Point, Counter-Point offers four perspectives on a current topic. This round, South Asian Voices contributors debate Mark Fitzpatrick’s new book: Overcoming Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers, in which he proposes that Pakistan should be offered a formula for nuclear legitimacy tied to its adoption of policies associated with global nuclear norms.
Watch video of Fitzpatrick’s Washington book launch, and read below for point and counter-point from both Indian and Pakistani bloggers:
POINT
In “The Wisest Choice,” Abhijit Iyer-Mitra argues that “there is a compelling argument to bringing Pakistan into the nuclear fold that probably benefits India more than it does any other country,” and that “from an Indian point of view this may not be fair or just – but it may be the wise thing to do.”
In “Normalizing Nuclear Pakistan,” Rabia Akhtar terms the book “a brave account, because it takes courage in today’s world of policy and academia to suggest something that is not fashionable and something that the gatekeepers of the normal nuclear world are not ‘used to hearing’ from a non-Pakistani scholar, that is: ‘Pakistan should be treated as a normal nuclear country.’”
COUNTER-POINT
In “After the Euphoria?” Amina Afzal cautions that “it is too soon for Pakistan to be jubilant over an overvalued proposal, one, which may seem beneficial but carries long-term implications which may not be in Pakistan’s favour after all.”
In “Overlooking’ Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers,” Aditi Malhotra and Sitakanta Mishra argue that ” Fitzpatrick’s advocacy of treating Pakistan as a normal nuclear state and rewarding it with similar treatment like India by ‘mutually reinforcing adjustments’ is based on a few contested nuclear norms.”
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