Pakistan's Nuclear Future
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PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR FUTURE: WORRIES BEYOND WAR Henry D. Sokolski Editor January 2008 Visit our website for other free publication downloads http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/ To rate this publication click here. This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. As such, it is in the public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, it may not be copyrighted. ***** The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. ***** Chapter 6 was originally prepared as a report for the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM). The authors are grateful to IPFM for allowing a revised version to be submitted to the journal, Science & Global Security. It appeared in Vol. 14, Nos. 2-3, 2006. The authors are happy to acknowledge discussions with Frank von Hippel and Harold Feiveson, and close collaboration with Alexander Glaser. They wish to thank the Program on Science and Global Security for its generous support and hospitality and to note useful comments by the reviewers for Science & Global Security. Chapter 7 was originally commissioned by the Henry L. Stimson Center. The views expressed in this chapter do not necessarily reflect those of the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority, the Government of Pakistan, or any organization under whose auspices this manuscript was prepared. ***** Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 122 Forbes Ave, Carlisle, PA 17013-5244. ***** All Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) publications are available on the SSI homepage for electronic dissemination. Hard copies of this report also may be ordered from our homepage. SSI’s homepage address is: www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil. ii ***** The Strategic Studies Institute publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter to update the national security community on the research of our analysts, recent and forthcoming publications, and upcoming conferences sponsored by the Institute. Each newsletter also provides a strategic commentary by one of our research analysts. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please subscribe on our homepage at www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army. mil/newsletter/. ISBN 1-58487-333-7 iii CONTENTS Foreword......................................................................vii 1. Pakistan’s Nuclear Woes Henry D. Sokolski ...............................................1 I: ISLAMABAD’S PROLIFERATING PAST .........................................................................11 2. Kahn’s Nuclear Exports: Was There a State Strategy? Bruno Tertrais....................................................13 3. Could Anything Be Done to Stop Them? Lessons from Pakistan’s Proliferating Past George Perkovich................................................59 II: MAINTAINING SOUTHWEST ASIAN DETERRENCE ......................................................85 4. Pakistan’s “Minimum Deterrent” Nuclear Force Requirements Gregory S. Jones.................................................87 5. Islamabad’s Nuclear Posture: Its Premises and Implementation Peter R. Lavoy..................................................129 6. Fissile Materials in South Asia and the Implications of the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal Zia Mian, A. H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman, and M. V. Ramana...........................................167 v III. PAKISTAN’S NEXT SET OF NUCLEAR HEADACHES ....................................................219 7. Preventing Nuclear Terrorism in Pakistan: Sabotage of a Spent Fuel Cask or a Commercial Irradiation Source in Transport Abdul Mannan.................................................221 8. Security Issues Related to Pakistan’s Future Nuclear Power Program Chaim Braun....................................................277 9. Bad Options: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Live with Loose Nukes Thomas Donnelly.............................................347 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS .............................369 vi FOREWORD This volume was completed just before Pakistani President Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November 2007. The political turmoil that followed raised concerns that Pakistan’s nuclear assets might be vulnerable to diversion or misuse. This book, which consists of research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) commissioned and vetted in 2006 and 2007, details precisely what these worries might be. Dr. Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Dr. Peter Lavoy, now the National Intelligence Officer for Southwest Asia at the National Intelligence Council, were instrumental in the selection of authors as well as producing original research. Thanks is also due to Ali Naqvi and Tamara Mitchell of NPEC’s staff who helped organize the workshop at which the book’s contents were discussed and who helped prepare the book manuscript. Finally, special thanks is due to Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr., Ms. Marianne Cowling, and Ms. Rita Rummel of the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). This is the ninth in a series of edited volumes NPEC has produced with SSI. To the book’s authors and all who made this book possible, NPEC is indebted. Henry Sokolski Executive Director The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center vii CHAPTER 1 PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR WOES Henry D. Sokolski Raise the issue of Pakistan’s nuclear program before almost any group of Western security analysts, and they are likely to throw up their hands. What might happen if the current Pakistani government is taken over by radicalized political forces sympathetic to the Taliban? Such a government, they fear, might share Pakistan’s nuclear weapons materials and know-how with others, including terrorist organizations. Then there is the possibility that a more radical government might pick a war again with India. Could Pakistan prevail against India’s superior conventional forces without threatening to resort to nuclear arms? If not, what, if anything, might persuade Pakistan to stand its nuclear forces down? There are no good answers to these questions and even fewer near or mid-term fixes against such contingencies. This, in turn, encourages a kind of policy fatalism with regard to Pakistan. This book, which reflects research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center commis- sioned over the last 2 years, takes a different tack. Instead of asking questions that have few or no good answers, this volume tries to characterize specific nuclear problems that the ruling Pakistani government faces with the aim of establishing a base line set of challenges for remedial action. Its point of departure is to consider what nuclear challenges Pakistan will face if moderate forces remain in control of the government and no hot war breaks out against India. A second volume of commissioned research planned for 1 publication in 2008 will consider how best to address these challenges. What proliferation risks might the current gov- ernment still be tempted to take? What is required of Pakistan to maintain nuclear deterrence with India? What new vulnerabilities will the expansion of Pakistan’s civilian nuclear sector require Islamabad to attend to? Finally, how daunting a task might it be to keep Pakistan’s nuclear weapons assets from being seized or to take them back after having been seized? Each of these questions is tackled in the chapters that follow. Along the way, a number of interesting discoveries are made. First, from the historical analyses done by Bruno Tetrais and George Perkovich, we learn that despite the significant nuclear export control efforts of the current Pakistani government, it might well proliferate again. Why? The same reasons that previous Pakistani governments tolerated and, at times, even sanctioned the nuclear-rocket export-import activities of Dr. A. Q. Khan: Perceived strategic abandonment by the United States, lack of financing for its own strategic competition against India, insufficient civilian oversight of a politically influential military and intelligence services, and a perceived need to deflect negative international attention from Pakistan to third countries. (See Table 1 at the end of this chapter for a historical review.) One or more of these factors were in play throughout the last 3 decades. Two still are. Certainly, the United States has done all it can to reassure Pakistani officials about Washington’s commitment to Pakistan’s security. Yet, there still is Pakistani cause for concern. Might Washington tie future security and economic assistance to Pakistani progress toward democratic elections and cracking down more severely against 2 radical Islamic groups in Pakistan? As for the matter of being isolated, Pakistan now has to be concerned not just about maintaining good relations with Washington, but somehow fending off the encircling efforts of India. Most recently, these activities included formal military-to-military ties with Iran; the construction of a major naval port at Chahbahar near Pakistan’s own new naval base at Gwador; the joint construction with Iran of roads to Afghanistan (and Indian aid efforts to Afghanistan); the stationing of Indian intelligence officers at Zahedan, Iran close to Baluchistan rebel activities in Pakistan; the creation of an Indian