Pakistan and India both possess advance nuclear weapons. India detonated a so called peaceful nuclear device in 1974. Thereafter, India conducted nuclear tests in 1998 and Pakistan followed suit. Since then both countries continue to refine their nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Both countries have produced an array of nuclear capable and non nuclear capable missiles. With continued refinement and gaining of ability to develop smaller warheads, it is presumed that some non nuclear missiles may also become nuclear capable in the future.
India is believed to have produced 225 to 370 kilograms of weapons grade plutonium and a small quantity of highly enriched uranium (HEU). India is generally estimated to have about 60 to 250 nuclear warheads and ability to manufacture 30-50 more. India conducted five nuclear tests in May 1998, announcing unambiguously its nuclear capacity. Two primary factors drive India’s nuclear program, i.e. the need to compete with China and to subdue Pakistan. India’s nuclear forces will be based in a triad of aircraft, mobile land-based missiles and sea-based forces, according to India’s nuclear doctrine. India intends, through a combination of redundant systems, mobility, dispersion and deception, to heighten the survivability of its nuclear arsenal. Despite its ambition to deploy a nuclear triad, presently India can deliver nuclear weapons only by missile or aircraft. India has agreements with Israel for refining her nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.
India has two types of missiles; the Prithvi and the Agni, each of which has several variants. The Prithvi missiles have ranges under 500 kilometers and are liquid-fueled. In January 2002, India test fired a solid-fuel Agni missile. With a range of 700 kilometers, it bridges a gap between shorter-range Prithvi missiles and longer-range variants of the Agni. Versions of the Agni with ranges up to 5,000 kilometers are being developed. Though India seeks nuclear self-sufficiency, its ballistic missile programs are largely dependent on Russian components and expertise. India has received assistance from Russia for many of its missile development programmes. India is also likely to develop a global positioning system to upgrade its missile guidance systems. The size and composition of India’s nuclear arsenal is difficult to determine because all of its delivery systems can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads. The dual capability of its nuclear-capable systems has significant implications for crisis stability on the subcontinent. In a war, especially in the opening stages, the launch of Indian ballistic missiles with conventional warheads could easily be mistaken for a nuclear strike and trigger nuclear attack. Inaccurate or exaggerated claims by government and industry officials combined with unsubstantiated rumours in the media and expert community about weapon systems’ capabilities contribute to uncertainty about India’s nuclear forces.
India has several aircraft that could be outfitted to deliver nuclear bombs. It is not clear which, if any, have been modified for nuclear delivery. India’s 147 MiG-27s and 131 Jaguars would require little or no modification to deliver nuclear weapons. In addition, India’s 64 MiG-29s and 40 Mirage 2000s could be upgraded to carry nuclear weapons. India is striving hard to complete the submarine-based third leg of its nuclear triad which has been beset by technical difficulties, and success on this front remains a long way off. India probably keeps its nuclear delivery vehicles separate from its warheads.
Pakistan is believed to have between 48 and 150 nuclear weapons and. has produced 585 to 800 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. Pakistan has the capability of producing 50 more nuclear warheads. The motivational force behind initiation of Pakistan’s nuclear program was the peaceful nuclear explosion by India in 1974. Thereafter Pakistan felt that its security was threatened and that she should also develop nuclear capability for her survival. After the Indian nuclear tests in 1998, threatening statements started emanating from New Delhi, which left Pakistan with no option but to conduct nuclear tests to thwart the security dilemma. Since then Pakistan has been struggling to match the Indian arsenal. Not much information is available regarding the Pakistani arsenal. The nuclear program uses highly-enriched uranium, but Pakistan has also been able to develop a small quantity of plutonium.
According to U.S. intelligence, Pakistan relies heavily on its ballistic nuclear missiles to counter India’s conventional advantage. It has an advanced indigenous capability to produce a wide array of ballistic missiles. The best estimates indicate that today Pakistan has two types of missile, the Hatf and Shaheen capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The Ghauri I/Hatf 5 is liquid fuelled and has a range of 1,500 kilometres. A more advanced version (the Ghauri-2) may have a range exceeding 2,000 kilometres and third Ghauri with even greater range is being developed. Pakistan also has two versions of the Shaheen missile.
According to Pakistan’s unofficial estimates, Shaheen I may have a range of 750 kilometres and Shaheen II of 2,500 kilometres. Both Shaheen missiles have nuclear capacity. Like India, Pakistan is generally believed to keep its nuclear missiles in components i.e. delivery vehicles are likely kept separate from warheads.
