http://slate.msn.com/?id=2066250 Anne Applebaum: “Is India's nuclear rivalry with Pakistan completely unlike the old nuclear rivalry between United States and the Soviet Union—is it so unique, in fact, that Cold-War-style nuclear deterrence between the two rivals is destined to fail?” (She mischievously uses the fact that twenty near-disasters—but no disasters—have occurred as evidence that one won't happen.)

Some people, she claims, argue that the situation is particularly dire because neither Pakistan nor India appreciate the effects of nuclear weapons. She calls this argument “borderline racist”—but I'm sure the people making these arguments were saying the same things—about Americans and Russians—during the Cold War. Anyway, would a nuclear exchange really lead to “the death of the subcontinent”? I mean, people still live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 11:58