The good news this month is that South Africa marks the twentieth year of the end of its nuclear weapons program this July. That may have removed a significant threat but elsewhere in the impoverished and war-ravaged continent the increasing quantities of conventional weapons make any observer of African politics nervous. According to some reports, in 2010, Africa imported arms worth nearly one billion dollars from Ukraine alone.

Terrorist attacks in Mumbai on July 13, 2011 brought back to the forefront the issue of national security in South Asia. The bombings in India’s financial center will likely be connected to groups based in nearby Pakistan, just as previous attacks had been. While proliferation talks these days often circle around North Korea and Iran, the long and deep enmity between India and Pakistan has been considered the world’s greatest nuclear flashpoint for years.