Nuclear Weapons in Pakistan

10 Key excerpts on "Nuclear Weapons in Pakistan"

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  Nuclear Warfare & Weapons of Mass Destruction

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • College Publishing House

    (Publisher)

  The region has more violent extremists than any other, the country is unstable, and its arsenal of nuclear weapons is expanding. Nuclear weapons expert David Albright author of 'Peddling Peril' has also expressed concerns that Pakistan's stockpile may not be secure despite assurances by both Pakistan and U.S. government. He stated Pakistan has had many leaks from its program of classified information and sensitive nuclear equipment, and so you have to worry that it could be acquired in Pakistan, A 2010 study by the Congressional Research Service titled 'Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues' noted that even though Pakistan had taken several steps to enhance Nuclear security in recent years 'Instability in Pakistan has called the extent and durability of these reforms into question.' National Security Council • National Command Authority • Ministry of Defence • Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) • Strategic Planning Division (SPD - ex CDD) Weapons development agencies National Engineering & Scientific Commission (NESCOM) • National Development Complex (NDC), Islamabad • Pakistan Missile Organization (PMO), Khanpur • Air Weapon Complex (AWC), Hasanabdal • Maritime Technologies Complex (MTC), Karachi Ministry of Defense Production • Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), Wah • Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), Kamra • Defense Science and Technology Organization (DESTO), Chattar Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) • Directorate of Technical Development • Directorate of Technical Equipment • Directorate of Technical Procurement • Directorate of Science & Engineering Services • Institute of Nuclear Power, Islamabad

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  Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons

  • Veda VN(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • KW Publishers

    (Publisher)

  While India enjoys sufficient strategic depth, Pakistan’s current geographical location makes it vulnerable to conventional air strikes and rapid invasion by the Indian forces. 21 This overwhelming asymmetry has led the Pakistani establishment to adopt the Nuclear First Use policy. However, it has been argued that although Pakistan highlights its first use option, it does not mean the early use of the weapon in the event of a conflict. It only means that it is using nuclear weapons as a very effective shield against any form of aggression by India. 22 India’s offer to enter into a no‐first use pledge after both countries tested their nuclear devices was out rightly rejected by Pakistan as it views its first use as an ‘option enhancing policy’. 23 By painting a picture that Pakistan would not hesitate to use the weapon during an aggression, they have managed to successfully dissuade India. Pakistan’s perception of the Nuclear Weapons is entirely different from that of India’s. Whilst India perceives nuclear weapons as a special and distinct weapon that is capable of immense destructive potential, Pakistan seeks to systematically integrate it as just another weapon into its military. 24 This point is emphasised by Ashley Tellis, according to whom, the impact of nuclear weapons for India is politico‐psychological in nature, while for Pakistan it’s military‐operational. 25 Pragmatic or not, Pakistan considers its nuclear weapons as not only its most strategic asset but also as the ultimate guarantor of the nation’s sovereignty. This belief among the Pakistani decision makers was voiced by General Mirza Aslam Beg who wrote, Some safety against extinction is the inalienable right of an individual or a nation

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  India and Nuclear Asia

  Forces, Doctrine, and Dangers

  • Yogesh Joshi, Frank O'Donnell(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Georgetown University Press

    (Publisher)

  It has not issued an official public nuclear doctrine, but the broad outlines of its doctrine have been made clear in semiofficial statements by serving and retired defense officials. Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai, who from 2000 to 2013 headed the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which directs Pakistan’s nuclear force complex, has provided the most comprehensive explanation. 14 In an interview with scholars in 2002, he outlined four principal dimensions of vulnerability for Pakistan that could trigger nuclear use: Nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India. In case that deterrence fails, they will be used if a. India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory (space threshold) b. India destroys a large part either of its land or air forces (military threshold) c. India proceeds to the economic strangling of Pakistan (economic strangling) d. India pushes Pakistan into political destabilization or creates a large scale internal subversion in Pakistan (domestic destabilization) 15 The latter two thresholds—the economic and domestic political—are an addition to the traditional focus of state nuclear thresholds on territorial and conventional military integrity, as represented by the first two thresholds in this list. Analysts often hold the economic threshold to refer primarily to the threat of Indian naval blockade, which could immobilize Pakistan’s naval forces and substantially reduce its commercial activity and oil imports. 16 These four thresholds, in illustrating multiple perceived avenues by which India could engineer Pakistan’s collapse, reveal the depth of concern within Pakistan’s security establishment regarding Indian strategic intentions

