Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late

On any given week, there are several contenders for which country people might feel poses a great danger to global security. Though many, like Iran or Mali, Russia or China, may pose serious problems, the confluence of several disturbing trends make Pakistan the most dangerous country on earth. Pakistan has an unstable government, a fragile economy, strong extremist influences in its military and intelligence agencies, and enough nuclear material for 200 bombs. And al Qaeda and a half dozen similar groups operate inside the country. If terrorists ever detonate a nuclear device in America, they will likely have gotten the bomb or the material from Pakistan.¹

It is not just a question of the security of the weapons; it is a question of the security of the government. If the government falls, if the army splinters, who gets the weapons? Who gets the nuclear materials for building these weapons? Where do the scientists and technicians who know how to make the material and build the weapons go? Pakistan could flip from a major non-NATO ally to our worst nuclear nightmare overnight. As the former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson said: “Here you have a nation-state that is essentially imploding. You have a very unstable nation-state that is nuclear-armed. Their intelligence service is deeply infiltrated with those that are antithetical to U.S. national security interests.”²

Iran and North Korea, by comparison, are serious challenges but present far less of a threat. Iran does not have (and may never have) nuclear weapons, and North Korea has only a few. Both of these nations are more isolated and face more international pressure than ever before. This makes a negotiated solution to these programs more feasible or, failing that, their containment and deterrence. (Both nations are discussed in more detail in chapter 10.)

Pakistan also shares a border with another nuclear-armed nation, India, with which it has fought three major wars in sixty years. Yet the nuclear programs in India and Pakistan get little press or public attention. We are lulled into complacency by several factors. These programs are run by states that have close ties to the United States and its allies, including various forms of nuclear cooperation. Both are nominally democracies. The programs have grown slowly over several decades, with U.S. officials often looking the other way or justifying them to the American public. But these state-to-state relations mask a seething danger—conflicts between the two nations and within the two nations could lead to nuclear catastrophe.

Some in the popular media have picked up on these developments and tried to highlight them. One particularly good example came during the first season of the television series The West Wing, when the fictional president Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, is confronted with an Indian invasion of Pakistan. Three hundred thousand Indian troops cross the border through the disputed territory of Kashmir to put a “final end” to the problem of Pakistani insurgents attacking Indian posts. The president’s aides are deeply concerned that a conventional war will not stay conventional for long. All are worried that each side has several nuclear weapons (which is what each side had in January 2000 when the show aired) and will soon use them. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was quoted as saying that the episode was one of the best expositions of foreign policy on television that she had seen.³

In the show, the British expert called in to advise the president, Lord John Marbury, tells them, “Your Congress has been pathetically inept at halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons in this region.” (It was actually Congress that pushed reluctant presidents to finally resort to tougher actions, but too late to stop the programs.) The Pakistanis are said to be concerned that their army cannot stop the Indian forces and begin to give command and control of nuclear weapons to commanders in the field. This is precisely what worries real national security advisors today.

These are not abstract concerns or implausible scenarios. There have been repeated instances that indicate militant groups could be much closer than most realize to getting their hands on a nuclear weapon. Extremist groups have staged major attacks on military bases, including ones suspected of housing nuclear weapons. There is no evidence that the attackers sought the nuclear weapons or information at these bases or were even aware of the possible nuclear functions at the bases. But the number of attacks is mounting. A suicide bomber killed eight air force personnel and wounded forty others at a Punjab air force base that housed the military headquarters for the control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal; a suicide bomber attacked a bus at the Kamra Air Force Base in Peshawar province that includes facilities likely associated with the storage and maintenance of nuclear weapons; and militants launched a major attack on the Karachi Naval Base that killed ten and wounded forty in a sixteen-hour gun battle, as well as an August 2012 attack on Pakistan’s main air force base near the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world, with an estimated 90 to 110 warheads that could grow to 150 to 200 within this decade along with new production facilities and new nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.⁶ The analysts Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris of the Federation of American Scientists provide the best independent estimates of national nuclear arsenals in their comprehensive “Nuclear Notebook” series in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. They note that after Pakistan followed India and tested its first nuclear weapons in 1998, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency projected that by 2020 Pakistan would have between 60 and 80 warheads. But “Pakistan appears to have reached that level in 2006 or 2007.… With four new delivery systems and two plutonium production reactors under development,” they note, “the rate of Pakistan’s stockpile growth may even increase over the next 10 years.”⁷

Most of Pakistan’s weapons have been built using uranium enriched at its facilities at Kahuta and Gadwai. As of 2011, Pakistan was believed to have a stockpile of about 2,750 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.⁸ Over the past few years, Pakistan has increased its ability to produce plutonium, adding in 2009 a second production reactor to its original 1998 Khushab reactor, then a third, and recently a fourth spotted by satellites under construction in 2011.⁹ By the end of 2011, Pakistan likely had produced 135 to 145 kilograms of plutonium. Pakistan has enough uranium and plutonium to build 175–262 warheads.¹⁰

Pakistan’s delivery systems have also been rapidly increasing in numbers and sophistication. It possesses nuclear-capable aircraft, most likely the F-16 A/B airplanes the United States sold the country in the mid-1980s, and perhaps also the Mirage V supplied by the French. The United States in 2001 also approved a Pakistani request to buy thirty-six F-16 C/D aircraft, eighteen of which had been delivered by 2012. These planes have a range of 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) and can likely carry one nuclear bomb each.

