Globalaffairs

Issue 16/August-September 2009
By Alexandre Calvo Cristina

Proliferation and Non-proliferation, or why states seek nuclear weapons

The development of nuclear weapons led to two different views of their nature, with some claiming the fundamental nature of warfare had not been affected (1), and others seeing them as marking a new era in the field of human conflict. The main argument in favor of the latter view is that due to their sheer effects, a country possessing them would not be attacked by other nuclear powers for fear of retaliation, leading to the so called MAD (mutually assured destruction). It was precisely in order to guarantee this equilibrium of terror and avoid the perceived potential destabilizing effects of missile defense systems (which, by allowing a country to attack another without or with a lessened risk of retaliation might make it an attractive proposition, or at least provide incentives for a first strike in the event of a crisis) that the US and the USSR signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972 (2).

However, this is not the only way in which both Cold War superpowers chose to promote the status quo, they also tried to limit the number of countries having nuclear weapons, in what came to be known as “non-proliferation”, the main legal basis for which was the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which forbade signatories (other than the five powers who had tested an atomic device prior to 1 January 1967) from developing or otherwise acquiring nuclear arsenals (3). The idea behind these efforts was that a multiplication in the number of nuclear powers would increase the chances of nuclear war, whether by accident or as a result of a regional crisis, the risk of such devices being stolen or somehow transferred to non-state actors being an increasingly expressed fear after the fall of the Soviet Union. Non nuclear weapons-states were provided with two incentives to sign the treaty: a vague promise by the recognized nuclear weapons-states to work towards disarmament, and the provision of a nuclear “umbrella” by the superpowers to their allies, also called “extended deterrence”. In the case of Japan the US nuclear umbrella has been one of the reasons which have led the country to insist on its “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” (hikaku sangensoku): “Not possessing, not producing, and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan” (4).

Despite the efforts spent on non-proliferation, which have resulted in the NPT being among the international agreements with the highest number of parties, many countries have continued perceiving atomic arsenals as the key to their security, to which considerations of prestige, and in the case of the Indian nuclear program’s early stages scientific and economic benefits (5), must be added.

The case of Pakistan. Strategic and economic rationales for nuclear weapon development

Pakistan (6) was born out of the idea that Muslims needed a state of their own in the Subcontinent to avoid living under discrimination by a Hindu majority. Although this rationale was put into question by Bangladesh’s secession and the resulting bigger size of India’s Muslim population in comparison with Pakistan’s, the country has been unable or unwilling to move away from its confrontational stance with New Delhi, which has led to a number of wars and sustained support for insurgents in Afghanistan, in search of “strategic depth” against India.

Despite fuelling insurgency and terrorism in Afghanistan and within India itself, Pakistan’s smaller population and economy, and less advanced technological base, makes it impossible to match New Delhi in terms of conventional military capabilities.

Unable to field larger or more advanced armies, and notwithstanding its ability to influence broad swaths of Afghanistan through proxies, Islamabad’s pursuit of nuclear weapons was a logical step, despite the costs involved. These comprised both economic sacrifices, and diplomatic isolation and sanctions at certain points in time. India also invested considerable resources and withstood sanctions as the price to take part in the Subcontinent’s nuclear race, although as the bigger and richer of the competing pair it had less incentives to go beyond conventional forces. New Delhi however saw atomic power as a mark of a great power and the clearest sign its colonial past was over.

The atomic bomb meant for Pakistan the possibility to deter India without having to match or surpass its conventional military capabilities. As long as Islamabad was able to inflict “unacceptable damage” to India’s population, it could rest assured it would not be again defeated as in 1971. Although Dr. Khan’s motives in setting up his worldwide network were varied, and included personal gain both in prestige and monetary terms, he and at least some of his associates held the belief that nuclear weapons are a power equalizer and reduce the likelihood of open armed conflict (7).

Whether it was India or Pakistan which began the nuclear race in the Subcontinent has been a matter of scholarly and political contention, but no matter what the answer to that question is, it is clear that it was Pakistan which stood to gain the most from such development, which allowed it to “freeze” a conflict in whose intermittent bursts of violence Indian forces had appeared to be more capable, and that country more resilient to centrifugal forces. New Delhi’s impressive economic growth since the 1980s, and Islamabad’s continuous instability only added weight to the view that only nuclear weapons could prevent the ultimate defeat and disappearance of the Pakistani state (8).

