Pakistani Nuclear weapons, a threat to world peace?

It’s one of the things about Pakistan that causes worries among most of the media infatuated people. It is related to a common perception about Islam, or Muslims that they have a high tendency of becoming lunatics and blood thirsty barbarians at any point in their lives. Though the percentage of the believers of this theory isn’t that high, but international media certainly is making a fuss about it.

If you are an American, a French, an English, a Russian or an Indian, I should ask you the same question, that why a country needs nukes? Answer is simple , It is to increase military capabilities of a country to keep any aggressor at bay. Then why do the countries having the nuclear weapons themselves raise this question about Pakistani nuclear weapons.

Though I’ve tried to make my point that Pakistan don’t need to explain it. But still Pakistan has its reasons to keep the WMD’s.

Pakistan and India gained independence on the same day. A country was split into two as Hindu’s and Muslims had differences. From that point till now, Pakistan and India had 3 wars. They both put a huge amount of money to increase their military capabilities, despite high percentage of poverty in both countries.

India showed an intention to create nukes just as early as 26 June 1946 (even a year before the separation), Jawaharlal Nehru, soon to be India's first Prime Minister, announced:

“ As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal. ”

India's first nuclear test occurred on 18 May 1974. Since then India has conducted another series of tests at the Pokhran test range in the state of Rajasthan in 1998.

Pakistan was well aware of the situation, and couldn’t just sit back, the country’s uneasy relationship with India explains its acquisition of nuclear weapons. Its civilian nuclear program began with participation in the US Atoms for Peace initiative, In 1955.

India’s first nuclear test in 1974 strengthened Pakistan’s determination to acquire its own nuclear arsenal. Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto regarded India's nuclear program as a vehicle for intimidating Pakistan and establishing “hegemony in the subcontinent.” In September 1974, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) predicted that Pakistan would require at least 10 years to develop a nuclear weapon. And soon after India’s nuclear tests in Pokhran in 1998, Pakistan conducted three successful nuclear tests at the place of Chaghi in the same year.

Pakistan has faced accusations of proliferating the nuclear technology to other countries, as a matter of fact Pakistan and India both gained nuclear capabilities by gathering chunks of leaked data from USA nuclear research Program. So there is no point of accusing Pakistan if USA’ s nuclear program is not fully protected from any kind of proliferation itself.

North Korea and Iran are said to be the beneficiaries from such proliferation by Pakistan. But the main concern that is shown by other countries is about doing the same for Taliban and other militant organizations. How can anyone expect a mob to achieve such ability to create a nuclear weapon of its own. Nuclear technology is so complicated that can not be achieved by gathering a few leaked blueprints and giving them away to some Al-Qaida influenced scientist. Even a state needs so much funding , human resources and many years to succeed in creating a functional nuclear weapon, It’s a hideous assumption that a mob which mainly relies on USSR created AK 47’s and RPG’s, can create such complicated weapons on their own.

While nuclear proliferation by Pakistan is stated as the main concern of many countries, some questions are also raised intermittently by the same lobby that supports denuclearization of Pakistan, about the safety of Pakistani nukes that whether they’re kept safe or not. Pakistani officials have said many times on record that, the number of people having information about the locations of the Pakistani nukes can be counted on fingers. And none of the Pakistani nuclear warheads are functional just to avoid any chaos if extremists get their hands on the Pakistani nuclear weapons accidently.

Before I say anymore about the safety of Pakistani nuclear weapons, let’s see what the Experts say about it.

Washington—Taliban jihadists storming Pakistani police stations and army headquarters have revived fears of Islamic extremists hijacking a nuclear warhead. But that particular threat may mostly be the stuff of movie thrillers.

The nightmare is not so much a small group of extremists getting their hands on one bomb, but a large group of them getting the whole country,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org and an expert on missile and nuclear-weapons systems, according to The Mail and Globe newspaper.

Pakistan is painted to be the most dangerous nuclear power of all, let’s have a look how safe Indian and US nuclear programs are.

In 2009, a sensitive list of U.S. nuclear sites was mistakenly posted on Internet, it is one of the latest in a series of American nuclear security breaches that places the United States as the world’s most dangerous nuclear power.

In 2007 a U.S. air force jet flew across the country without the pilot realizing he was carrying nuclear warheads more than ten times the Hiroshima bombs.

Pakistan’s nuclear community haven’t committed any blunders of this scale, although a Pakistani newspaper reported in june 2009 that the U.S. government secretly recruited 12 Pakistani scientists and technicians in 1978 to plan sabotage from within so as to to look like a nuclear accident. The ISI came into play and aborted that plan. Pakistan’s President Zia-ul-Haq telephoned President Carter and protested.

While the western media and the western governments keep shouting about vulnerability of Pakistan’s nuclear warheads and keep saying that these are likely to fall in the hands of extremists , they have kept their eyes wide shut regarding the state of affairs of the nuclear weapons of neighboring India where the situation is alarming, Daily Mail’s findings revealed the matter.

According to The Daily Mail, the Indian government, in an effort to keep it maximum possible away from the striking capabilities of Pakistan that lies across India’s northern borders, decided to install all its nuclear and missile facilities in the Eastern zone of the country. However, with the passage of time, the eastern region of India emerged as the most disturbed and ungovernable region of the country with many insurgency movements including that of Naxal rebels, emerging in eastern zone of the country.

So why international media is presenting Pakistani nuclear bomb to be the Islamic bomb and show concerns on its safety?

In my opinion and many other Pakistani’s , Some countries don’t want Pakistan to have any nuclear capability at all, as a sovereign Pakistan is not in the best interest of those countries. I am avoiding any further detail on the objectives of such countries , as it is a separate topic and would intrigue many new questions among the readers of this hub, that can’t be left unanswered. So to keep it short and specific I’d just say that Pakistan needs nuclear weapons for its sovereignty, these are to keep peace in the world by avoiding hegemony in the region.