Workshop: Managing Strategic Risks in Asia and the Pacific

Toda Peace Institute and the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) collaborated in a two-year project to identify the key bilateral, trilateral and plurilateral drivers of China–India–Pakistan nuclear trilemmas. The project directors were Shata Shetty from the APLN, WPS Sidhu from New York University and Ramesh Thakur from the Toda Peace Institute.

Papers were commissioned from several international experts, mostly but not exclusively from the three countries concerned. Using them as resource material,  for two days at the end of November 2022, experts, generals and policy practitioners gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal, for a policy dialogue on ‘Managing Strategic Risks in Asia and the Pacific’ hosted by Toda and APLN. Participants assessed conflict dynamics and escalation risks in Southern Asia, discussing ways in which nuclear issues impact the security of the broader region; mapped the contours of the triangular nuclear chain; explored practical nuclear risk reduction, crisis stability and confidence building measures, as well as a nuclear restraint regime that covers all three countries; and identified mechanisms and opportunities for tension reduction and conflict resolution in order to normalize interstate relations and promote people-people ties.  

Below are links to the commissioned papers which have been published as part of Toda's Policy Brief series. The papers were first published in the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament and also linked on the APLN website.

• The China–India–Pakistan Nuclear Trilemma and Accidental War| Prakash Menon

• Strategic Risk Management in Southern Asia | Feroz Hassan Khan

• The China–India–Pakistan Nuclear Triange: Consequential Choices for Asian Security | Salman Bashir

• Managing the China, India and Pakistan Nuclear Trilemma: Ensuring Nuclear Stability in the New Nuclear Age | Rakesh Sood

• Internal Drivers – The Nexus Between Domestic Politics and Bilateral Relations: Exploring India–Pakistan, Pakistan–China, and China–India Dynamics | Sadia Tasleem

• Understanding the Nuclear Landscape in Southern Asia: Complexities and Possibilities | Manpreet Sethi

• External and Internal Drivers of Nuclear Trilemma in Southern Asia: China, India and Pakistan | Jingdong Yuan

• Plus ça Change? Prospects of a Nuclear Deterrence Multipolarity in Southern Asia | Toby Dalton

• Geopolitical 'Entanglements' and the China–India–Pakistan Nuclear Trilemma | Lou Chunhao