On the other hand, India’s rationale for nuclear-weapons development is not dependent on the existence of Pakistan, even without which New Delhi would have probably followed this path. As a country which sees itself as a major power, and being a neighbor of a regime which has never had any qualms about the use of force, against internal and external enemies, its nuclear program should not be seen simply as a response to Pakistan’s (9).

Concerning Pakistan, no matter how powerful incentives for the development of a nuclear arsenal might have been, its lagging economy and low domestic technological base meant this objective could only be achieved with substantial foreign aid, whether official or private, based on conscious policy choices or tolerated due to more pressing priorities. This leads us to examine three major actors in this story: China, the US, and Dr. Khan’s network. The first has consistently used Pakistan to counterbalance India and limit its role to that of a regional power, leaving Beijing free to gradually develop into a continental or even world one, the second has oscillated between nonproliferation and tolerance of Islamabad’s efforts, and the third one was crucial in securing the necessary technology and components to achieve Islamabad’s aims. The Soviet Union should also be mentioned, since its links to India during the Cold War were an added incentive for China to aid Pakistan’s nuclear program, together with the India-China War of 1962 and Chinese fears over Tibet.

Foreign role in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program: China

One of China’s major foreign policy objectives is to keep India busy with its dispute with Pakistan, preventing the country’s rise as a major power in Asia and the wider World. Beijing enjoys being perceived as a powerful country on the rise, with a vibrant economy and increasingly global security ambitions, while India is still torturing itself trying to decide how to deal with Pakistan and the various terrorist groups it sponsors. Beijing is aware of the country’s long record of foreign invasions from Central and North Asia (10), threatening its rich and heavily populated coastal regions, and although such invasions lie far in the past their memory might be one of the reasons for its harsh policies towards Tibet and Xinjiang, together with the concern any state feels towards threats of secession. The case of the Soviet Union, much more recent, has also added to Chinese fears, while reaffirming Beijing’s beliefs that economic liberalization must precede any move towards less strict political control by the regime. In both areas India’s decentralization and religious tolerance might constitute dangerous examples, and this is another reason for Beijing’s uneasy relationship with New Delhi, with declarations of partnership and fast increasing volumes of trade taking place while border issues remain unresolved, in contrast with the successful demarcation of the Sino-Russian borders after the fall of the USSR, concluded last year. Another step taken by Beijing against the risk of secession is its use of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (11) to prevent the emergence of sanctuaries in Central Asia (12).

Beijing and Islamabad have been consistent allies since the communist victory in China’s civil war. Pakistan was among the first countries to recognize the new regime and it has never complained about the Chinese occupation of a sizeable portion of Kashmir. It has received in exchange economic and military support. In exchange Pakistan played a key role in helping China secure access to international currency and served as intermediary in normalizing relations with Washington.

China provided Pakistan with “blueprints for the bomb, as well as highly enriched uranium, tritium, scientists and key components for a nuclear weapons production complex, among other crucial tools” (13).

In our fascination with non-state actors, guerrillas, insurgents, and terrorists, we run the risk of forgetting that states are still very much to be taken into account (14).

Foreign role in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program: the US

Whereas the Chinese-Pakistani alliance has been stable and consistent over the years, the story of the relations between Washington and Islamabad is one full of ups and downs.

The fall of China in communist hands in 1949 led the US to look for allies in the region, and this was taken by Pakistan, aided by India’s short-sighted “non-aligned” stance (15), as the chance to secure a powerful ally, the country becoming a member of the Baghdad Pact and SEATO, as well as a recipient of American economic and military aid. It did not take long, however, for military aid to be suspended in the wake of the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, starting a pendulum-like cycle of sanctions and rapprochement, with weapons sales resuming ten years later (16), to be suspended by sanctions aimed at Islamabad’s nuclear program, lifted after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and applied once more in the 90s (17), to be again lifted after 9/11.