Pakistan has three types of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles currently in its arsenal and is developing three additional models. Operational short-range varieties include the Ghaznavi (also known as the Hatf-3) and Shaheen-I (Hatf-4). The Ghauri (Hatf-5) is its operational medium-range missile. Another medium-range missile is under development, the Shaheen-2 (Hatf-6), as are two additional short-range systems, the Abdali (Hatf-2) and the Nasr (Hatf-9). The new Nasr system will only travel 60 kilometers (37 miles) and is clearly a tactical weapon, meant for use on troops in the battlefield rather than strategic targets in India. Kristensen suggests that the Pakistan military sees this missile as a counter to India’s conventional forces.¹¹

Pakistan is also working to develop two types of cruise missiles, the Babur (Hatf-7) and Ra’ad (Hatf-8). Both missiles are designed with stealth capabilities to minimize their radar cross section and could deliver conventional or nuclear warheads. The Babur is ground-launched and has a range of 600 kilometers (370 miles) and the Ra’ad is air-launched and has a range of 350 kilometers (220 miles). When fully operational these missiles will improve Pakistan’s strategic depth (the ability to strike at India from deep within its own territory) and signal a rapidly modernizing delivery capability.¹²

Finally, Pakistan might be working to develop a sea-based leg of its arsenal. In 2012, the Pakistan navy opened a new Naval Strategic Force Headquarters. In the press release announcing the inauguration, the navy hinted at nuclear capabilities, “The Force, which is the custodian of the nation’s second strike capability will strengthen Pakistan’s policy of credible minimum deterrence and ensure regional stability.”¹³

Experts are divided on the security of this growing nuclear arsenal. Notably, experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Atlantic Council, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have believed for years that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are secure and that the integrity of the military forces responsible for protecting those assets will not be compromised. The French analyst Bruno Tertrais succinctly summarizes this point of view in an IISS dossier from July 2012:

In the past decade a robust set of institutions and procedures has been put in place, aimed at preventing the unauthorized use, theft or sale of nuclear and other WMD-related materials and related technology. There is no doubt that the Pakistan military has been taking nuclear and WMD security very seriously—first and foremost because it is in its own interest—and that it does so in a very professional way.

Those who support this analysis believe that the main risks today are not those of ‘weapons falling into the wrong hands’ or an ‘Islamist takeover of the country.’ Rather, they are of the deliberate use of and perhaps partial loss of control of the nuclear complex in wartime, low-level leaks of WMD expertise or materials, or a radiological incident in peacetime.¹⁴

Shuja Nawaz of the Atlantic Council agrees, writing in August 2009, “Pakistan appears to be very serious about securing its nuclear assets.”¹⁵ Toby Dalton and George Perkovich, both of Carnegie, are perhaps the most unequivocal, stating in May 2011 that “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are probably quite secure from terrorists—the nukes are its crown jewels.”¹⁶

Other well-respected experts are more concerned about the safety and security of the Pakistani nuclear complex. Their concerns have deepened with increasingly frequent reports, corroborating long-standing suspicions that Pakistan’s military and intelligence services have been compromised by extremist elements.¹⁷ In November 2007, former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto challenged President Pervez Musharraf’s claim that the arsenal was secure, saying, “We have been facing chaos, growing chaos for some time.… We need to maintain Pakistan’s stability. If there is no stability, then I’m afraid the [nuclear] controls could weaken.”¹⁸ In May 2009, former U.S. intelligence official Rolf Mowatt-Larssen argued that “the insider threat combined with outsiders” could take over a nuclear facility.¹⁹

A subgroup of experts is more worried about the security of the fissile material manufactured and stored in the sprawling complex. Shaun Gregory of the University of Bradford points to several high-profile, well-coordinated terrorist attacks on Pakistani military facilities as evidence that “the safety and security of nuclear weapons materials in Pakistan may very well be compromised at some point in the future.”²⁰ David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Studies has put forth a likely scenario in which “militants or their sympathizers are able to divert nuclear material during the weapon-production process, where many more people come into contact with sensitive items.”²¹ Dalton, Hibbs, and Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also have less confidence in the country’s fissile material stocks: “As Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program grows, so too will the amount of fissile material transiting between production and assembly facilities. This theoretically creates more opportunities for terrorist attack or diversion with the help of potential sympathizers within the nuclear program.”²² Tertrais acknowledges that the security of the weapons is highly dependent on the security of the government. “In the longer term, the legal and institutional barriers that have been put into place to protect the arsenal could erode,” he says, “A weakening of the state and an increased sympathy for radical militants within the armed forces or the nuclear establishment would make for a dangerous combination.”²³

U.S. officials have consistently assured the public and Congress that the arsenal is secure, although there has been significant discussion over whether the Pakistani military services have been compromised by extremist elements and whether those elements could orchestrate a takeover of Pakistan’s civilian government. In April 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is “an issue we have very adamant assurances about from the Pakistani military and Government.… The current thinking of our Government is that it is safe.” She continued,

In November of that year, Secretary Clinton seemed more confident: “The nuclear arsenal that Pakistan has, I believe is secure. I think the government and the military have taken adequate steps to protect that.”²⁵ Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake later added, “We don’t think there is any renewed concern… those assets remain under much tighter security than what we saw in Pakistan’s naval base” (referring to the May 2011 militant attack on Pakistan’s Karachi Naval Station).²⁶ Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mullen said in July 2011 that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has become “physically more secure.”²⁷

