nuclear-news

USA’s intense worry about nuclear Pakistan

Pakistan and the Nuclear Nightmare FP,  By Dan Twining  , September 4, 2013 –The Washington Post has revealed the intense concern of the U.S. intelligence community about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. In addition to gaps in U.S. information about nuclear weapons storage and safeguards, American analysts are worried about the risk of terrorist attacks against nuclear facilities in Pakistan as well as the risk that individual Pakistani nuclear weapons handlers could go rogue in ways that endanger unified national control over these weapons of mass destruction.

These concerns raise a wider question for a U.S. national security establishment whose worst nightmares include the collapse of the Pakistani state — with all its implications for empowerment of terrorists, a regional explosion of violent extremism, war with India, and loss of control over the country’s nuclear weapons. That larger question is: Does Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal promote the country’s unity or its disaggregation?

This is a complicated puzzle, in part because nuclear war in South Asia may be more likely as long as nuclear weapons help hold Pakistan together and embolden its military leaders to pursue foreign adventures under the nuclear umbrella. So if we argue that nuclear weapons help maintain Pakistan’s integrity as a state — by empowering and cohering the Pakistani Army — they may at the same time undermine regional stability and security by making regional war more likely………http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/09/04/pakistan_and_the_nuclear_nightmare

September 5, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Pakistan, weapons and war