in 'A Transatlantic Pakistan Policy', German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2014.
The roots of Pakistan’s nuclear program go back to the 1950s, when the country was one of the early beneficiaries of U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program. [1] Pakistan, like India, was also an early recipient of civilian assistance from Canada, which helped it establish a nuclear power plant in Karachi. [2] The seeds of a weapons program came about in the 1960s, well before India declared its capability with a test in 1974. Anticipating the fact that India would eventually follow China’s successful 1964 nuclear test, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — who was later to become prime minister — famously stated in 1965 that Pakistan would produce a bomb “even if we have to feed on grass and leaves.” [3]
Pakistan’s nuclear efforts accelerated in 1972, after its defeat at the hands of India and the loss of its eastern wing (which became the newly independent country of Bangladesh). The initial effort, under the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), focused on plutonium production, an enterprise that initially experienced limited success and some setbacks. Then, in December 1975, A.Q. Khan — a scientist working in the Netherlands for nuclear engineering company FDO — stole designs for centrifuges to be used in uranium enrichment, and returned to Pakistan to establish a parallel program. [4]
By the mid-1980s, various reports and public statements by A.Q. Khan suggested that Pakistan had acquired a latent nuclear weapons capability. This involved not only the elementary bomb design developed by PAEC. In addition, Pakistan benefited from the design of a Chinese nuclear warhead, one that could fit on a medium-range missile. An agreement for Chinese cooperation in Pakistan’s nuclear development may have been secured in 1976. [5] In 1982, China reportedly transferred highly enriched uranium for two warheads to Pakistan, while continuing to supply other technical assistance over this period. Although never verified, some reports indicate that China even tested a Pakistani weapon on its behalf in 1990. [6] Chinese assistance did, however, extend to other areas of Pakistan’s nuclear and missile program, including the transfer of ring magnets in 1994 that helped to accelerate uranium production, and — perhaps more significantly — assistance in producing medium-range missiles, specifically the M-9 and M-11, which were unveiled in Pakistan as the Ghaznavi and Shaheen, respectively. [7]
Just as it was receiving Chinese technical assistance, Khan’s enterprise also benefited from lax export controls, particularly in Europe. For example, Khan managed to acquire high-vacuum valves from Switzerland and high-strength steel tubes from the Netherlands in 1976. [8] Both were crucial components for centrifuge enrichment, but were not subjected to export controls because of technicalities or negligence on the part of authorities. That same year, France signed an agreement with Pakistan to supply a reprocessing plant, but the pact was abrogated following pressure from the United States.
For its part, the United States adopted an alternatively cavalier and tacitly cooperative approach to Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons and technology in the final phases of the Cold War. Washington was aware of Pakistan’s weapon development for some time: Pakistan President Zia ul-Haq may have showed off a bomb design to a senior CIA official in 1982. Some U.S. officials even sought to take advantage of the Pakistan-China nexus by helping to bolster Beijing’s defenses against the Soviet Union. [9]
The much-criticized (in Pakistan) Pressler Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress in 1985 originally developed as a compromise between the United States and Pakistan. According to its terms, the United States could keep aid flowing to Pakistan until it was deemed by the U.S. president to be in possession of a nuclear device. By cleverly interpreting the wording of the amendment, U.S. aid to Pakistan continued flowing until 1990 — by which time U.S.-Pakistan cooperation was no longer needed to support the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviet Union, and Pakistan’s nuclear program had become too advanced for Washington to ignore. [10]
The Pakistani bomb came out of the proverbial basement in 1998, following a series of nuclear tests by India. As with many aspects of its nuclear history, the facts surrounding the number, size, and success rate of Pakistan’s nuclear tests are hotly debated. Officially, Pakistan conducted six tests. However, independent seismic reads indicated just two explosions, the second one possibly a fizzle. [11] Regardless, it was clear to the international community that Pakistan now had the capability to produce and deploy a nuclear weapon. The 1998 tests coincided roughly with the first Khushab reactor — established, again, with Chinese assistance — going critical. This ensured that Pakistan could produce a significant amount of plutonium for bombs (the reactor was not under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards) in addition to the uranium that was the product of A.Q. Khan’s enrichment efforts. With another two such reactors becoming subsequently operational, and a fourth expected to begin plutonium production soon, Pakistan may well have the world’s fastest growing nuclear program. [12]
1. Christopher Clary, “The Future of Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” in Ashley J. Tellis, Abraham M. Denmark, and Travis Tanner, eds. Strategic Asia 2013-14: Asia in the Second Nuclear Age, (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013); Dilip Hiro, “Islamabad’s Nuclear Leverage,” The American Conservative, October 18, 2012; Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (New York: Walker, 2007); William Langewiesche, “The Point of No Return,” The Atlantic, January/February 2006; David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, “Pakistani Nuclear Arms Pose Challenge to U.S. Policy,” The New York Times, January 31, 2011; Zia Mian and A.H. Nayyar, “Playing the Nuclear Game: Pakistan and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty,” Arms Control Today, April 2010.
2. Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012), pp. 54-55, 96-128.
3. Khan, Eating Grass, p. 7.
4. William Langewiesche, “The Wrath of Khan,” The Atlantic, November 2005.
5. Andrew Small, The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics (London: Hurst, forthcoming).
6. Thomas C. Reed and Danny B. Stillman, The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation, (Minneapolis: MBI Publishing, 2010), p. 252.
7. International Institute for Strategic Studies, Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A.Q. Khan and the Rise of Proliferation (London: IISS, 2007), pp. 25-31; R. Jeffrey Smith, “Chinese Missile Launchers Sighted in Pakistan,” The Washington Post, April 6, 1991.
8. Sultan Bashiruddin Mamood, “The Whole Truth — Nuclear Pakistan,” The News (Pakistan), September 4, 2012; Langewiesche, “The Wrath of Khan.”
9. Small, The China-Pakistan Axis.
10. C. Christine Fair, “The U.S.-Pakistan F-16 Fiasco,” foreignpolicy.com, February 3, 2011, http://southasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/03/the_f_16_fiasco.
11. Khan, Eating Grass, 279-282.
12. Mark Fitzpatrick, Overcoming Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers (London: IISS & Routledge, 2014), 19-20.
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