Zia’s gambit paid off. President Ronald Reagan, who took office in January 1981, pledged $3.2 billion dollars in economic and military assistance over five years (Salik 2009). Aid began to flow to Pakistan in 1982. But before Zia agreed to the terms of the US aid package, he asked the United States to clarify its position on Pakistan’s nuclear program, which Zia defended as a sovereign right. Secretary of State Alexander Haig “made it clear that the nuclear issue would not be the ‘centerpiece’ of [the] US-Pakistan relationship. He did, however, strike a note of caution, that in case Pakistan were to conduct a nuclear test, the Congress would not allow the Reagan administration to cooperate with Pakistan in the manner in which it intended” (98). A tacit agreement was thus established between the Zia and Reagan governments: “the Reagan administration could live with Pakistan’s nuclear programme as long as Islamabad did not explode a bomb” (ibid.).
This understanding was even codified in US law: while the US Congress passed Reagan’s assistance plan and even agreed to a six-year waiver of the Symington Amendment sanctions that had been in force since 1979, it also strengthened legislation banning all economic and military assistance to any country that exploded a nuclear device (Hathaway 2000; Peterson Institute for International Economics 2012; Salik 2009). However, US discomfiture with Pakistan’s nuclear progress did not disappear. Nonproliferation elements within the US Congress, US Department of Defense, and intelligence agencies continued to worry about Pakistan’s intentions and capabilities (Kux 2001). In December 1982, a Newsweek article alleged that Pakistan was covertly procuring technology for nuclear reprocessing from around the world. The report also claimed that a Pakistani scientist had stolen enrichment technology from Holland and that China had supplied Pakistan not only with uranium but also with blueprints for a nuclear bomb. While Pakistan denied those charges, the State Department instructed its personnel in Pakistan to offer “no comment” on the article (Salik 2009; US Department of State 1982). By June 1983, the US Department of State reported, “There is unambiguous evidence that Pakistan is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons development program” and expressed confidence that Pakistan’s considerable progress was due in part to extensive Chinese assistance. Adding to the growing anxiety, in April 1984 A. Q. Khan told the Urdu-language newspaper Nawai-i-Waqt that Pakistan could successfully enrich uranium to weapons grade. In June of that year, US Senator Alan Cranston claimed that Pakistan would be able to produce “several nuclear weapons per year” and chastised the State Department for downplaying the danger posed by Pakistan’s program (Kux 2001, 275).
But despite the mounting concerns of American nonproliferation advocates, in Congress and beyond, Pakistan remained critical to the fight to repel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. Thus, the Reagan Administration had to forge a new understanding with Zia. Vice President George W. Bush traveled to Pakistan in May 1984 to secure Zia’s assurance that Pakistan would not acquire a nuclear device as long as he remained the head of state. Bush emphasized that “‘exploding a device, violating safeguards, or reprocessing plutonium would pose a very difficult problem for the Reagan administration’ and that the nuclear issue continued to be a very sensitive topic in the United States” (Salik 2009, 106). Salik concludes from these interactions that the “Americans knew about Pakistan’s enrichment effort, and were prepared to live with it, as long as Pakistan did not detonate a nuclear explosive device” (Salik 2009, 106). But reports in the media continued to insinuate that Pakistan was pursuing a bomb. In 1984, for example, A. Q. Khan told the London Times that “Pakistan has broken the western countries’ monopoly on the enrichment of uranium” (107). In September 1984, President Reagan warned Zia of serious consequences if Pakistan were to enrich beyond 5 percent (Kux 2001, 276). This was perhaps the first time that the United States had presented Pakistan with a clear red line rather than simply repeating bland statements that Pakistan should not detonate a device. But Zia’s response was noncommittal (Kux 2001; Salik 2009).