The United States played a key role in the training of the first Pakistani atomic scientists under the ”Atoms for Peace” program, and also provided the country with its first research reactor and fuel. This cooperation lasted until 1972 (18).

Although American disillusionment with Pakistan is increasingly clear, the country has managed to both survive its many political crises and re-emerge as a key ally, currently with regard to the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Having built the atomic bomb, intermittent sanctions and nonproliferation concerns notwithstanding, Pakistan is still a concern to America and her allies since many believe its arsenal might fall into the hands of Jihadist groups, in the event they either overran the state or managed to steal one such weapon. The obvious collusion between these groups and sections of Pakistan’s infamous ISI (Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence), plus the recent high-profile security failures, including a commando-style attack on Sri Lanka’s Cricket Team, and the “peace in our time” deal with insurgents in the Swat Valley, have done nothing to dispel such fears.

Building the bomb. Dr Khan’s world-wide network

However, in spite of China’s crucial help, and the inconsistent U.S. approach to Pakistan’s nuclear program, it was a clandestine network directed by physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan that secured some of the necessary technology and components without which the Pakistani bomb might never have become a reality.

Born in Bhopal, then British India, his family moved to Pakistan in 1952. After a first degree in metallurgy from the university of Karachi he moved to the Netherlands to study engineering and was later awarded a PhD in metallurgical engineering by the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

Back in the Netherlands he was hired by FDO (Physics Dynamic Research Laboratory), a subcontractor for the URENCO uranium enrichment facility in Almelo (19), where he gained considerable expertise in the field and used his position to provide highly-classified information to his country’s intelligence services. In December 1975 he left the country, carrying with him the blueprints for the Almelo gas centrifuge, and was later found guilty in absentia of espionage by a Dutch court (the sentence was quashed on appeal due to a technicality).

After returning to Pakistan he was quickly put in charge of one of the country’s two organizations in charge of its nuclear program, the Engineering Research Laboratories, which would be later renamed the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL), the other being the Atomic Energy Commission. Using some URENCO suppliers to begin acquiring the necessary equipment for the future Pakistani atomic bomb, he was able to gradually widen his network of contacts and achieve his aim of enriching uranium, allowing Pakistan to test its first nuclear device in 1998. Dr Khan reported directly to the Prime Minister’s office and worked in close cooperation with his country’s military.

From import-substitution to export-orientation. Dr Khan finds a new role

The successful testing of Pakistan’s first nuclear device in 1998 meant Dr Khan’s first and foremost objective had been achieved, however, even before that event reports began to surface of his network’s role not only in importing nuclear-related technologies and materials, but in exporting them to other countries.

Three customers have frequently been mentioned: Libya, Iran, and North Korea, the latter being of special concern to Japan, due to its proximity, and above all its kidnapping of civilians for intelligence purposes, as well as a number of incidents involving violation of Japanese territorial waters by submarine and surface ships.

Sales included “a full range of technology - from blueprints and components to full centrifuge assemblies, uranium hexafluoride feedstock, and, reportedly, a nuclear weapon design,” (20) with assistance to North Korea taking place from the mid-90s until 2003. According to a German intelligence investigation, this might have included uranium melting information in the late 80s, and Pakistani sources claimed North Korea’s orders from 1997 to 2000 included centrifuge components. Missile cooperation was an important aspect of the relations between Islamabad and Pyongyang, and Dr Khan is understood to have made at least a dozen trips to the country (21).

The exact form this cooperation took is a matter of contention, with some evidence backing the view that it was an officially sanctioned nuclear-for-missile technology barter, and other pointing at cash transactions with some of the funds ending up in Dr. Khan’s bank accounts. The many aspects, including conventional fields such as artillery, where Pakistan - North Korea cooperation took place complicates ascertaining the details and rationale for Dr. Khan’s nuclear supplies to Pyongyang (22).

The fall of Dr. Khan

Increasingly strong pressure from the United States, and the gradual revelation to the public of many of these nuclear exports, finally resulted in Dr. Khan’s dismissal as head of KRL in March 2001, which took the form of his elevation to the post of special advisor to the president on science. Three years later he was fired, forced to confess in writing and on TV of running an international nuclear proliferation ring (he later retracted), and was pardoned by Pakistani president Musharraf but placed under house arrest. In February this year a court decreed he should be freed (23), although he is still under certain restrictions, according to a number of sources.