Pakistan has a wide range of aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Pakistan has about 32 U.S. built F-16s, which were delivered in the 1980s. President George W. Bush has sanctioned the delivery of 28 new F-16s to Pakistan. to meet her security needs in face of growing Indian military build-up. Pakistan’s F-16s have a range of over 2500 kilometres. Pakistan also has 171 Mirage and 60 A-5 aircraft which are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The Indian and Pakistani nuclear arsenals give a clear message that though both countries are not recognized as nuclear powers, but they ought to be taken seriously. The nuclear weaponry is there to stay. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that hostilities don’t break out between the two countries; otherwise there could be serious and disastrous consequences for them and the whole of South Asia. Under the new global setup, India is being armed by the US, UK and Israel as a counter force against China. This undermines the security of China as well as Pakistan.
Pakistan may enjoy some solace from the 7 June 2000, NBC report that US intelligence and military agencies have revised earlier estimates of India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. They estimate that not only does Pakistan have five times more nuclear warheads than India but it also has far more accurate and effective delivery systems. The NBC news report quotes General Anthony Zinni of the US central command who is familiar with the region and who has met with Pakistan’s military commanders, including General Pervez Musharraf. According to him, there is a considerable amount of uncertainty on the long-term assumption that Pakistan’s nuclear capability is inferior to India’s. The report further states that a recent US defence department analysis of India’s capability and readiness suggests that New Delhi is now ‘aware of its shortcomings’ and is seeking to address the problem. It refers to the minimum deterrent force ‘comprised of a triad of nuclear delivery systems - air, mobile land-based launches and sea-based platforms’ and adds ‘the air component of its triad is the only one that may be in place already.’ The report states that India has fewer aircraft capable of carrying nuclear warheads than Pakistan and has no missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads. Though the report may be outdated, but it gives a fair idea that the nuclear capabilities of Pakistan and India may be in parity.
A serious impact on the nuclear arsenals could come from the US agreement on 18 July 2005 to share civilian nuclear technology with India, reversing decades of U.S. policies designed to discourage countries from developing nuclear weapons. The agreement does not call for India to cease production of weapons-grade plutonium, which will enable India to expand its nuclear arsenal. The US seems to be set to alter rules in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a consortium of more than 40 countries that controls export of nuclear technology, to benefit India. The U.S. would also have to amend the Non-proliferation Act, which prevents sales of sensitive nuclear technology to countries that refuse monitoring of nuclear facilities.
Britain also decided on 5 August to relax its control on the export of nuclear technology to India. According to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, the controls presently in place exceeded the requirements under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Nuclear Supplier’s Group (NSG). After reviewing this policy in the context of growing UK-India relations and India’s increasing commitment to international norms, the British government has decided to modify the existing approach towards India.
The change in the US and British policy, allowing India unfettered access to nuclear technology is considered a dangerous proposition and bad for non-proliferation. If the agreements materialise, the nuclear arsenal of India would increase manifold, triggering and escalating a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent. Besides, other countries of the region would also be encouraged to develop nuclear weapons, which is not a good omen for South Asia.

Taliban sin stings Pakistan!
Dr Farrukh F. Khan

Despite the fact that Islamabad has very actively been playing the role of a frontline state against the US-led war on terror since September 11, 2001, a malicious campaign against Pakistan is going on in the US on the sidelines. On one hand the Bush Administration eulogizes Pakistan’s role in the fight against terrorism but on the other hand certain quarters in the US are intriguingly trying to prove that the Taliban activities going on in Afghanistan are being remote controlled by Pakistan. An article titled “Pakistan Connection Seen in Taliban’s New Tactics” was published in the Los Angles Times last month. Quoting a number of Pakistani journalists as its source of information, the article puts blame on Pakistan for still holding the Taliban strings, masterminding “their plans to destabilize Karzai Government in Afghanistan”.
First of all the idea of using information gathered from Pakistani journalists is a mystery to remain unsolved. The post-9/11 developments provided Pakistani journalists an opportunity of working with the foreign media covering events in Afghanistan. The focus of foreign media was naturally aimed at projecting the story of their side. In their quest to get into the international stream of media reporting, some of the Pakistani journalists went steps ahead in helping the ‘dollar men’ dig out exclusives. They also could do nothing in the story-twist attempts by their guest-chiefs. Majority of articles, news reports and columns proving Pakistan as a breeding place for the Taliban, associating the country with acts of terrorism and religious extremism, were mainly based on information given by Pakistani journalists. Foreign writers while giving credence to their claims on the basis of such reports originating from Pakistan gave further spins to the stories. While very few correspondents discussed such issues with Pakistani officials to take their opinion. Most of them fell prey to the one sided view of the reporting. The trend has not ended as yet.
