The perspective offered in our book is frankly different from what Indian and Pakistani leaders (and too many academics writing on the subject) have held. The authors are scientists who believe in a moral universe, where human life is to be valued and its destruction en masse to be abhorred. Nevertheless, while taking a position against nuclear weapons, it is not our intent to needlessly moralize. Facts are stated exactly as they happen to be. This is a responsibility that we owe both to our profession as scientists, and to our own selves, as well, for the facts of the nuclear situation in Pakistan and India are, without exaggeration, frightening, in and beyond the subcontinent.