In spite of the many media reports and scholarly publications devoted to him and his ring, many mysteries remain, including the extent of his activities, his motivations, the profits he made, the degree to which he acted under orders from Pakistani authorities, or the country’s armed forces, and the extent to which Western intelligence services were aware of and/or were complicit in some of his activities. In the eyes of many analysts, he was just the tip of the iceberg (24).

It seems that Dr Khan acted as part of the Pakistani government’s efforts to achieve a nuclear weapon, which, taking into account the long periods of military rule in Islamabad and the existence, even today, of certain areas where civilian control is not clear, does not mean that all successive governments were fully aware of what he and the rest of the country’s nuclear establishment were doing. This does not mean, however, that Dr Khan was acting against the wishes of Pakistani politicians, since the perceived need to develop a nuclear deterrent seems to have enjoyed widespread support both at the popular and elite levels. The Pakistani armed forces were not trying to hide the program away from their civilian masters for fear of having it discontinued, but rather because they felt it was an area where they should be able to operate free from political control.

In spite of having been part of a wider industrial complex, a number of reports have surfaced pointing that he might have personally benefited from some transactions, having amassed a small fortune. Furthermore, some of Dr Khan’s actions, above all trade with Libya, seem to have obeyed his private interests rather than Pakistani policy (25).

Concerning the degree to which foreign intelligence services knew of his activities, he seems to have attracted their attention quite early in his career, and German intelligence reports in 1991 already pointed at his role in connection with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea (26), but for a number of reasons stopping him was not considered to be the most pressing of foreign policy objectives, and by the time non-proliferation was back in decision-makers’ minds Pakistan already had the bomb (27).

Alexandre Calvo Cristina
Second Lieutenant, Spanish Army Reserve
International Relations Professor, European University.
Teaching and Research Fellow, OSCE Academy (Kyrgyzstan)

Bibliography

(1) “Patton was relatively unconcerned about the implications of the atomic age. He felt that the atomic bomb was just one more instrument in the orchestra of war. He said, “So far as the atomic bomb is concerned, while it is a scientific invention of the first water, it is not as earth shaking as you might think. When man first began fighting man, he used his teeth, toe-nails, and fingernails. Then one day a very terrified or very inventive genius picked up a rock and bashed a man in the head while the latter was gnawing at his vitals. The news of this unheard of weapon unquestionably shocked Neolithic society, but they became accustomed to it.
Thousands of years later, another genius picked up the splintered rib of a mastodon and using it as a dagger struck the gentleman with the rock. Again pre-historic society was shocked and said, “There can be no more wars. Did you hear about the mastodon bone?”
When the shield, slingshot, throwing stick, and the sword and armor were successively invented, each in its turn was heralded by opponents and proponents as a means of destroying the world or of stopping war.
Certainly the advent of the atomic bomb was not half as startling as the initial appearance of gunpowder. In my own lifetime, I remember two inventions, or possibly three, which were supposed to stop war; namely the dynamite cruiser Vesuvius, the submarine, and the tank. Yet, wars go blithely on and will when our great-grandchildren are very old men.”", PROVINCE Charles M, “General George S. Patton, Jr. A speech presented to the British Patton Society”, available at http://www.pattonhq.com/textfiles/myspeech.html.

(2) “The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty at a glance”, Missile Defense Fact Sheet, Arms Control Association, January 2003, available at http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/abmtreaty .

(3) “The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at a glance”, Missile Defense Fact Sheet, Arms Control Association, April 2005, available at http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nptfact .

(4) CHANLETT-AVERY Emma and NIKITIN Mary Beth, Japan’s Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests, Congressional Research Service, 19 February 2009, available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL34487.pdf

(5) PERKOVICH George, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2000.

