�May 1990 has become synonymous with a purported nuclear crisis in the sub-continent and the dominant discourse in Western - mainly American� -scholarship also avers that this 'crisis' was averted by the timely visit of Mr. Robert Gates, a� special emissary of then US President George Bush (senior). There are some curious aspects of this crisis and the Gates mission, in that the matter came into the public domain only three years after the event. Various interpretations have been attempted over the last decade and there is still no clear consensus about the exact nature of the crisis and the perceptions have varied depending on the perch of the scholar/analyst concerned.

�To that extent the book under review is valuable addition to otherwise scant scholarship on this vital event - vital since it points to the muddy nature of the nuclear dynamic that obtains in the sub-continent and the inherent reticence associated with the principal interlocutors ? namely India and Pakistan. Authored jointly by three well-known scholars/analysts from India, Pakistan and the USA respectively, this jointmanship is both a strength and a weakness in the final effort. The scope of the book has been outlined in a very comprehensive manner and merits extensive quotation.� The authors identify ten�� basic questions they have interrogated and that have been only partially and incompletely addressed by others.

These include: "We still need to know what were the origins and true proportions of the 1990 crisis. Did it possess a nuclear dimension? What brought India and Pakistan to the brink of another conflict? How did Pakistan read Indian intentions? Did Pakistan really assemble one or more nuclear weapons? Did the existence of nuclear capability encourage the de-escalation of tensions? What precipitated American involvement? What was the role of non-regional actors, particularly the United States? How was the crisis defused? What were the motives behind the Gates mission, and what was its contribution to defusing the crisis? Finally, what were the conclusions and lessons derived from the episode by the players as well as the observers of the crisis and, again, with the benefit of hindsight, were there any significant missed opportunities before and during the crisis of 1990?"

In the course of seven pithy chapters, the authors provide a tour de horizon of the prevailing strategic context preceding May 1990 and the regional grid. These encompass the more seminal changes that took place after the disintegration of the former USSR and the formal end of the Cold War, followed by a quick canter through the nature of the turbulence within the region and the socio-political predicament that both India and Pakistan were dealing with in their own manner. Inter alia the origins of the Kashmir dispute and the events of late 1989 up to the 'crisis' of May 1990 are deftly woven culminating in the Gates mission.� In the last chapter the lessons for the real world are recalled and here one notes a sense of drift in that the final conclusions arrived at are at slight variance with the ten questions highlighted at the outset. This perhaps is inevitable when one has a large backdrop to interrogate and the multiplicity of authors may
have led to a less than consistent analytical trapeze act.

Be that as it may, the final conclusions arrived at are valuable for they provide a template about where the authors stand regarding May 1990.� In summary they are as follows: yes, there was a crisis though there was no military action; the crisis was unique for it was very complex; the underlying cause was the "explosion of dissidence and separatist feelings in Kashmir", what precipitated the crisis was the movement of� military forces by India and Pakistan prior to May 1990; whether there was a nuclear component in the crisis and the success of nuclear deterrence in avoiding a conflict remains "controversial"; weak domestic governments in India and Pakistan exacerbated the crisis; public statements made on both sides were "malefic" and deserve close� scrutiny; the roles� played by the print and electronic media was "notably incendiary" and furthermore, despite India being democratic and having a free press, the information on national security issues is selectively disseminated and "the role of the so-called 'defense correspondents' in exacerbating the1990, earlier, and later crises is noteworthy";� the USA played a major� role and Washington was constructively engaged in preventive diplomacy.

�Finally, the book raises the crucial central question that has dogged May 1990 ever since it came into the public domain - "how real was the threat of war?"� The divergent perceptions from within the region and in the White House have been noted and the suggestion that maybe the US was chasing a mirage of a crisis. There was an element of virtual reality about May 1990 - a view that I have argued in one of the earlier interpretations of the crisis among others but the final conclusion of the authors is assertive - "we reject the view that there was no crisis at all, and that outsiders played no significant role in helping to resolve it."

Since the term 'crisis' has been defined within the parameters of Richard Lebow's 1981 formulation that it contains three elements - a threat, the prospect of war, and a sense of urgency - the events of early 1990 in the sub-continent may well be so described. What is not rigorously established to my mind is the nature of the crisis and the manner in which it is to be interpreted in hindsight. In February 1994 the Stimson Centre, Washington DC convened a meeting with some of the principal participants in the May 1990 crisis and concluded that the threat of a nuclear confrontation was not great and nor were India and Pakistan eager to have another conventional war.� The Stimson report also noted that the sense of alarm over the crisis was far greater in Washington than in Islamabad, and it was greater in Islamabad than in Delhi. I am afraid that this book does not really shed any new interpretative light or offer any primary evidence almost a decade later that makes the events of May 1990 less opaque.

But this is no way detracts from the value of this effort for both India and Pakistan have been obdurate in not according the necessary access and transparency to researchers studying national security issues. To that extent the book under review is valuable addition to fill certain glaring gaps and it is a reflection of the sub-continental obsession with secrecy that many of the important assertions and statements have to be attributed to personal interviews with anonymous sources. But this is a cross that those ploughing the South Asian security studies furrow have to bear till the powers that be see the merit in both documentation and transparency. Routledge is to be commended for sustaining the South Asian Studies series and one hopes that more such scholarship will be encouraged.
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The nuclear weapon capability is apocalyptic and the need to ensure that there is WMD crisis stability between two neighbors who have had the kind of estranged relationship that India and Pakistan have had over the last 50 plus years needs little reiteration. Thus one cannot but agree whole heartedly with the authors that "India and Pakistan will not have a normal relationship, let alone be able to avert future crises, until there is a strategic understanding between the two states."� That alas was the spirit of Lahore that was wrecked in the craggy heights of Kargil. The current thaw in Indo-Pak relations is welcome and all the more reason why this book must be read by policy makers on both sides to get one collective view of a crisis that need .We know that Mr. Gates came to the region post haste in May 1990 - but it is still not fully clear as to what impelled the White House.� The book under review makes us more aware of what remains to be untangled and why it is so imperative.