Countdown is a little book, about 100 pages, on the strategic and political machinations underpinning the overt nuclearisation of the sub-continent immediately after the Indian tests on May 11, 1998. A variant was originally published in the New Yorker.
The text is sombre. His unpacking of the Kashmir dispute is a highlight, helping explain the absurdity of fighting over the barren icy wastelands of the Karakorams. I found it a bit tedious when he tries to quantify the damage a Pakistani nuclear weapon would do to Delhi. Depressing stuff.
Midday snorkel at Gordons Bay. I lasted about 20 minutes in the spring
suit. Saw some groper and a school of medium-sized silvery
vertically-flat fish. The wind was picking up and the storm clouds
rolling in...