With the rare exception of individuals like the late Benazir Bhutto, current and former Pakistani officials have also said that their nuclear assets are safe, and, moreover, that the ranks of the military divisions charged with protecting those assets remain intact and have not been infiltrated by extremist elements. Former Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said in 2010 that Islamabad had “laid to rest” any alarm about its nuclear security.²⁸ Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf was more candid in 2011 but similarly confident: “If Pakistan disintegrates, then it can be dangerous. Otherwise, if Pakistan’s integrity is there, and which I’m sure it will be there as long as the armed forces of Pakistan are there, there is no danger of the nuclear assets or strategic assets falling in any terrorist hands.”²⁹

There is a pervasive view among Pakistanis that the United States is planning to raid Pakistan in order to take its nuclear arsenal. Tom Hundley writes that this fear could be lead to dispersed storage of the arsenal:

Relations between Pakistan and India are among the most hostile on earth. Tensions date back to the birth of the two countries. When Britain pulled out of its Indian colony in 1947, it partitioned its former possession into two nations. The new Muslim state, Pakistan, comprised eastern and western territories separated by 1,000 miles of Indian territory. Partitioning was traumatic for both countries as 10 to 12 million refugees relocated across the new border. It was a bloody affair. The U.S. embassy in Karachi reported “appalling stories of murder and atrocities, which served to inflame the minds of the masses whether Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs with a sense of grievance and a not unnatural desire for revenge.”³¹ Conservative estimates put the death toll from the migration between 200,000 and 500,000.³²

Adding to the turbulence, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a champion for an independent Pakistan, died just one year after the country was formed, leaving the nation without its visionary leader. Some argue that this lack of a core identity elevated the conflict with India as the main factor legitimizing the Pakistan state.³³ The late prime minister Benazir Bhutto said:

Many issues between the two countries were left unresolved with the partition, but foremost was a territorial dispute over the states of Jammu and Kashmir. At partition, the princely maharaja ceded the two states to India, but the Muslim majority population rebelled, leading to the first Indo-Pakistani War. The United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1949, which ended the fighting but did not resolve the dispute. Kashmir continued to seethe, and war broke out again in 1965. The UN again stepped in and pushed both countries to sign the Tashkent agreement, which stipulated a return to the prewar cease-fire line.³⁵

The third major conflict with India led to the humiliation of the Pakistani army and the loss of East Pakistan. East Pakistan was predominantly ethnic Bengali, a part of the Pakistani population who felt increasingly maligned by the government. Bengali grievances coalesced into a separatist movement in 1971, which triggered a harsh crackdown by the Pakistani army. Atrocities and mass killings were so egregious that twenty U.S. State Department officials in East Pakistan sent a telegram of dissent back to Washington, calling the events genocide and chastising the U.S. policy of nonintervention as “moral bankruptcy.”³⁶

India stepped in after 10 million refugees poured across the border and in a matter of six months had completely routed the Pakistani army in East Pakistan, which then declared itself the independent nation of Bangladesh. Indian military superiority on the subcontinent was now well established. Experts agree that this war was the most traumatic event in Pakistan’s brief history, spurring many decisions with a decidedly negatively impact on the South Asian security situation. Pakistani leaders often cite the defeat as convincing proof that they need nuclear weapons—as well as private justification for beginning a low-level insurgency as a tool against India.

Not long after the war, in 1974, India conducted its first, allegedly “peaceful” nuclear test. Pakistan had already begun a secret program to develop a nuclear weapons capability, but “that test was the tipping point that transformed the 1972 ‘capability decision’ into a ‘proliferation decision.’”³⁷ Pakistan revved up its program, led by scientist A. Q. Khan, and by the mid-1980s probably had the ability to build a nuclear bomb.³⁸ In 1998, India’s newly elected conservative government shocked the world with its first overt nuclear weapons test. Despite intense international pressure Pakistan followed suit, testing a weapon a mere two weeks later.³⁹

With the dangers of conflict heightened by nuclear capability, Pakistan and India fought again in 1999, a conflict often referred to as the Kargil crisis though some cite it as a fourth war. Fighting had again erupted in Kashmir when Pakistani troops occupied territory across the line of control. India responded by mobilizing 200,000 troops and the Indian air force, recapturing the land within a few months. Owen Bennett Jones documents several instances during the crisis when Pakistani leaders considered the use of its nuclear arsenal.⁴⁰ They did so again during another crisis in 2002, where both militaries were on high alert at the border when India mobilized after a terrorist attack on its New Delhi parliament building. According to Jones, General Musharraf said, “If Indian troops moved a single step across the international border or the Line of Control, they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan.”⁴¹

India has officially adopted a policy of “Cold Start.” This is not a new kind of arms-control agreement but a plan to mass troops along the Pakistan border within days of an order. Pakistan, in turn, publicly plans to use short-range (tactical) nuclear weapons against any Indian troops that cross its border, in the belief that India will not respond as long as the weapons are not used on Indian territory. India does plan to respond, however. Walter Ladwig, a visiting fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, wrote:

Limited war on the subcontinent poses a serious risk of escalation based on a number of factors that are not necessarily under the control of the policymakers or military leaders who would initiate the conflict. A history of misperception, poor intelligence, and India’s awkward national security decision-making system suggests that Cold Start could be a risky undertaking that may increase instability in South Asia.⁴²

