The Next Nuclear Arms Race Is Between China And India

The Next Nuclear Arms Race -- Wall Street Journal

China and India are raising the stakes by modernizing and deploying more forces along their shared border.

India and Pakistan are the two countries most likely to engage in nuclear war, or so goes the common wisdom. Yet if recent events are any indication, the world's most vigorous nuclear competition may well erupt between Asia's two giants: India and China.

Both countries already house significant and growing arsenals. China is estimated to have approximately 450 warheads; India, roughly 100. Though intensifying as of late, Sino-Indian nuclear competition has a long history: India's pursuit of a weapons program in the 1960s was triggered in part by China's initial nuclear tests, and the two have eyed one another's arsenals with mounting concern ever since. The competition intensified in 2007, when China began to upgrade missile facilities near Tibet, placing targets in northern India within range of its forces.

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My Comment: Both countries have a long and troubled history over border differences .... resulting in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. These differences still remain, and with both countries becoming the economic powerhouses of Asia, border differences are now translating into economic and political rivalries. As these rivalries intensify .... military alliances and the buildup of both armies are probably going to be the result .... with nuclear weapons becoming the ultimate security guarantee (so they will say). My prediction .... in the next ten years this rivalry will result with both countries expanding their nuclear arsenals significantly .... to a point that will raise the eyebrows of other nuclear nations like Russia and the U.S.