The subject dealt with in Lethal Games is of considerable contemporary concern. It is important enough for a leisurely analysis by the academic community, policy makers and the bureaucracy who are normally pressed for time due to the hurly burly of the daily grind. The book has seven chapters and two annexures.The book’s canvas is very wide and the topics are multi-spectral and multi-disciplinary. The attempted synthesis in the last chapter (just six and a half pages) about a unique “South Asian Model” ends up as a weary recycling of known ideas which have not had much of a success in reducing either the periodic rise in the subcontinental nuclear temperature or Pak nuclear brinkmanship.The first chapter on ‘Reviewing Nuclear Security’ is a reasonable compilation of recent nuclear history. But there are gaps, for instance, on Chinese and French attainment of nuclear status.
May 2004, volume 28, No 5