The Indian strategy developed after an attack by five gunmen on the Indian Parliament building in December 2001. The terrorists, who killed twelve people and injured twenty-two others, were quickly linked to Pakistani extremist groups, Laskkar-e-Taiyyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. After Pakistan refused Indian demands to arrest and extradite suspected militants, India sent armored troops toward the border, but it took them three weeks to get there. The United States and other nations intervened to prevent an invasion. “The result was a ten-month standoff that ended with India’s quiet withdrawal,” says Ladwig. “In the eyes of many senior Indian officers, Pakistan had outplayed them. It had managed to inflict a high-profile attack on the Indian capital via its proxies and then exploited the Indian Army’s long deployment time to internationalize the crisis in a manner that allowed Pakistan to escape retribution.”⁴³

India now plans, at least theoretically, to respond to the next terrorist attack with a rapid conventional strike against Pakistan, driving deep into its national territory. The aim “would be to make shallow territorial gains, 50–80 kilometers deep, that could be used in post-conflict negotiations to extract concession from Islamabad.”⁴⁴

But Pakistan would compensate for the inability of its own tanks, troops, and planes by firing nuclear weapons to stop the Indian invasion. Although the precise conditions under which Pakistan would use nuclear weapons are not clear, many experts, including Ladwig, cite the statements of Lt. General Khalid Kidwai of Pakistan to an expert delegation of Italian scientists.⁴⁵ Kidwai, then the head of the Strategic Plans Division, detailed for the group the situations in which Pakistan would use nuclear weapons: if India attacks Pakistan and conquers a large part of its territory; if India destroyed significant part of Pakistan’s military forces; if India blockaded Pakistan; or, if India tried to destabilize Pakistan politically.⁴⁶

In an article on Pakistan’s tactical nuclear build-up, Tom Hundley concludes that an escalation to full-scale nuclear war developing from “miscalculation, miscommunication or panic,” is more likely than terrorists stealing a weapon: “As these ready-to-use weapons are maneuvered closer to enemy lines, the chain of command and control would be stretched and more authority necessarily delegated to field officers. And, if they have weapons designed to repel a conventional attack, there is obviously a reasonable chance they will use them for that purpose.”⁴⁷

The situation is not entirely bleak. India’s doctrine may be more talk than capability. A leaked 2010 cable from the U.S. Mission to India calls Cold Start “a mixture of myth and reality.” The cable from the embassy concluded:

If India did mobilize its forces for attack, it might take Pakistan days, perhaps weeks, to ready its nuclear forces. Analysts at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies say that unlike U.S. or Russian weapons, thousands of which are ready to launch within tens of minutes, Pakistani nuclear systems are kept “in a low-alert form.” This means that the weapon cores are not actually in the warheads and the warheads are not mated with delivery vehicles. “According to the Defense Ministry, the launch mechanism, the device and other mechanisms are kept at different places. Nuclear safety, physical security and access (maintenance) reasons all argue for separating the fissile cores from the warheads.”⁴⁹

India’s new doctrine was severely tested by another brazen terrorist attack in November of 2008. On live news, the world watched a group of armed gunmen hold several civilian locations in Mumbai hostage in a coordinated four-day attack that killed 172 people and wounded 308. The perpetrator was again Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, based in Pakistan. Bruce Riedel believes that one objective of the attacks was to derail a peace process that was beginning to look optimistic with the rise of a new civilian government in Pakistan.⁵⁰ In the aftermath of the attack, India, under intense international pressure, did not pursue a military response. They demanded that Pakistan ban the non-state actors involved and focused on improving the response times of their police and other internal security mechanisms. But this restraint is scant reassurance for the future. If there were another large-scale terrorist attack within India, the Indian government would be under tremendous domestic pressure for a fast, firm response. Riedel notes:

Should another attack occur, the United States and the rest of the international community would undoubtedly urge restraint on India and try to press Pakistan to “do more.” But that tactic will not work forever. It amounts to playing Russian roulette in South Asia. Sooner or later a Pakistan-based terror attack on India is going to lead to Armageddon.⁵¹

These are strong words but they are not hyperbole. It may be worse than perhaps Reidel himself realizes. A South Asian nuclear war would destroy the subcontinent, perhaps the most heavily populated region on Earth. But the catastrophe would also have global climate consequences. As detailed in chapter 5, the use of just one hundred nuclear weapons would generate smoke and clouds that would blanket the planet, decreasing global temperatures, killing food crops, and triggering worldwide famine. Could that many weapons possibly be used? Yes. Pakistan’s capabilities and doctrines are unclear, but at least one former nuclear official, giving an example of the type of calculations that Pakistani planners might make, said that for a set of ten possible targets, a country might need sixty-eight to seventy warheads (without taking into account the risk of a preemptive strike).⁵² And that does not count the warheads that might be used by India.

