Agha Ibrahim Akram was a lieutenant general who served in the Pakistan Army during the 1965 and 1971 wars with India. In this video segment, Akram recalls 1974 as the watershed year when India detonated a nuclear explosive and took one step toward becoming a nuclear power in hopes of enhancing its global status. That moment also coincided with skyrocketing oil prices, which stiffened Pakistan's resolve to develop nuclear energy for electricity and, if need be, weapons. The interview Akram conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'The Haves and Have-Nots' concentrates on the history of tension and conflict between Pakistan and India. He reviews the three wars: the devastating bloodshed that followed partition in 1947, the pride he felt in 1965 as chief of staff of an infantry division along the West Pakistan border, and his bitterness toward India over the Bangladesh war in 1971. Despite the persistence of tension between Pakistan and India, Akram recognizes circumstances in which their perspectives and geopolitical positions meet. For instance, he fully supports India's critique of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: that the major nuclear powers only selectively enforce and adhere to its provisions. He wishes that South Asia could be a nuclear-weapons-free zone but is willing to settle for India and Pakistan's interdependence: 'The two countries are the protagonists of South Asia. We'll actually cross the threshold together or not cross it at all.'

Subject consists of five sections. After a general survey of the field, students consider cases of stable civilian control, stable military rule (coups), and transitions from military to civilian rule. Cases are selected from around the world.

Chandra Shekhar Jha was India's foreign secretary from 1965 to 1967. In this video segment, Jha explains why India cannot exclude the future possibility of owning nuclear weapons. The key to disarmament, he insists, rests with the nuclear nations that are 'adding to their stockpiles' and 'preparing for war. 'Jha's interview conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'The Haves and Have-Nots' begins with his recollections of his devastating post-war tour of Japan with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and their shared ideals of disarmament and economic development by harnessing 'Atoms for Peace.' Jha's interview also examines the dilemma of staying the non-nuclear course given regional security concerns: the 1962 Chinese attack on India, followed two years later by China's detonation of its first nuclear bomb, and ongoing tensions with its neighbor Pakistan. While prioritizing the country's economic development over diverting resources to acquire nuclear weapons, Jha rejects the Non-Proliferation Treaty as embodying 'nuclear colonialism' and objects to the preferential treatment granted other threshold states.

" This course will expose students to tools and methods of analysis for use in assessing the challenges and dangers associated with nuclear weapons in international politics. The first two weeks of the course will look at the technology and design of nuclear weapons and their means of production. The next five weeks will look at the role they played in the Cold War, the organizations that managed them, the technologies that were developed to deliver them, and the methods used to analyze nuclear force structures and model nuclear exchanges. The last six weeks of the course will look at theories and cases of nuclear decision making beyond the original five weapon states, and will look particularly at why states pursue or forego nuclear weapons, the role that individuals and institutions play, and the potential for both new sources of proliferation and new consequences."

From 1988 to 1993 nuclear physicist Mambillkalathil Govind Kumar Menon was president of the International Council of Scientific Unions, a non-governmental organization long involved in environmental and development issues. He was also India's minister of state for science and technology from 1986 to 1989, and he served in the Parliament from 1990 to 1996. In this video segment, Menon describes the euphoria following World War II when international cooperation on atomic science and technology flourished.In the interview Menon conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'The Haves and Have-Nots,' he offers reflections on the dynamic and visionary nuclear physicist Dr. Homi Bhabha. Dr. Bhabha saw the possibility for the modern development of India in creating programs that would harness the newly emerging technology of nuclear energy. Menon captures the zeal of scientists at the first United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. He also defines some basic nuclear processes and principles: how fission works, controlled and uncontrolled chain reactions, and the difference between generating nuclear energy and manufacturing weapons. In 1974, under the prime ministership of Indira Gandhi, India conducted an underground nuclear test. Menon defends what India called a peaceful nuclear explosion as a means to explore enhanced mining techniques and other feats of large-scale underground nuclear engineering. With equal enthusiasm, Menon describes the possibilities of India's space program for expanding telecommunications and gathering data for waterand land-resource management. The global threat, he maintains, is not India but a nuclear exchange between the two superpowers. Paraphrasing Indira Gandhi, Menon concludes, 'What we want is not to make deserts but to make deserts bloom.'