On May 11 and 13, 1998, India tested five nuclear weapons in the Rajasthan desert. By the end of the month, Pakistan had followed suit, claiming to have detonated six nuclear devices at an underground facility in the Chagai Hills. With these tests, the governments in Islamabad and New Delhi loudly announced to the world community, and especially to each other, that they both held the capability to retaliate with nuclear weapons in response to any attack.

What will be the strategic effects of these nuclear weapons developments? There are many scholars and defense analysts who argue that the spread of nuclear weapons to South Asia will significantly reduce, or even eliminate, the risk of future wars between India and Pakistan. These "proliferation optimists" argue that statesmen and soldiers in Islamabad and New Delhi know that a nuclear exchange in South Asia will create devastating damage and therefore will be deterred from starting any military conflict in which there is a serious possibility of escalation to the use of nuclear weapons. Other scholars and defense analysts, however, argue that nuclear weapons proliferation in India and Pakistan will increase the likelihood of crises, accidents, terrorism and nuclear war. These "proliferation pessimists" do not base their arguments on claims that Indian or Pakistani statesmen are irrational. Instead, these scholars start their analysis by noting that nuclear weapons are controlled by military organizations and civilian bureaucracies, not by states or by statesmen. Organization theory, not just deterrence theory, should therefore be used to understand the problem and predict the future of security in the region.

In The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, professors Waltz and Sagan resume their well-known dialogue concerning nuclear proliferation and the threat of nuclear war. Kenneth Waltz, Senior Research Scholar in the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, expands on his argument that "more may be better," contending that new nuclear states will use their acquired nuclear capabilities to deter threats and preserve peace. Scott Sagan, the leading proponent of organizational theories in international politics, continues to make the counterpoint that "more will be worse": novice nuclear states lack adequate organizational controls over their new weapons, resulting in a higher risk of either deliberate of accidental nuclear war. Treating issues from the ’long peace’ between the United States and Soviet Union made possible by the nuclear balance of the Cold War to more modern topics such as global terrorism, missile defense, and the Indian-Pakistani conflict, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed is an invaluable addition to any international relations course.

Humans often defy rational-choice theory by cooperating in simple dilemma games, a paradox that has been explained by theories of kin selection, reciprocal altruism and indirect reciprocity (reputation). Fehr and Gächter claim that human cooperation remains an evolutionary puzzle because people will cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, with people whom they may not meet again, and without any gain in reputation ('strong reciprocity') - that is, when existing theories do not seem to apply. However, we argue that those theories are rejected for the wrong reasons and that the paradox may therefore be imaginary. This has implications for whether punishment is crucial to promoting cooperation.