India is actively building up its military, which some experts see as a strategic shift to compete with China rather than Pakistan.⁵³ India likely has eighty to one hundred plutonium-based nuclear weapons, which could be delivered by a triad of delivery vehicles: bombers, land-based missiles, and fairly new submarines.⁵⁴ Aircraft are the strongest leg of the triad. India has nuclear-capable Mirage 2000H/Vajra and Jaguar IS/IB/Shamsher fighter-bombers with a range of up to 1,800 km.⁵⁵ In 2011, India completed a $15 billion deal with France to purchase 126 nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets to modernize its bomber capabilities.⁵⁶ The country has a range of options for its land-based missiles. The short range Prithvi I only travels 150 kilometers; the Agni I has a range of 700 kilometers; the Agni II, 2,000 kilometers; and the Agni III, 3,000 kilometers. In 2012, missile tests were successfully conducted for the Agni V, making India one of the few countries with missiles that can reach 5,000 kilometers.⁵⁷ Finally, India has launched the indigenously built Arihant submarine, which is slated to become fully operational in early 2013. The submarine will be capable of carrying twelve missiles with a range of 750 kilometers. There are plans to build at least two more Arihant-class submarines in the future.⁵⁸

One problem with India’s nuclear arsenal is its lack of transparency, which greatly heightens tensions in the region. Hans Kristensen writes:

All Indian nuclear systems are dual-capable (they can carry either nuclear or conventional warheads), and the operational status of these systems is ambiguous. This not only makes the size, composition and readiness of India’s nuclear arsenal difficult to determine, but it also has troubling implications for stability on the subcontinent, especially in the case of a war with Pakistan; for example, preparations for an Indian launch of a conventionally armed nuclear-capable ballistic missile could be misidentified by Pakistan as a pending nuclear attack, triggering nuclear escalation of the conflict.⁵⁹

Pakistan’s other neighbor, China, also exacerbates the problem. China and Pakistan developed diplomatic ties shortly after Pakistan’s independence and continue to be allies today. China has consistently supplied Pakistan with missile, aircraft, and nuclear technology and allegedly had ties to the A. Q. Khan network. China also finances significant infrastructure projects in Pakistan for the energy, engineering, mining, and telecommunications sectors.⁶⁰ Also raising eyebrows is China’s plan to build two new nuclear reactors at Chashma despite pressure from the international community, which maintains that this would violate international nonproliferation rules.⁶¹ The worse U.S.-Pakistan relations get, the more Pakistani leaders threaten to move closer to China. After the 2011 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, China’s prime minister responded that Pakistan and China “will remain forever good neighbors, good friends, good partners and good brothers.”⁶²

U.S. policy options for Pakistan are limited. Previous administrations—Republican and Democrat—have so badly mismanaged relations with Pakistan that it will take years to get in a position where we might be able to seriously reduce the nuclear risks. There is no silver bullet. The Eighty-second Airborne cannot be sent in to secure or destroy Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in case of a government collapse. Even if we knew where all of them were—which we do not—U.S. troops would have to fight the Pakistan Army to get to the storage locations.

As I wrote for the 2008 paperback edition of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons,

The majority of Pakistan’s security establishment and general population seem convinced the United States intends to take over its nuclear weapons, thereby stripping Pakistan of its supposed guarantor of security and its most potent bargaining chip. After the May 2011 bin Laden raid in Abbottabad, U.S.-Pakistani relations went into free fall. Rather than investigating how bin Laden was living undetected in a town full of military establishments, the Pakistani government arrested the doctor who helped the CIA find bin Laden and sentenced him to thirty-three years in prison.⁶⁴ Disputes over the use of U.S. drones to target suspected terrorists escalated; Pakistan officials canceled trips to Washington; and poll numbers showed that the Pakistani population hated America more than India.⁶⁵

Pakistan also closed the ground routes crucial to resupplying NATO troops in Afghanistan after a clash with NATO forces killed twenty-four Pakistani soldiers in November 2011. After several rounds of acrimonious negotiations, the routes were reopened in July 2012. The seven months of using alternate routes through Russia and Caucusus states cost the Pentagon $2.1 billion dollars.⁶⁶ Vali Nasr, hoped this might pave the way to better relations:

Others are more skeptical, particularly as the United States continued its policy of drone strikes against suspected terrorist targets. “You can’t undertake unilateral attacks on Pakistan’s soil and say that you are friends of Pakistan,” retired Pakistani general Saleem Haider told NPR in July 2012. “There’s a contradiction in this.” These disagreements have “given rise to intense anti-Americanism,” reported NPR’s Mike Shuster, evident at protests in Pakistani cities in July where “many banners called for closing the border to NATO resupply convoys once again and for jihad against the U.S.”⁶⁸

In the United States, Congress is wary of adding to the billions of dollars in military aid and nonmilitary assistance given to Pakistan over the past decade. Lawmakers withheld nearly 40 percent of U.S. military aid to Pakistan for fiscal year 2012. This might be a good sign. For decades, U.S. policy makers have put geopolitical considerations ahead of proliferation concerns, human rights, and democracy (certifying to Congress, for example, that Pakistan did not have a nuclear weapons program when all U.S. intelligence showed that it could already build a bomb). This has only increased the role of the military in Pakistan, alienated the Pakistani people, increased extremist influences, and allowed Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan to spread nuclear technology around the globe. Indeed, if it were not for Pakistan, we might not have an Iranian nuclear program to worry about, at least not on the scale Iran achieved by 2012. Khan is heralded in his country as the “father of the atomic bomb,” but he made millions selling Iran the design and parts for its first generation of centrifuges for enriching uranium, may have given Iran a working design for a nuclear weapon, and arranged a steady stream of assistance for Iran’s nuclear scientists and technicians.⁶⁹

Decreasing aid to Pakistan’s military is a reasonable first step, but far more is needed: a comprehensive reorientation of the strategic relationship. In October 2012, the International Security Advisory Board presented its recommendations to the secretary of state on such a reorientation. I was a member of the board and of the Pakistan Study Group chaired by MacArthur Foundation president Robert Gallucci that prepared the report. “The situation in Pakistan today poses certain risks for our security and international security generally,” the board warned. “That situation, quite likely, will deteriorate in the coming months and years, posing grave threats to American interests.”⁷⁰