(6) “The term … had first been adopted by a group of Muslims at Cambridge in the early 1930s as a wishful acronym for a greater Muslim homeland consisting of P(unjab), (A)fghania, i.e. the North-West Frontier), K(ashmir), I(ran), S(ind), T(urkharistan), A(fghanistan) and Baluchistan(N). It also meant, according to its inventor, ‘the land of the paks - the spiritually pure and clean’. Since there was no ‘B’ for Bengal in ‘PAKISTAN’ it was presumably in this latter sense that it was subsequently applied to the Lahore Resolution” KEAY John, India: a history, New York, Grove Press, 2000, p. 496.

(7) “The belief that nuclear weapons level the international playing field is clearly shared by Khan and at least some others in the network. Peter Griffin, a member of the Khan network for more than 25 years, responded to British customs officials who asked him if he knew he was helping Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program with the following: “Well, so what? I believe that if everyone’s got a big stick that’s more security for the world than only a couple of people with big sticks.” Similarly, Slijper reports that Slebos believed his business made him rich and served a higher purpose, saying, “I am proud that I have prevented a number of wars . . . I am not proud of an atom bomb as such, but sometimes it can be a necessity that it is there.”", MIAN Zia, A review of Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A. Q. Khan, and the Rise of Proliferation Networks, 18 November 2007, available at http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/a-review-of-nuclear-black-markets-pakistan-a-q-khan-and-the-rise-of-proliferati .

(8) Of course an alternative would be democratization and normalization of relations with India, history showing us that democracies do not fight each other.

(9) “The major reason for the nuclear weapons programme was 1962 and china, followed by 1971 when the US sent the seventh fleet against us and considered using nukes against us. That makes india the only country to be threatened by two nuclear powers in the past fifty years”, SINGH Sunny, personal communication to the author on 7 April 2009.

(10) Together with internal fragmentation and invasions from the sea these are the three main strategic threats to China, which its national security policies seek to combat. “Beijing therefore has three geopolitical imperatives: 1. Maintain internal unity so that far powers can’t weaken the ability of the central government to defend China. 2. Maintain a strong coastal defense to prevent an incursion from the Pacific. 3. Secure China’s periphery by anchoring the country’s frontiers on impassable geographical features; in other words, hold its current borders.”, “Chinese Geopolitics and the Significance of Tibet”, Stratfor Global Intelligence, 15 April 2008, available at http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/chinese_geopolitics_and_significance_tibet .

(11) “Clearly delineated borders with neighboring states will undermine Uighur hopes for an independent East Turkestan and cut off links with international Islamists.” and “China and Russia have determined (like the US in Afghanistan) that it is better to fight Islamists in Central Asia than within their own national borders.”, SZNAJDER Ariel Pablo, “China’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization Strategy”, SZNAJDER Ariel Pablo, “China’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization Strategy”, Journal of IPS, Spring 2006, Volume 5, p. 94, available at http://irps.ucsd.edu/assets/004/5367.pdf .

(12) Maybe its own successful provision of sanctuaries to proxies has dispelled any doubts about the absolute imperative of preventing them. In the words of Far East Bomber Commander, Major General Emmett (Rosey) O’Donnell “We were not allowed to violate Manchurian territory, and by violation of the territory I mean we were not allowed to fly over an inch of it. For instance, like most rivers, the Yalu has several pronounced bends before getting to the town of Antung, and the main bridges at Antung we had to attack in only one manner - in order not to violate Manchurian territory, and that was a course tangential to the southernmost bend of the river. As you draw a line from the southernmost bend of the river to the bridge, that is your course. These people on the other side of the river knew that and put up their batteries right along the line, and they peppered us right down the line all the way. We had to take it, of course, and couldn’t fight back.” MACARTHUR Douglas, Reminiscences, Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2001, p. 369.

(13) WEINER Tim, “NUCLEAR ANXIETY: THE KNOW-HOW; U.S. and China Helped Pakistan Build Its Bomb”, The New York Times, 1 June 1998, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/01/world/nuclear-anxiety-the-know-how-us-and-china-helped-pakistan-build-its-bomb.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all.

(14) It is difficult to strike the right balance, even more than thirty years after the fall of Saigon we have not reached a consensus on whether General Westmoreland was right to concentrate on the conventional threat to the Republic of Vietnam. For two differing points of view see SORLEY Lewis, A Better War: the Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam, Orlando, Harcourt Inc., 1999, and ANDRADE Dale, “Westmoreland was right: learning the wrong lessons from the Vietnam War”, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Routledge, Vol 19, No 2, June 2008, p. 145-181.

