Overview

Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme

India’s Nuclear Programme

Ballistic Missile Capabilities

Nuclear Motivations

Can the Nuclear Situation in South Asia be stabilised?

 

Overview of the Nuclear situation in South Asia

South Asia stands out as the only region in the world in which several nations (India, Pakistan and China), sharing disputed frontiers and torn by deep-rooted animosities, face each other with nuclear capabilities.

 

Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme

This was based on two main planks:

  1. A network of nuclear espionage and smuggling that involved intermediaries and front organisations to buy critical components and technology
  2. Collaboration with a strategic ally, China, which believed that a nuclear-armed Pakistan would be a crucial counterweight to India in the region.

 

India’s Nuclear Programme

Two thrusts behind India’s nuclear programme were power generation and potential weapons production. On the 18th of May, 1974, India detonated its first “peaceful nuclear explosion”.

 

Ballistic Missile Capabilities

As well as having a variety of aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan have sought to develop ballistic missile capabilities. Since the late 1980s, a missile race has flared up on the sub-continent.

 

Factors driving Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Programmes

Nationalism is the single most powerful force driving the rival nuclear programmes. Pakistan tends to see itself as the Islamic world’s technological showcase, developing a nuclear weapon capability despite a very narrow industrial base. For its part, India sees the acquisition of a nuclear weapon capability as the key to winning great power status.

 

Prospects for stabilizing the Nuclear Situation in South Asia

In the short term, it is unlikely that India or Pakistan will agree to roll back or cap their nuclear programme. Whether or not nuclear proliferation is a problem is another issue. Kenneth Waltz has argued that the spread of nuclear weapons can be a stabilizing factor in regional conflicts such as that involving India and Pakistan. Objections to Waltz’s argument centre on his Cold War centred conception of deterrence. Also many observers view the  nuclear problems of India and Pakistan as directly linked to the Kashmir problem. Critics argue that unless that problem is resolved, there is unlikely to be any progress towards stability.