Our national security interests are clear, said the board, and they include “an over-riding national interest in preventing nuclear weapons or fissile material from being transferred, lost, or stolen from Pakistani authorities. This risk will only increase as Pakistan begins to operate more and larger nuclear facilities.” The United States, of course, is also interested in “preventing a South Asian nuclear war, slowing the Pakistani nuclear weapons program and avoiding a nuclear arms race with India. These goals will be served by reduced tension and increased confidence between India and Pakistan, and the U.S. should clearly work to promote this movement.”⁷¹

The board recognized that our immediate national-security interests in Pakistan, as pointed out early in this chapter, could only be realized if the United States has a coherent global and regional strategy. Specifically, the board noted,

The long-term interests of the U.S. vis-à-vis Pakistan should be a major part of our national strategy towards the region, broadly defined. These long-term interests can be ignored only at our peril and can be damaged if we focus exclusively on short-term dangers. These long-term interests are:

To influence to the best of our ability the gradual evolution of all elements of the Muslim world toward more tolerant, democratic and modern societies, integrated with the rest of the world, and providing little encouragement for Islamist extremism and terrorism.

To accommodate the rise of China and of India to major power status in a way that results in a stable international system in the Asia-Pacific region.

To encourage India and Pakistan to resolve their differences over Kashmir and other disputed areas, and to develop mutually beneficial economic relations.

To promote conditions that permit the strengthening of Afghanistan’s governmental and civil society institutions so that Afghanistan can maintain its independence and enjoy mutually beneficial relations with its neighbors.

To prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons capabilities beyond those nations that now possess them, to discourage the use of nuclear weapons, and eventually to roll back the nuclear weapons arsenals of all states that currently possess them.

To develop regional strategies and relations even farther afield, to include Iran and the region of the Persian Gulf.⁷²

The United States is Pakistan’s top export market, and a full one-third of Pakistani foreign direct investment comes from the United States.⁷³ This is to the U.S. advantage, and experts almost unanimously agree that encouraging stronger trade ties by offering Pakistan preferential trade status and lowering tariffs, particularly in the textile sectors, will help the relationship at no cost to the American economy.⁷⁴ This would help strengthen the private sector and would help combat chronically high unemployment rates.

Another productive step would be for the United States to quietly encourage expanded trade between Pakistan and India. In 2011, there was a mere $2.6 billion worth of trade between the two countries, compared with almost $100 billion in trade between India and China.⁷⁵ There is much opportunity for greater prosperity on both sides of the border and increased bilateral dialogue along with it.

Pakistan has already taken some steps in this direction. In 2011, the government decided to offer India favored-nation status and is currently revising some customs restrictions.⁷⁶ Both countries also relaxed visa requirements for businesspeople and tourists traveling across the border with an agreement signed September 8, 2012.⁷⁷ The United States would be wise to make the most of this momentum, says Moeed Yusuf, a Pakistan expert at the U.S. Institute for Peace. He says that the United States could encourage this transaction by offering to compensate Pakistan for any initial losses occurred from importing Indian goods.⁷⁸ These simple reforms would stimulate Pakistan’s economy, employ millions of young and economically displaced Pakistanis who otherwise might be prime targets for recruitment by terrorist organizations, and put more money in the pockets of the Pakistani consumers—all without putting U.S. producers at risk.

A more productive economy would potentially wean Pakistan off of American aid that is already beginning to be withheld in a U.S. domestic environment of tight budgets and hostile public opinion. Although America has consistently given Pakistan aid through the years, the amount varies greatly according to American objectives in South Asia. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets during the 1980s brought a large stream of security assistance, which dried up after the end of the Cold War. The next influx of aid came for counterterrorism efforts after 9/11. As the United States pulls out of Afghanistan in the next few years, aid is almost certain to decrease. Whatever the aid level, the practice of sending the overwhelming majority of the aid to Pakistan’s military should end. Reduced military funding seems inevitable and wise, but Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Daniel Markey warns:

Alone, cutting U.S. military assistance will not force Pakistan to reassess its strategic posture. Pakistan’s generals probably benefit from the assistance more than they claim, but they can also do without it. And anti-American sentiment in Pakistan is so intense at the moment, including within the ranks of the army, that Pakistan’s generals can hardly appear to bow before U.S. pressure. So if Obama administration officials believe that assistance cuts and public rebukes [alone] offer enough leverage to coerce a Pakistani about-face, they will be sorely disappointed.⁷⁹

Diversifying and targeting the aid will help. In 2009 Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced legislation to increase aid to the civilian sector of Pakistan. Education in particular has been called “the single most important long-term issue facing the country.”⁸⁰ Pakistan faces a 50 percent illiteracy rate and an education system ranked among the worst in the world. Pakistani teachers rarely show up, and the available textbooks contain material that encourages extremist views toward India, women, and other religions and countries.⁸¹ The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 (also known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill) provided $7.5 billion in nonmilitary aid to Pakistan from 2010 to 2014,⁸² which triples the amount of U.S. assistance from previous years and, as of 2009, made the United States the largest source of bilateral aid to Pakistan.⁸³

