Pakistan's arms race has left both sides no room for error The Times
May 27, 2002
From Zahid Hussain in IslamabadNEWS that Pakistan has been working flat out for more than three years to produce weapons-grade uranium merely supplements the reasons why the world should be intensely nervous about the confrontation between Islamabad and Delhi.
The two capitals have none of the safeguards that America and the Soviet Union established to prevent a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War.
They are linked by no working hotlines. The warning time - from launching to impact - is not more than five minutes. There is no room at all for a mistake or a misjudgment.
The two states became open nuclear weapon nations after they carried out test explosions in May 1998, and both have developed missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Estimates of the number of warheads each can command vary widely. Jane's Defence Weekly maintains that Pakistan could have as many as 150 warheads against an Indian arsenal of 200 to 250. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security says that India probably has 50 to 100 plutonium-core nuclear warheads, and the Pakistanis 30 to 50 of highly enriched uranium.
Through its accelerated programme Pakistan is believed to have developed extra warheads over the last few months. Each was probably around 15 kilotonnes, equivalent to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, a physicist from the institute said.
Pakistan launched its nuclear programme in 1972 when the then President, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, announced his plans to develop atomic weapons at a secret meetings of scientists and top civil and military officials, just months after the country suffered a humiliating defeat in its war with India. The decision was driven by fears of Indian domination and a desire for prominence in the Islamic world.
India's test explosion in 1974 gave further impetus to Pakistan's plan for nuclearisation.
Security concerns were primary, but not the sole factor. Bhutto's vision of an 'Islamic bomb' also fuelled Islamabad's nuclear ambition.
As early as 1975 Pakistan began clandestinely to acquire hardware and technology for the sophisticated centrifuges required. Through smuggling and black-market channels, Islamabad obtained the hardware for building a uranium enrichment plant in Kahuta, near Islamabad.
Most of the equipment was acquired from western European countries. From 1977 to 1980 Pakistan reportedly smuggled an entire plant for converting uranium powder into uranium hexafluoride, the material used as the feed for the Kahuta plant.
By the end of 1984 Pakistan had crossed the 'red line' in successful uranium enrichment.
US intelligence concluded in 1986 that Kahuta had acquired nominal capability sufficient to produce enough weapons-grade material to build several bombs per year. The Pakistani nuclear weapon was based on a Chinese design and was more advanced than the first American nuclear device.
India's nuclear intention became clear by the 1950s when Washington sought to check Indian production of thorium, an element central to the country's work with fissionable uranium.
India exploded its first nuclear device in 1974. World reaction was mild.
The former Soviet Union helped India's nuclear programme by providing two reactors. According to one report Moscow secretly sold about 100 tonnes of heavy water for the reactors.
India has since declared a policy of no first use of atomic weapons, but Pakistan has not forsworn such a step. Miriam Rajkumar, an Indian analyst at Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: 'This is Pakistan's trump card.'
A Pakistani scientist said that the latest series of missile tests underscored that the country had the means to penetrate Indian defences, and that it could use nuclear weapon if its survival was threatened.
In Pakistan the military controls the nuclear trigger. President Musharraf, who is also the country's military commander-in-chief, is the head of the country's command and control system. Under pressure from the United States Pakistan in 2000 reorganised and outlined its nuclear system.
The control of nuclear keys in India is with the democratically elected government.
The most frightening delusion, defence analysts say, is India's under-estimation of Pakistan's nuclear capability. 'Although Pakistan's nuclear tests had dispelled earlier scepticism, senior Indian military and political leaders continue to express doubts on the operational capability and useability of the Pakistani arsenal,' a Pakistani analyst said.
According to defence experts in Pakistan the nuclear warheads are not permanently fixed to their delivery systems. The warheads and missiles are kept in six separate locations.
That provides a greater safety to the country's nuclear weapon system, a defence analyst said. 'But the entire process of fitting the warheads on the delivery system does not take more than 72 hours,' he added.