Quoting Afghan intelligence sources, the LAT report maliciously attempts to prove that the Taliban and allied fighters who fled to Pakistan after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 “are learning new, more lethal tactics from the Pakistani military at numerous training camps”. Afghan officials claim that Pakistan has a secret operation to train insurgents to build complex electronic bombs. “It is ridiculous”, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, DG ISPR, had rejected it in a strong worded statement. “This is just a figment of some absurd mind, nothing else”, Sultan told LAT. It is ridiculous because “high-tech bombs similar to those being found in Afghanistan have killed Pakistani soldiers too. More than 250 Pakistani troops have died in border operations in the last year”, he said. “We haven’t found any sanctuary, so far, where such items probably could be made. Pakistan’s military didn’t know where the sophisticated bomb-making technology was coming from”, he added.
The LAT report gets endorsement from one Saeed Anwar, an Afghan official who claims to have been working in intelligence for 27 years. The authenticity of his accusations – that the camps are open again in Pakistan – can be gauged from the fact that the Afghan intelligence officer says that their agents were not permitted to enter the areas where training camps were functional while in the same breath he mentions of their agents’ visit to these “reopened camps” (based on Pakistani journalist’s visit story).
The fact of the matter is that the Taliban were trained during their fight against the Soviets. They were provided weapons and financial assistance by the US and its Western allies through Pakistan. They were trained to use modern weapons as well as in the art of fighting guerrilla war. After the Soviet withdrawal, these people became self-sustaining and after the US attack on Afghanistan they dispersed and also went into hiding in mountainous areas of Pak-Afghan border. Those who have been fighting in Afghanistan included Afghans as well as nationals from a number of other countries across the globe. It would be wrong to assume that those trained men were just illiterate and ordinary shepherds, rather they were well versed in the use of modern technologies and hi tech weapons. They are the people who were able to defeat the Soviet Army.
This is to be noted that today these people are not only fighting against the US troops, but they are also undertaking similar activities in Pakistan. Rather their activities in Afghanistan are less in number as compared to Pakistan. A number of attempts on the life of Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, and the Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, are a proof of that. According to a survey conducted by a foreign NGO based in Peshawar, every home in the NWFP and Balochistan, and every third home in the Punjab and Sindh is direct or indirect victim of terrorism in Pakistan. The fact that the number of Pakistani soldiers killed in such attacks is far more than the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
So this seems absolutely ridiculous that Pakistan was sponsoring them. The question is how come those people should be killing Pakistanis if Islamabad was sponsoring them. How can an Army train the militants (as claimed by the writer that ISI trains the militants in these camps) and then get its own troops killed by the same militants.
It is absurd to note that cordless phones are being used by the Taliban as the report mentions. Everybody knows the cordless phones are available everywhere in the open market. Any customer can buy a phone of his choice. It is also in everybody’s notice that nowhere in Pakistan sophisticated cordless phones are manufactured to be used for working in over-extended ranges in Afghanistan. As far the availability of Pepsi and running shoes in the far flung areas, it does not however suggest that these people are being sponsored by any government.
The Los Angles Times report also claims that as young as 13 years old boys are being recruited for training, while the fact of the matter is that there have never been even a single act of terror, firing or sabotage in Afghanistan or for that matter anywhere in the world, where such a young people are found involved. The propaganda based on fabrication and white lies is obviously aimed at maligning Pakistan and undermining its commitment to helping the US and allies eradicate the menace of terrorism in all its manifestations.
Meanwhile the report mentions of two Lieutenants – Lt Naqibullah Nooristani, operations commander for Afghan troops fighting alongside US forces in Kunar and Lt. Sayeed Anwar, acting head of Afghanistan’s counter-terrorism department – for supporting its claims. The question is whether junior officers of such grades and ranks are normally made responsible for such assignments? And if so, how can one expect from them the operational understanding and field awareness. Ironically enough such allegations are coming out very frequently. The allegations usually quote some unidentified sources that are never able to give proofs. They only work on conspiracy theories and each article tries to draw strength from other similar articles.
If Pakistan is training so many militants who also get killed so frequently, then in all these years, each Pakistani family should have lost at least one male member. However, one cannot identify any such families in Pakistan. Some countries in the region keep raising the question of training camps in Pakistan just to keep Islamabad under pressure. They play with the sensitivities of the Western world and keep giving spins to various stories. The intelligence agents of the hostile countries also keep feeding the Western governments with fake data.
While concluding I would like to ask the US Administration to have an assessment of its own. It has been now a few years since the US attack on Afghanistan, the American army commanders are in better position to actually see what’s exactly going on there. By now the Afghan intelligence personnel should have been able to give a better view based on their personal experiences. They are well aware of the ground realities. Besides, Washington has repeatedly acknowledged Pakistan’s role in the fight against terrorism. If despite all this, the US media continues to propagate against Pakistan, the nefarious design behind it is understood. I think the need of the hour is to join hands together against the menace of terrorism. This is not the return Pakistan deserves. There is need to look at it in a pragmatic way.