In the fall of 1984, the Reagan Administration again sought congressional approval for an aid package that promised Pakistan $4 billion over six years. But many members of the US Congress believed that Zia was dissembling regarding his country’s nuclear aspirations (Kux 2001), and nonproliferation proponents such as Senator John Glenn criticized the administration for its soft line on Pakistan’s nuclear program. Zia, for his part, insisted that Pakistan had the right to continue its program (Cronin et al. 2005). To resolve this impasse, in July 1985 the US Congress passed the Pressler Amendment (Kux 2001). While many Pakistani and even American commentators believe that the legislation was meant to punish Pakistan, it was actually written in consultation with the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its passage was welcomed by Pakistani leadership as a victory for Pakistan (Haqqani 2007). Under the terms of the Pressler Amendment, prior to the United States providing assistance to Pakistan, the US president had to certify both that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear weapon and that provision of the assistance would materially diminish the likelihood that Pakistan would develop such a weapon (Schaffer and Schaffer 2011). The legislation essentially moved the US red line from an enrichment threshold—which Pakistan had likely already surpassed—to possession of an actual nuclear weapon. This was indeed a major—if temporary—victory for Pakistan.
As the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan began to wind down with the signing of the Geneva Accords in spring 1988, it became increasingly difficult for the US administration to make the annual certification, which would allow aid to continue flowing to Pakistan. In November 1988, Reagan certified that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear weapon. However, he warned Congress that “as Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities grow, and if evidence about its activities continue to accumulate, this process of annual certification will require the President to reach judgments about the status of Pakistani nuclear activities that may be difficult or impossible to make with any degree of certainty” (Gordon 1989). A year later, in a letter to the US Congress, then president Bush wrote that he had “concluded that Pakistan does not now possess a nuclear explosive device” but also that “Pakistan has continued its efforts to develop its unsafeguarded nuclear program” (ibid.). In October 1990, Bush refused to make this annual certification, and the sanctions that had been deferred since April 1979 were once again imposed—to Pakistan’s utter astonishment (Schaffer and Schaffer 2011).
Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan continued to make progress in its nuclear weapons program and in developing delivery vehicles. In May 1998, India conducted a set of nuclear explosions in the Pokhran Desert, and shortly thereafter Pakistan reciprocated. Some commentators believe that the Indian tests afforded Pakistan an opportunity to decisively demonstrate its own nuclear capabilities and neutralize India’s conventional advantage (Salik 2009; Tellis et al. 2001). Pakistan is currently believed to have some 90–110 nuclear weapons, but this could well be an underestimate, since it continues to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU) at a rate of 100 kilograms per year and its HEU-based warheads require between 15 and 20 kg of HEU each (DeYoung 2011; Kerr and Nikitin 2012; Norris and Kristensen 2007; Sanger and Schmitt 2011). Pakistan is also producing plutonium for plutonium-based warheads (Kerr and Nikitin 2012).
Pakistan’s delivery vehicles include aircraft (including modified F-16s and Mirage Vs) under the control of its air force as well as several surface-to-surface missile systems controlled by the army. Pakistan has roughly three ballistic missiles that are thought to be nuclear capable, including the solid-fuel Hatf-III (Ghaznavi) with a range of 300–400 km, the solid-fuel Hatf-IV (Shaheen) with a range in excess of 450 km, and the liquid-fuel Hatf-V (Ghauri) with an approximate range of 1,300 km (Kerr and Nikitin 2012). Pakistan is also developing the Hatf-VI (Shaheen-II), which will have a range of 2,000 km, and, as discussed herein, is working to build tactical nuclear weapons that can neutralize Indian doctrinal evolution toward limited war. Consistent with this objective, in 2011 the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR)
announced that Pakistan had successfully developed and tested a “Short Range Surface to Surface Multi Tube Ballistic Missile Hatf IX (NASR).” According to the press release, the NASR will “add deterrence value to Pakistan’s Strategic Weapons Development programme at shorter ranges. NASR, with a range of 60 km, carries nuclear warheads of appropriate yield with high accuracy, shoot and scoot attributes. This quick response system addresses the need to deter evolving threats” (ibid.).
