affluent segments of the Muslim community, however, have not been so fortunate. They have long endured discrimination in aspects of everyday life ranging from employment to housing opportunities. Past generations acquiesced in these humiliations. Today’s lower middle class Muslims, however, are better educated and more politically aware than their predecessors, and thus less prone simply to accept their fate.

Against this social backdrop, two incidents have helped to spur a process of Islamist radicalization within India. The first was a spate of anti-Muslim riots that swept across much of northern and western India after Hindu zealots destroyed the Babri Mosque in 1992. Hundreds of Muslims died at the hands of Hindu mobs while the police looked on. The second episode was a 2002 pogrom in the state of Gujarat that occurred after Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire allegedly set by Muslim miscreants. Few, if any, individuals involved these incidents have been prosecuted. Not surprisingly, these two episodes helped to radicalize a small but significant minority of Indian Muslims.

The Indian government has failed to devise a set of policies to address these social roots of Islamist zealotry. In addition, many of India’s state-level police forces have not mustered the requisite intelligence, forensic and prosecutorial tools necessary to suppress the resulting violence. Instead they have resorted to the random arrests of young Muslims, employed tainted evidence, and abused draconian anti-terrorist laws. Such actions have only worsened the situation, making it easier for foreign militants to recruit domestic sympathizers inside India.

What are the Mumbai attacks’ implications for South Asian security? The Manmohan Singh government has sought to avoid confrontation with Pakistan in the wake of several recent terror attacks with potential Pakistani links. Instead, it has preferred to maintain regional stability in hopes of achieving continued economic growth. The Mumbai attacks, however, undercut this rationale for restraint; by attacking international targets in India’s financial hub, they threaten to inflict significant harm on the Indian economy. Also, considerable domestic political pressure for strong anti-Pakistani action is likely to emerge, both from the opposition Bharatia Janata Party (BJP), which has long accused the government of being soft of Pakistan, and from ordinary voters outraged by the attacks.

In 2001, a failed assault on the Indian parliament by Pakistan-backed militants managed to kill only five people and was over in the space of a morning. In response, India mobilized roughly 500,000 forces along the Indo-Pakistani border, triggering a major militarized crisis with Pakistan. The Mumbai attacks killed and wounded hundreds, and lasted for nearly three days. Given the scale of the violence, as well as the economic and domestic political factors discussed above, the Indian government will be hard-pressed to avoid a reaction similar to 2001 – particularly if the evidence from Mumbai continues to point toward Pakistan. Given that both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons, the stakes in any ensuing confrontation will be enormous. Nuclear weapons will give both sides strong incentives to behave at least somewhat cautiously, in order to prevent a crisis from escalating too far. But they will also leave less room for error, making the costs of miscalculation potentially catastrophic.

Will a serious Indo-Pakistani crisis emerge from the Mumbai attacks, or will the Indian government manage to continue its policy of restraint, even in the face of such a brazen provocation? The pieces would appear to be in place for a serious regional confrontation. But only the coming days will tell for sure.

Sumit Ganguly is the director of research at the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington, and an adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.

Paul Kapur is an associate professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and an affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

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