(15) CALVO Alex, “The US and Pakistan: Some historical background to a liaison dangereuse”, Global Affairs, Issue 9, June-July 2008, available at http://www.globalaffairs.es/Noticia-342.html.

(16) CALVO Alex, “The US and Pakistan: Some historical background to a liaison dangereuse”, Global Affairs, Issue 9, June-July 2008, available at http://www.globalaffairs.es/Noticia-342.html.

(17) WEINER Tim, “NUCLEAR ANXIETY: THE KNOW-HOW; U.S. and China Helped Pakistan Build Its Bomb”, The New York Times, 1 June 1998, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/01/world/nuclear-anxiety-the-know-how-us-and-china-helped-pakistan-build-its-bomb.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all.

(18) WEINER Tim, “NUCLEAR ANXIETY: THE KNOW-HOW; U.S. and China Helped Pakistan Build Its Bomb”, The New York Times, 1 June 1998, available at http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/01/world/nuclear-anxiety-the-know-how-us-and-china-helped-pakistan-build-its-bomb.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all.

(19) “A.Q. Khan”, Global Security, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/pakistan/khan.htm

(20) CRONIN P Richard, KRONSTADT K Alan and SQUASSONI Sharon, Pakistan’s Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: US Policy Constraints and Options, Congressional Research Service, 25 January 2005, available at www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32745.pdf .

(21) Ibidem.

(22) CLARY Christopher O, The A. Q. Khan Network: Causes and Implications, Monterey, Naval Postgraduate School, December 2005, p. 58 - 70, available at www.fas.org/irp/eprint/clary.pdf.

(23) SHAH Saeed, “Pakistan releases ‘father’ of nuclear bomb from house arrest”, The Guardian, 6 February 2009, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/06/nuclear-pakistan-khan .

(24) “Yet, from the evidence presented, it is apparent that A.Q. Khan’s nuclear proliferation network encompassed a broad spectrum of actors, and that no single individual could be singled out as the instigator. Khan could not have operated so independently and so flagrantly for almost two decades without arousing notice from the Pakistani prime ministers and army chiefs.”, “Opinion: Pakistani supreme Court decision to release nuclear scientist is disturbing”, Security Law Brief, Georgetown Law Center on National Security and the Law, 23 February 2009, available at http://www.securitylawbrief.com/main/2009/02/opinion-pakistani-supreme-court-decision-to-release-nuclear-scientist-is-disturbing.html .

(25) “However, it is Khan’s nuclear dealings with Libya that indicate the highest degree of nuclear free-lancing. The benefits to the Pakistani state are unclear, while the benefits to Khan as an individual are obvious” CLARY Christopher O, The A. Q. Khan Network: Causes and Implications, Monterey, Naval Postgraduate School, December 2005, p. 58 - 70, available at www.fas.org/irp/eprint/clary.pdf.

(26) “Agencies Trace Some Iraqi URENCO Know-How to Pakistan Re-Export,” Nucleonics
Week, November 28, 1991, pp. 1, 7-8, cited in CRONIN P Richard, KRONSTADT K Alan and SQUASSONI Sharon, Pakistan’s Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: US Policy Constraints and Options, Congressional Research Service, 25 January 2005, p. 12, available at www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32745.pdf .

(27) “Why did nonproliferation suddenly lose its value? Washington decided that Khan and the Pakistani Bomb were less important than confronting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It mattered even less that Pakistan was ruled by a military dictator intent on creating an Islamic state. This remained the judgment for 10 years. By then, the damage was done: Pakistan had the Bomb, and a generation had been schooled in radical Islam and jihad. It was only when the Soviets left Afghanistan that Washington rediscovered Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and again imposed sanctions. “, MIAN Zia, A review of Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A. Q. Khan, and the Rise of Proliferation Networks, 18 November 2007, available at http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/a-review-of-nuclear-black-markets-pakistan-a-q-khan-and-the-rise-of-proliferati .

The views and opinions of contributors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Global Affairs