Proliferation under the Eye of the State
The Pakistan Army’s control over Pakistan’s nuclear program engenders considerable alarm. Given Pakistan’s track record of proliferation under the auspices of A. Q. Khan, some analysts fear that nonstate actors may acquire Pakistan’s nuclear technology, materials, or knowledge. Others worry that the army may split, with one faction providing nonstate actors with nuclear technology, materials, or know-how. And given the army’s long history of sponsoring Islamist terrorists, observers of the Pakistan Army incessantly fret that these weapons may fall into the hands of terrorists. Of equal concern is the prospect that the state will deliberately choose to proliferate for strategic reasons. Given the gravity of these fears, it is useful to address them briefly here.
It is well-known that A. Q. Khan’s nuclear black-market activities were initially focused on importing technology and materials into Pakistan, but at some point these networks were mobilized for export. From the 1980s (and possibly earlier) through 2002, Khan exported nuclear technologies and materials from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran, and Libya (Kerr and Nikitin 2012). Considerable controversy persists over whether Khan operated as a rogue actor or with state sponsorship. On one hand, Pakistani military commentators like Feroz Hassan Khan (2012a, 2012b)—a retired brigadier in Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD), now at the Naval Postgraduate School—maintain that A. Q. Khan exploited bureaucratic fissures and that in the absence of a single nuclear command authority he was able to conduct his illicit nuclear commerce without state approval. Salik (2009), his successor at SPD, further alleges that Khan’s supposed misdeeds have been exaggerated, presumably by Indian and American analysts, as part of a cynical attempt to “malign the Pakistani nuclear programme and the country itself” (9).
Others reject these exculpatory accounts. Mathew Kroenig (2010) at Georgetown University, for example, concludes that A. Q. Khan’s nuclear exports were “state-sponsored by any reasonable definition of the term” (135). The Government of Pakistan entered into formal agreements with North Korea, Libya, and Iran and facilitated the export of the nuclear materials by providing help with advertising, shipping, security, and other logistical details. Either the Pakistan Air Force provided military air assets to make the deliveries or the Government of Pakistan chartered aircraft for this purpose (Kroenig 2010; see also IISS 2007).
Given the “indisputable evidence that the Pakistani state actively supported and authorized the sensitive nuclear transactions” (Kroenig 2010, 136), the question arises as to why the state would sponsor such transfers. The reason is strikingly simple. All of the states to which Pakistan made such transfers were foes of the United States and all were threatened by American power projection. Gen. Aslam Beg, who served as Benazir Bhutto’s army chief, feared that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States—now the unrivaled power in South Asia and the Middle East—would be able to threaten Pakistan’s interests. Beg believed that the “increased global diffusion of nuclear weapons could lead to a multipolar world that would better suit Pakistan’s interests” and thus that by exporting nuclear technology and materials to America’s foes, Pakistan could constrain American military power (142).
Pakistan has undertaken significant efforts to fortify its nuclear command, control, and security arrangements since the revelation of A. Q. Khan’s activities. In perhaps one of the best descriptions of Pakistan’s peacetime security arrangements, Christopher Clary (2010) details why popularly rehearsed doomsday scenarios generally do not reflect the important progress Pakistan has made in securing its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan’s efforts to improve its command and control arrangements began in 1998 (prior to the May nuclear tests) when Army Chief Jahangir Karamat appointed Maj. Gen. Khalid Kidwai to head the newly formed Evaluation and Research Cell. This group offered several recommendations for improving nuclear command and control arrangements, foremost among them the creation of a National Command Authority (NCA), composed of military and civilian leadership, a secretariat to support the NCA, and specialized strategic forces. Later that year, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif abruptly dismissed Karamat, appointing General Pervez Musharraf in his place. It was Musharraf who brought the NCA into being in 2000, along with the SPD, the NCA’s secretariat, and the specialized strategic forces (Clary 2010; Khan 2012a, 2012b).
