‘Pakistan nukes surest route to nuclear war’

Washington: Pakistan’s tactical nuclear-weapons programme is not only dangerous for safety and security of the region, but also it is the surest route to escalating conventional war to the nuclear level, according to a report by an American think-tank.

In its report “Asia in the Second Nuclear Age”, the Atlantic Council, however, said Pakistan does not appear to have operationalised its tactical nuclear-warfare plans yet. “Pakistan’s tactical nuclear-weapons programme is dangerous for safety and security reasons, and also because it is the surest route to escalating conventional war to the nuclear level. However, Pakistan does not appear to have operationalised its tactical nuclear-warfare plans yet,” said the report released this month.

The greatest threat in the region comes not from the development of large, sophisticated, and diversified nuclear arsenals, but from the continued stability of the institutions guarding them. “In this regard, the future stability of Pakistan remains a wild card,” said the report.

In the last four decades, the Pakistani deep state’s pursuit of low intensity conflict in Afghanistan and India, via the vehicles of radical jihadi non-state actors, has produced terrible blow back effects on Pakistan itself.

Noting that both the Pakistani state and civil society have become the targets of terror attacks, it said some attacks have occurred, with insider help, on sensitive military bases where nuclear weapons are likely stored. “The possibility that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could be stolen — or that schisms in Pakistan’s military might cause nuclear command-and-control failures — is not as fantastic as it once seemed,” report said.