Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Rogue in the Ranks
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end. US nuclear sanctions were re-imposed in August 1990, when
President Bush invoked the Pressler Amendment and refused to certify
that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear weapon. But the action did not
deter Islamabad from continuing its efforts. Many observers believe the
US sanctions may have been one of the factors in Pakistan’s nuclear
proliferation. It is not surprising that most of the cases of transfer of
nuclear technology occurred during that period.
May 1998 saw the dawn of a new and frightening nuclear era, with
India conducting a series of nuclear tests followed by Pakistani test
explosions. The 28 May underground nuclear tests in the Chaghai
mountains in Balochistan province signalled the emergence of
Pakistan as the seventh overt nuclear power. Pakistan’s decision to
match India’s test explosion brought an end to two decades of nuclear
ambiguity between the two estranged South Asian neighbours. The
development brought their nuclear prowess out into the open, triggered
a dangerous arms race and added an alarming dimension to an already
volatile situation, turning the region into a nuclear flashpoint.
India’s nuclear tests on 11 May 1998 caught Pakistan by surprise.
New Delhi’s move posed a serious dilemma for Islamabad. For the
previous two decades, Pakistan had linked its nuclear policy with that
of India. Its deliberate adoption of nuclear ambiguity had worked well
as an effective deterrent, but the situation was drastically altered by the
Indian action. Pakistani policy-makers argued that they had no choice
but to go for their own nuclear test as the credibility of Pakistan’s
deterrent had been called into question.
The successful test explosions made Dr Khan’s dream of making
the country a nuclear power come true. A day after the second test,
an overly jubilant Dr Khan boasted in an interview that Pakistani
devices were more consistent, reliable and advanced than those of the
Indians. Talking to a small group of journalists at the KRL camp office
near Islamabad, he claimed the credit of putting Pakistan ahead of
India’s nuclear programme. ‘The fact that we used high tech enriched
uranium makes our system more efficient. Very few countries have
done that,’ he declared. 19
Pakistan’s emergence as an overt nuclear power raised a new
concern about the safety of its nuclear weapons. There were also
questions about the effectiveness and reliability of the command
and control structure. The major international concern was the
consequence of an accidental detonation of a nuclear device and the
risk of its unauthorized use. These were genuine apprehensions given