Dealing with the Bomb in South Asia

INDIA'S AND PAKISTAN'S DANGEROUS BLASTS

Last May Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee authorized a series of nuclear tests beneath the desert sands of Rajasthan. While the aftershocks were still registering on seismographs around the world, he proclaimed India a nuclear-weapons state. Fifteen days later, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, claiming he had no choice but to match an adversarial neighbor, ordered Pakistan's own series of tests in the Chagai Hills of Baluchistan and declared that his country, too, had nuclear arms.

The tests spurred immediate global condemnation. In all, 152 nations—large and small, developed and developing—voiced their opposition.