Pakistan Rapidly Adding New Nuclear Weapons

posted at 3:46 am on May 18, 2009 by Michael van der Galien

‘Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program,’ the liberal paper of record the New York Times reports.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony. Sitting beside Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

“Yes,” he said quickly, adding nothing, clearly cognizant of Pakistan’s sensitivity to any discussion about the country’s nuclear strategy or security.

Inside the Obama administration, some officials say, Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents.

Pakistan decided to develop nuclear weapons because its neighbor India was doing the same. The two enemies have been engaged in a weapons race for decades already.

Read my entire post at Hot Air’s Greenroom.

Why would Pakistan increase its nuclear capabilities today, however? It already has enough of them to deter India. Here are some options:
1. It still fears a major war with India, and believes that you cannot possibly have ‘enough’ weapons of mass destruction
2. It fears Iran’s rise and nuclear program
3. It wants to give / sell some of these bombs to other, befriended states
4. Islamabad does not want the United States to be aware of every single nuclear weapon in Pakistan and is therefore developing more so as to confuse the U.S. / make it virtually impossible for Washington to keep track of every single one of these weapons
5. Scary idea: something with Taliban and nuclear weapons

In any case, we cannot possibly be happy with this news. The more nuclear weapons Pakistan has, the more likely it is that some of them will fall into the hands of extremists.

Will we see this nightmare scenario become reality? Obama has a massive international problem on his hands. We’d better all hope he passes this test.

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