ISLAMABAD – A nuclear power for decades, Pakistan is now attempting toconstruct a nuclear triad of its own, making its nuclear arsenal resilientand capable of devastating retaliatory strikes, says an article publishedin ‘The National Interest’ magazine on Wednesday.
Pakistan’s nuclear programme goes back to the 1950s, during the early daysof its rivalry with India. President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto famously said in1965, “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even gohungry, but we will get one of our own.”
The programme became a higher priority after the country’s 1971 defeat atthe hands of India, which caused East Pakistan to break away and becomeBangladesh. Experts believe the humiliating loss of territory, much morethan reports that India was pursuing nuclear weapons, accelerated thePakistani nuclear programme. India tested its first bomb, codenamed“Smiling Buddha,” in May 1974, putting the subcontinent on the road tonuclearisation.
Pakistan began the process of accumulating the necessary fuel for nuclearweapons, enriched uranium and plutonium. The country was particularlyhelped by one AQ Khan, a metallurgist working in the West who returned tohis home country in 1975 with centrifuge designs and business contactsnecessary to begin the enrichment process. Pakistan’s programme wasassisted by European countries and a clandestine equipment-acquisitionprogramme designed to do an end run on nonproliferation efforts. Outsidecountries eventually dropped out as the true purpose of the programmebecame clear, but the clandestine effort continued. Exactly when Pakistanhad completed its first nuclear device is murky. Former president BenazirBhutto, Zulfikar Bhutto’s daughter, claimed that her father told her thefirst device was ready by 1977. A member of the Pakistan Atomic EnergyCommission said design of the bomb was completed in 1978 and the bomb was“cold tested”—stopping short of an actual explosion—in 1983.
Benazir Bhutto later claimed that Pakistan’s bombs were stored disassembleduntil 1998, when India tested six bombs in a span of three days. Nearlythree weeks later, Pakistan conducted a similar rapid-fire testingschedule, setting off five bombs in a single day and a sixth bomb threedays later. The first device, estimated at twenty-five to thirty kilotons,may have been a boosted uranium device. The second was estimated at twelvekilotons, and the next three as sub-kiloton devices.
The sixth and final device appears to have also been a twelve-kiloton bombthat was detonated at a different testing range; a US Air Force “ConstantPhoenix” nuclear-detection aircraft reportedly detected plutoniumafterward. Since Pakistan had been working on a uranium bomb and NorthKorea—which shared or purchased research with Pakistan through the AQ Khannetwork—had been working on a uranium bomb, some outside observersconcluded the sixth test was actually a North Korean test, detonatedelsewhere to conceal North Korea’s involvement although. There is noconsensus on this conclusion.
Experts believe Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile is steadily growing. In 1998,the stockpile was estimated at five to twenty-five devices, depending onhow much enriched uranium each bomb required. Today Pakistan is estimatedto have an arsenal of 110 to 130 nuclear bombs. In 2015 the CarnegieEndowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center estimatedPakistan’s bomb-making capability at twenty devices annually, which on topof the existing stockpile meant Pakistan could quickly become thethird-largest nuclear power in the world. Other observers, however, believePakistan can only develop another forty to fifty warheads in the nearfuture.
Pakistani nuclear weapons are under control of the military’s StrategicPlans Division (SPD), and are primarily stored in Punjab province, far fromthe northwest frontier and the Taliban. Ten thousand Pakistani troops andintelligence personnel from the SPD guard the weapons. Pakistan claims thatthe weapons are only armed by the appropriate code at the last moment,preventing a “rogue nuke” scenario.
Pakistani nuclear doctrine appears to be to deter what it considers aneconomically, politically and militarily stronger India. The nuclearstandoff is exacerbated by the traditional animosity between the twocountries, the several wars the two countries have fought, and events suchas the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, which were directed by Pakistan.Unlike neighbouring India and China, Pakistan does not have a “no firstuse” doctrine, and reserves the right to use nuclear weapons, particularlylow-yield tactical nuclear weapons, to offset India’s advantage inconventional forces.
Pakistan currently has a nuclear “triad” of nuclear delivery systems basedon land, in the air and at sea. Islamabad is believed to have modifiedAmerican-built F-16A fighters and possibly French-made Mirage fighters todeliver nuclear bombs by 1995. Since the fighters would have to penetrateIndia’s air defence network to deliver their payloads against cities andother targets, Pakistani aircraft would likely be deliver tactical nuclearweapons against battlefield targets.
Land-based delivery systems are in the form of missiles, with many designsbased on or influenced by Chinese and North Korean designs. The ‘Hatf’series of mobile missiles includes the solid-fueled ‘Hatf-III’ (180 miles),solid-fueled ‘Hatf-IV’ (466 miles) and liquid-fueled ‘Hatf V’, (766 miles).The ‘CSIS‘ Missile Threat Initiative believes that as of 2014, ‘HatfVI’(1242 miles) is likely in service. Pakistan is also developing a‘Shaheen III’ intermediate-range missile capable of striking targets out to1708 miles, in order to strike the Nicobar and Andaman Islands.
The sea component of Pakistan’s nuclear force consists of the ‘Babur’ classof cruise missiles. The latest version, ‘Babur-2’, looks like most moderncruise missiles, with a bullet-like shape, a cluster of four tiny tailwings and two stubby main wings, all powered by a turbofan or turbojetengine. The cruise missile has a range of 434 miles. Instead of GPSguidance, which could be disabled regionally by the US government,‘Babur-2’ uses older Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and Digital SceneMatching and Area Co-relation (DSMAC) navigation technology. ‘Babur-2’ isdeployed on both land and at sea on ships, where they would be moredifficult to neutralise. A submarine-launched version, ‘Babur-3, was testedin January and would be the most survivable of all Pakistani nucleardelivery systems.
Pakistan is clearly developing a robust nuclear capability that can notonly deter but fight a nuclear war. It is also dealing with internalsecurity issues that could threaten the integrity of its nuclear arsenal.Pakistan and India are clearly in the midst of a nuclear arms race thatcould, in relative terms, lead to absurdly high nuclear stockpilesreminiscent of the Cold War. It is clear that an arms-control agreement forthe subcontinent is desperately needed.