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  Nuclear Madness in South Asia

  • Musa Khan Jalalzai(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Chapter-2

  Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons, Kashmir and India

  Global concern over nuclear terrorism in South Asia and Europe has grown during the past few decades. In yesteryears, the prospect of extremists armed with dirty bomb materials has frequently been cited as a genuine and overriding threat to the security of South Asia. How is it possible for terrorist groups to use these weapons against the armed forces of the region, and how can they constitute material of dirty bombs? Having answered these questions, senior analyst Evan B. Montgomery has noted some aspects of nuclear and biological terrorism:

  How real is the risk that a terrorist group could acquire or construct a functional nuclear device, and how might it attempt to do so? Which group poses the greatest threat in this regard, how has that threat changed over time, and is it currently growing or abating? What existing and prospective measures will prove most effective in preventing terrorists from obtaining a nuclear weapon, stopping them from delivering and detonating a weapon if prevention fails, and responding both at home and abroad in the event that an attack succeeds? The purpose of this backgrounder is to examine these critical issues. There are two major dimensions of the nuclear terrorist threat: the “supply” side of nuclear proliferation and the “demand” side of violent Islamist extremism. Over the past decade, longstanding concerns over proliferation have become increasingly acute in light of a number of worrisome developments, including the status of India and Pakistan as overt nuclear-weapon states.”1

  The continued nuclear weapons build up in India and Pakistan, and their unnecessary confrontation on Kashmir is a threat to peace and stability of South Asia. Recent threats of using nuclear weapons against each other has prompted deep anxiety in the neighbouring states that the use of nuclear bombs would also affect their social, economic and health sectors. In the contemporary geopolitical landscape, the greatest threat of nuclear exchange between the two states has created a climate of fear as they possess significant nuclear arsenals consisting of short and intermediate range ballistic missiles as well as nuclear-capable aircraft. Mahmudul Huque (1 February 2020) highlighted this way of confrontation between the two states:

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  Pakistan's Quagmire

  Security, Strategy, and the Future of the Islamic-nuclear Nation

  • Usama Butt, N. Elahi, Usama Butt, N. Elahi(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  190 PAKISTAN’S QUAGMIRE Material and Equipment related to Nuclear and Biological Weapons and their Delivery Means, 2004. 40 Export control guidelines were issued to strategic organizations in September 2000 and the National Control List (NCL) was notified in October 2005. Challenges to Pakistan’s Nuclear Security Framework According to the IAEA, nuclear security framework is referred to as “the combination of international binding and non-binding legal instruments together with IAEA nuclear security guidance.” Pakistan adheres to this legal framework and is an active participant on all IAEA forums of training, infor-mation exchange, legislative assistance and capacity-building that constitutes its nuclear security regime. The insinuations raised in the international media about the safety and security of Pakistani nuclear weapons, assets, materials and personnel have crossed all limits of projecting worst-case doomsday scenarios but none of the reports that have been published about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program can highlight tangible issues with the system. The insider threat, the outsider threat, the insider-outsider collusion, the wrong hands, the rogue hands and the theorizing about militant extremists eyeing Pakistani nuclear weapons — all these have become a standard to bash Pakistan and pressurize it into accepting programs akin to those of Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) between the US and the former Soviet Union. But Pakistan is not the Soviet Union. The kind of transparency that the West or the international community demands of Pakistan’s nuclear establishment is unprecedented. Despite having fulfilled all obligations as ascertained by IAEA nuclear security framework, confidence in Pakistan’s ability to secure its personnel and assets remains questionable. Pakistan is a signatory of both the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and Chemical Weapons Convention and does not produce or possess biological or chemical weapons.