So far, implementation has been slow. A March 2011 USAID report on implementation of nonmilitary aid under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill said: “For fiscal year (FY) 2010, Congress appropriated more than $1.5 billion but by 30 June 2010 much of the money had yet to reach the field.”⁸⁴ Nonetheless, Robert Lamb and Sadika Hameed of the Center for Strategic and International Studies recommend giving this aid package more time for the results to manifest: “It is difficult to see how cutting aid to Pakistan would contribute to the U.S. interest in a capable Pakistani state. Any changes to Kerry-Lugar should be designed to strengthen capacity or reduce contributors to instability—not remove the possibility to strengthen capacity.”⁸⁵

Most aid to Pakistan is still in the form of military assistance meant to support Pakistan’s effort to combat extremists in the tribal areas. Two funds established in 2009, the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund and the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, go directly to security measures in addition to reimbursements from the coalition support fund. From 2002 through 2012 this aid has totaled about $15.8 billion.⁸⁶

There are steps that can be taken to improve this security aid. Several Pakistan experts have highlighted a deficiency in helicopters, which a report by the Council on Foreign Relations notes are essential to transporting troops for counterinsurgency operations in mountainous terrain.⁸⁷ Although there would be well-founded concerns over how Pakistan would actually use those helicopters (for example, as weapons against India) Bruce Riedel and Shuja Nawaz agree that this may be the single most useful thing the United States could do. “It may not be out of the box [thinking], but it is the right answer. Advice and expertise are helpful, but the real sign of support is equipment, especially for air mobility,” Riedel said. Nawaz makes the crucial point that Pakistani officials need to be involved in planning for aid targets and establishing performance indicators.⁸⁸ This will invest them in the process and improve aid effectiveness for both military and nonmilitary goals.

First, the United States should certainly encourage both sides to engage in bilateral talks on the issue while staying mindful that both sides face entrenched domestic opposition on Kashmir.⁹⁰ New Delhi would almost certainly resist any public pressure; however, experts agree that the United States should be actively but discreetly encouraging both sides toward talks. Even slow motion on Kashmir is better than no motion. The potential for conflict leading to a nuclear exchange is best mitigated through open lines of communication, which encourage crisis-escalation control during times of heightened tensions. The United States should ensure that bilateral efforts are not derailed despite terrorist provocations and mutual suspicion.

There are fragile signs of progress. In 2012, Pakistan and India held talks on demilitarization of the Siachen glacier in Kashmir, often called the “highest battlefield in earth.” India captured the mountains in 1984, and both sides have stationed troops in the snowy peaks ever since. More soldiers die from the harsh conditions than the fighting, however.⁹¹ In April 2012, a massive avalanche killed 140 Pakistani Army troops encamped there. Although the talks are moving slowly—they were in their thirteenth round at the time of this writing in July 2012—it is confidence-building measures like these that are vital to defusing regional tensions.⁹²

Michael Krepon at Stimson Center kept a database detailing confidence-building measures (CBMs) between India and Pakistan over the past twenty years. He finds that measures that require little political capital (such as the release of fisherman captured in disputed waters) happen often but rarely lead to more formal military or nuclear confidence-building measures. Only six formal CBMs have been counted since the mid-1980s. Krepon notes:

This is a meager list of accomplishments for a quarter-century of diplomatic engagement. In the same timeline, the United States and the Soviet Union went from a fierce nuclear arms competition to deep cuts in nuclear forces. Other military-related CBMs between Pakistan and India can easily be envisioned—such as a cruise missile flight test notification agreement, an incidents at sea agreement, and a withdrawal from current positions on the Siachen Glacier—but the timing is not yet ripe for these accords.⁹³

Second, the U.S. government should reassess how it pursues its own dialogue with Pakistan. There is little question that the United States should lend more support to the civilian leadership of the Pakistani government and be firmer when dealing with the military leadership so that recognition of and long-term support for the civilian government is not undermined. Although ostensibly a democracy, Pakistan has bounced back and forth between civilian and military leadership since its creation. The military often acts without the knowledge of elected officials and vice-versa.

Historically, America has close ties to the military because of close collaboration against the Soviets in the 1980s. Bruce Riedel and other experts agree that going straight to the military with American concerns—even if there is a more productive relationship there—damages civilian institutions and severely undermines the legitimacy of the elected government.⁹⁴ The International Crisis Group says, “The interests of the international community, the U.S. and EU in particular, are best served by a politically stable, democratically-governed state, and not a military-backed government with a civilian façade.”⁹⁵ This should be foremost in the U.S. mindset when dealing with Pakistan. Experts recognize that the United States won’t be able to solve this problem completely but should work with both sides to create tools to prevent crisis. The Council on Foreign Relations Task Force suggests:

The United States cannot rectify the civil-military power imbalance that plagues the Pakistani state. It can, however, regularly reiterate its preference for democratic rule and take pains to involve Pakistan’s civilian leaders in all major bilateral dialogues. Washington should target support to partners and institutions that share common goals.⁹⁶

It is of foremost importance that America stays engaged with Pakistan despite difficulties in the relationship. As Daniel Painter at the American Security Project wrote, “In the frustrating, complex process of working with Pakistan, it is tempting to simply walk away, writing Pakistan off as rogue state. This would be a mistake. National security demands the U.S. continue to engage Pakistan to address these nuclear threats.”⁹⁷

First, India and Pakistan could become more transparent on fissile material stocks. As Moeed Yusuf of the U.S. Institute of Peace suggested in January 2011, “both sides need to discuss the logic of their fissile missile stockpile trajectories.”⁹⁸ Declarations of un-reprocessed rather than reprocessed spent-fuel stocks would be more technically ambiguous and, therefore, more politically digestible to both because sharing the amount of spent fuel that has been reprocessed would reveal the size of each country’s plutonium stocks, which certainly is a matter of national security and a closely guarded secret. Nonetheless, sharing information on un-reprocessed spent fuel would allow each country to extrapolate from gathered data the other’s potential for plutonium stockpiling, which would increase transparency in the near term and build confidence in the long term, creating space for India and Pakistan to discuss additional nuclear-related confidence-building measures.

