Introduction artaj Aziz, Pakistan's leading senior statesman, said of the 1998 nuclear tests
that “Pakistan was only [the] dependent variable” responding to India's “independent”
decision to exercise its “nuclear option.” 1 His apt mathematical analogy also applies to the
broader South Asian security environment and the triangular relationship between China,
India, and Pakistan, in which actions by one country have cascading effects on the others:
challenges to the status-quo regularly evoke historic rivalries and mistrust. Today's trends …