The SPD is tasked with protecting Pakistan’s strategic assets both from internal and external threats; after all, if Islamist terrorists could infiltrate Pakistan’s program, so could Indian, American, or even Israeli intelligence agencies. SPD provides a three-tiered security perimeter for nuclear facilities, which includes investigating and monitoring personnel, physical countermeasures, and counter-intelligence teams tasked with identifying potential threats (Clary 2010; Khan 2012a, 2012b). Despite these improvements, however, the challenge remains daunting. It should be recalled that in August 2007 the United States Air Force lost track of half a dozen nuclear warheads for 36 hours, despite decades of work on command, control, and security arrangements (Weitz 2007). Kidwai, now retired from the army but still the head of SPD, estimated that some 70,000 people work in Pakistan’s nuclear complexes. This figure includes some 7,000 to 8,000 scientists, of whom perhaps 2,000 possess critical knowledge. As Clary notes, Pakistan has also adopted measures, such as the equivalent of a two-man rule and some crude but functional versions of permissive action links, to protect against accidental use of weapons (Clary 2010).3
As Clary (2010) notes, most of these improvements have the greatest impact during peacetime when the weapons are not mated to their delivery systems and when the bombs themselves may not be assembled. Recent, but hotly contested, accounts of Pakistani security measures have caused alarm among analysts of Pakistan. SPD routinely moves its nuclear weapons among the 15 or more facilities where they are maintained. Such movement is regular and is done for several reasons. On occasion, they require maintenance. However, Pakistan also moves these assets around to make it more difficult for American or Indian intelligence agencies to discern their locations. Sometimes components are moved via helicopter or road. According to Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder (2011), Pakistan does not use armored or well-defended convoys to transport these assets; rather, SPD prefers to “move material by subterfuge, in civilian-style vehicles without noticeable defenses, in the regular flow of traffic. According to both Pakistani and American sources, vans with a modest security profile are sometimes the preferred conveyance.” If this were not hair-raising enough given the prevailing insecurity in Pakistan and looming fears about the potential for jihadists to seize the assets, the authors further report the assessment of a senior US intelligence official, who said that SPD has also “begun using this low-security method to transfer not merely the ‘de-mated’ component nuclear parts but ‘mated’ nuclear weapons” (ibid.).
In addition to these persistent concerns about command and control and quotidian movements of the components if not warheads during peacetime, during periods of heightened escalation a whole new set of apprehensions emerge. During escalation, Pakistan (and probably India as well) begins to assemble the warheads and mate them with their delivery systems. As the conflict continues to intensify, these assembled and mated weapons may be forward deployed, both to prepare for employment and to ensure a retaliatory capacity. At this point, concerns about theft or other unauthorized transfer become far more plausible than when the weapons are in their peacetime posture. Furthermore, as Clary (2010) cautions, when the assembled and mated nuclear weapons are forward deployed, the “two-man�
� rule may be insufficient to prevent accidental or unauthorized launch amidst the heightened strain of emergency. Finally, as part of its deterrence strategy Pakistan deliberately cultivates ambiguity as to the precise redlines that would precipitate nuclear escalation.
In fact, the risks that accompany its nuclear program are part of Pakistan’s calculations about the utility of the weapons in the first place. As I describe in Chapter 9, Pakistan relies on nuclear weapons to restrain India, both by raising the costs of Indian action against Pakistan and by bringing in the United States and other actors to manage the conflict once it starts. The United States and other international actors are motivated to intervene for two reasons. First, preventing an Indo-Pakistan conflict that could potentially escalate to a nuclear confrontation remains an important US objective. The resulting devastation would be unprecedented, and few countries other than the United States would be in a position to help manage the humanitarian disaster that would follow. Pakistan also knows that analysts in US intelligence agencies, as well as those working in nonproliferation billets in other US organizations, understand this problem. Consequently, Pakistan expects the United States to intervene early in a crisis to preempt assembly, mating, and forward deployment of nuclear weapons in an effort to diminish the potential for theft or misappropriation. American fears of command and control failures have intensified as Pakistan has continued its pursuit of tactical nuclear weapons. Surely, inciting such anxieties was one of Pakistan’s objectives in doing so in the first instance.
Fighting to the End Page 34