20 years after Pakistan tested nuclear weapons
On May 28, 1998, Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests and a sixth one two days later in response to Indian detonations. The tests had become a political imperative for Islamabad amid uneasy ties with its bigger neighbour. “We have settled the score,” then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif declared. And South Asia became a potential nuclear flashpoint.
CONTEXT
The immediate trigger for the Pakistani nuclear tests were the Indian tests on May 11 and 13, 1998. Although matching India had become an existential need for Pakistan, defying American pressure to get there was no easy task. It was no secret that Pakistan had been pursuing nuclear capability after India’s first test in 1974. Chinese help for Pakistan’s nuclear programme was all too well known. But the Indian tests that spooked Washington in 1998 brought Pakistan under immense pressure against going nuclear. Karl F Inderfurth, who served as assistants secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 1997-2001, later wrote: “President (Bill) Clinton was on the phone with PM (Nawaz) Sharif on five separate occasions, making it very clear that he recognized that Pakistan would be under great pressure to test, but that Pakistan’s interests would be better served not to and that if it did not.” Two nuclear-armed neighbours outside the NPT regime, their ties marked by constant strains, couldn’t move beyond the basics in building mutual confidence on the nuclear issue. The two countries annually exchange a list of their nuclear installations. India has a nuclear doctrine of no first use. It also declared a voluntary moratorium on testing. Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine resembles that of the US during the Cold War: if the integrity of the country is being threatened, it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons. If the US was talking about the conventional superiority of Russia (then Soviet Union), Pakistan was taking about India’s. But Pakistan couldn’t establish its credibility when it came to non-proliferation. The father of its nuclear programme, AQ Khan, was found by the Americans of being involved in an illegal network that sent bomb-making designs and equipment to at least three countries. Although Pakistan achieved nuclear parity with India, its hope of getting a seat at the nuclear high table remains a very distant dream.