... much as predicted by some observers back in the 1960s, when it was expected that two dozen or more countries would have acquired nuclear weapons by now. However, while the numbers have not changed in the near-term, several developments, including the embryonic nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan and the uncertain future of the North Korean nuclear weapons program-could conceivably cause other states to initiate or accelerate their own such programs, as well as generally making the world-and in particular, South Asia-a more dangerous place. Nuclear weapons which can be over a million times more powerful than the same weight of conventional explosives-are considered "weapons of mass destruction" in the truest sense. In addition to killing tens or hundreds of thousands of people or more, a nuclear weapon can obliterate the entire physical infrastructure of a large city and contaminate a much larger area with radioactive fallout. Although nuclear weapons ...

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