Second, India and Pakistan should establish a direct executive hotline similar to the Moscow-Washington hotline that was born of the lessons learned from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. India and Pakistan can create a similar direct connection that links together the prime ministers of both countries for immediate and direct communications during periods of crisis escalation. A similar hotline was set up in March 2011 between the Pakistani Interior Ministry and the Indian Home Ministry to share terrorist-related information in real time, and before that a hotline was agreed upon between the Foreign Ministries, though whether it has been operational is unclear. A direct executive-branch-level hotline that follows these templates would, as Moeed Yusuf writes, “force the two sides to communicate directly during crises instead of relying on a third party.”⁹⁹

Third, India and Pakistan should set up nuclear-risk-reduction centers. Such centers could follow the U.S.-Russia model, facilitating data and information sharing and lowering the potential for escalation during a crisis. Mohammed Badrul Alam of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi notes: “The idea of having a nuclear risk reduction center in each country has received favorable reactions both within and outside of South Asia, including from skeptics who had felt such a proposal to be too unrealistic.”¹⁰⁰

Fourth, India and Pakistan should engage in exchanges between the authorities in both countries who are responsible for managing the civilian uses of nuclear energy to share best practices. Immediately after the disaster at Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, Pakistan raised concerns about nuclear safety at its Chashma site.¹⁰¹ As A. H. Nayyar, M. V. Ramana, and Zia Mian write, “The first lesson for South Asian publics and decision-makers is that nuclear establishments underestimate the likelihood and severity of possible accidents.”¹⁰² Both India and Pakistan have an opportunity to share best practices and learn from each other.

The Track II Ottawa Dialogue that took place in July 2011 between current and retired Indian and Pakistani government officials yielded some concrete recommendations,¹⁰³ including an endorsement of nuclear-risk-reduction centers. Additionally, the Ottawa Dialogue participants recommended that officials and scientists from the Indian and Pakistani civilian nuclear programs convene to share their regulatory experiences and discuss nuclear safety.

Finally, the United States should rule out any U.S-Pakistan nuclear-cooperation agreement under current conditions. This issue is divisive among Pakistan experts. Moheed Yusuf points out that the Pakistanis feel the United States discriminates against them. The United States, after all, negotiated and signed a Civil Nuclear Agreement with India that gave India generous conditions for nuclear trade while requiring few real concessions. This agreement undermined the credibility of the United States as an objective proponent of bilateral efforts between Pakistan and India. Yusuf argues for a similar deal with Pakistan, a process that could begin he says, by “reassuring Pakistan by setting preconditions for initiation of talks on a nuclear deal and finding ways to bring Pakistan and India into the legal ambit of the non-proliferation regime, with all its responsibilities.”¹⁰⁴ An agreement could bolster energy security and perhaps establish some IAEA safeguards on nuclear facilities, says Shuja Nawaz.¹⁰⁵ Finally, some argue that even if it is unlikely that a deal would be signed, the process would still have value. Bruce Riedel argues that the process would “open the door to greater dialogue on Pakistan’s past and to more transparency about where it is going.” He warns, “If the United States does not [offer Pakistan a nuclear cooperation deal], China will.”¹⁰⁶

But compounding one bad decision with another is not the way to improve U.S.-Pakistan ties or encourage reduction in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Indeed, there is evidence that the U.S.-India nuclear deal stimulated Pakistan’s desire to increase its nuclear arsenal. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report cited Pakistani air commodore Khalid Banuri, director of arms control and disarmament affairs, who listed the India deal along with India’s conventional build-up and missile-defense research as reasons Pakistan decided “to make qualitative and quantitative adjustments.”¹⁰⁷

Many experts believe a Pakistani nuclear deal would further undermine the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty on a global scale. Moreover, a U.S.-Pakistan nuclear cooperation agreement lacks support, both internationally and domestically in Congress. Experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace point out that Pakistan lacks the necessary lobby in Washington to get an agreement passed and that nuclear companies would be hesitant to invest in Pakistan because of terrorism concerns.¹⁰⁸ The Council on Foreign Relations Task Force agrees that seeking an agreement “would only serve to frustrate both sides by raising false hopes and diverting attention from other pressing issues. But the Obama administration should do more to help tackle Pakistan’s serious energy needs by nonnuclear means.”¹⁰⁹

None of these steps by itself will solve the Pakistan problem. But together they can reorient U.S. policy, improve Pakistan-India relations, improve Pakistan’s economy, reduce incentives for violent upheaval, decrease misunderstanding during crisis, and begin a more hopeful trajectory for the subcontinent. While Pakistan will likely remain the most dangerous country on earth for many years, these are actionable steps the U.S. and others can pursue to steadily reduce the risks of a nuclear catastrophe and allow Pakistan to one day realize its enormous potential.