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  India's Nuclear Bomb and National Security

  • Karsten Frey(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  6 With regard to Indo–Pakistan relations, a clear distinction needs to be made between the conventional arms race and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both states. The main distinguishing factor between the conventional and the nuclear bilateral competition lies in their underlying impetus. In the conventional realm, Pakistan’s dissatisfaction with the status quo operates as the driving force while in the nuclear realm, India’s fulfils the same function.

  Pakistan’s revisionist goals towards territory in Kashmir have been major factors in Indo–Pakistan antagonism since independence. Until 1965, Pakistan considered the existing order, in which India holds most of Kashmir, as intolerable and was willing to risk much to improve it. After the war of 1965 and especially the secession of Bangladesh in 1971, Pakistan, though still a dissatisfied power, became too weak to push its revisionist goals by military means. While Pakistan’s conventional arms build-up along the disputed border in Kashmir and assistance to Kashmiri rebels are caused by its revisionist goals, nuclear proliferation is not. Nuclear weapons are considered to be of little use for Pakistan in such a limited territorial dispute. Rather, Pakistani military planners consider nuclear devices as defensive weapons for deterring the superior Indian military from a large-scale (nuclear or conventional) attack.

  For India, the strategic value of nuclear weapons vis-à-vis its troubled relationship with Pakistan is doubtful. At first sight, the introduction of an overt nuclear arsenal appeared rather disadvantageous for India. It obviously neither deterred the insurgents in Kashmir nor their backers on the other side of the border. In contrast to conventional deterrence, nuclear deterrence in regional territorial disputes is not primarily directed at preventing a limited military attack to seize the disputed territory, but to deter a large-scale military attack to occupy the disputed territory after

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  Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction

  • Gary Ackerman, Jeremy Tamsett, Gary Ackerman, Jeremy Tamsett(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  125. See “Nuclear Notebook, Pakistan’s Nuclear Forces 2007,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , May/June 2007, 71. See also Shaun Gregory, “The Security of Nuclear Weapons in Pakistan,” Pakistan Security Research Unit (PRSU), Brief Number 22, November 18, 2007, 3, available at http://spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/attach-ments/748/Brief_22finalised.pdf (accessed 04/05/08). See also Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), 239; and David Albright and Kimberly Kramer, “Fissile Materials: Stockpiles Still Growing,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , November/December 2004, 14–16, available at http://www.isis-online.org/global_stocks/bulletin_albright_kramer.pdf (accessed 02/13/08). 126. See U.S. Congress, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Combating Terrorism: The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas , GAO-08-622 (Washington, DC: GAO, 2008), 9. 127. For an overview of notable jihadist groups active in Pakistan, see Nicholas Howenstein, “The Jihadi Terrain in Pakistan: An Introduction to the Sunni Jihadi Groups in Pakistan and Kashmir,” Pakistan Security Research Unit (PRSU), Research Report 1, February 5, 2008, available at http://spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/ attachments/748/Brief_22finalised.pdf (accessed 04/05/08). 128. See, for example, Jon B. Wolfsthal, “US Needs a Contingency Plan for Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal,” Los Angeles Times , October, 16, 2001; and Bruce G. Blair, “The Ultimate Hatred Is Nuclear,” The New York Times , October 23, 2001; Seymour Hersh, “Watching The Warheads,” The New Yorker , November 5, 2001; and John Barry, “Priority: Pakistan’s Nukes,” Newsweek International , November 12, 2001.

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  The India-Pakistan Nuclear Relationship

  Theories of Deterrence and International Relations

  • E. Sridharan(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge India

    (Publisher)

  _ 78). The Western powers, particularly the United States, can help reduce nuclear dangers within the South Asian region by sharing their experiences of and expertise on command and control of nuclear weapons, including technical assistance on how to prevent unauthorized use (Nye 1998). While the external powers friendly to both India and Pakistan could provide technological hardware to make the nuclear arsenals safe and secure, or nudge them towards a structured and institutionalized peace process, they share the primary responsibility for transforming their traditional hostility into a cooperative relationship. It is not just the economic logic of poverty, underdevelopment, or the defence burden, but also the shadow of nuclear weapons that should push peace high up on the bilateral agenda.

  References

  • Akhtar, Hasan. 1998. ‘Pakistan Test-fires Ghauri Missile’, Dawn, 7 April.
  • Bidwai, Praful. 2003. ‘Chilling Nuclear Disclosure’, The News, 2 January.
  • Bose, Sumantra. 1997. The Challenge in Kashmir: Democracy, Self-Determination and a Just Peace (New Delhi: Sage Publications).
  • Broad, William J., David Rohde and David E. Sanger. 2003. ‘Pakistanis Sold Nuclear Secrets’, New York Times, 6 January.
  • Brodie, Bernard. 1978. ‘The Development of Nuclear Strategy’, International Security, 2(4): 65-83.
  • Cronin, Richard P. et al. 2005. Pakistan’s Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: US Policy Constraints and Options (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 25 January); htt://www.nara.gov
  • Dar, Saeeduddin Ahmad. 1998. Ideology of Pakistan (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research).
  • Feaver, Peter D. 1992-93. ‘Command and Control in Emerging Nuclear Nations’, International Security, 17(3): 160-87.
  • Ganguly, Sumit. 1995. ‘Indo-Pakistani Nuclear Issues and the Stability/Instability Paradox’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 18(4): 325-34.
  • Hanrieder, Wolfram F. (ed.). 1979. ‘Introduction’, in Arms Control and Security

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  The Politics of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia

  • Bhumitra Chakma(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In a related vein, the current structure of civil–military relations grants the armed services little or no role in the development of strategic weaponry. The research and development of weaponry remains lodged in the hands of civilian scientists. The armed services are then expected to integrate weapons systems that the weapons laboratories have produced. Ultimately, this lack of coordination and the subservience of the military to civilian authority explains, in part, India’s failure to pursue a set of strategic weapons programmes in an organised, coherent and, above all, timely fashion.

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  3 The Pakistani Nuclear Deterrent

  Bhumitra Chakma DOI: 10.4324/9781315554334-4

  Introduction

  The Pakistan government launched a nuclear power programme in the mid-1950s. At the time of launching the programme, there is no evidence that it intended to build nuclear weapons. In the 1960s, however, Pakistani attitude towards nuclear weapons modified slightly and the country adopted a ‘nuclear option’ policy, which meant that it reserved the choice to build nuclear weapons in the future. The adoption of a nuclear option policy was manifested in Pakistan’s decision not to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. Of course the decision not to sign the NPT was taken in reaction to a similar decision by New Delhi. In the early 1970s, Pakistan initiated, albeit clandestinely, a nuclear weapons programme and by the late 1980s it had acquired the capability to build nuclear weapons. The programme eventually culminated in the May 1998 open nuclear tests, which transformed its nuclear identity from an opaque proliferator to an overt, albeit de facto, nuclear weapons state.1

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  The Globalization of Security

  State Power, Security Provision and Legitimacy

  • B. Mabee(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The speed and destruc- tive capacity of the weapons themselves defy the space of the nation- state, and therefore are a part of a global risk environment. 31 Although nuclear weapons provide rather severe paradoxes for security, the com- bination of the scope and scale of destruction, and the speed which this can be brought about is a component of the globalization of security. The very idea of threat has been key in understanding the role and broader impact of nuclear weapons in international relations, which is also behind attempts to alter the provision of security. The discourse of nuclear interdependence: A global community of fate As was noted above, the abstract nature of discussions about nuclear weapons led to a rich discourse on nuclear weapons. The discussions of strategy, of the impacts on alliances and the impacts of politics, all took place at a very high level at times: as Kissinger pointed out, ‘the novelty of modern weapons systems gives the disputes a metaphysical, almost theological, cast’. 32 The broad discourse was often focused on very spe- cific problems: how to organize the Atlantic alliance, or specific ideas about weapons systems. However, a discourse also existed concerning 72 The Globalization of Security the nature of changes in contemporary international politics, pointing to increased interdependence. The development of an ideology of glo- balism surrounding nuclear weapons can therefore be seen at a number of levels. First, in the development of global strategies, that saw the world as a single strategic space: the ability to do so was technologically provided by a number of factors, but the global reach of nuclear weapons was an important part. Second, in the discourse of interdependence surrounding nuclear weapons, that preceded to some extent the idea of economic interdependence made prominent in the 1970s.

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