Scary! In 10 years Pakistan could be world’s 3rd biggest nuclear power

A Senate Defence Committee, led by Mushahid Husain, on its visit to the Joint Staff (JS) Headquarters was told India had over the last two years acquired weapons worth 100 bn dollars 80 per cent of which were Pakistan-specific, Pakistan media reported.

“We reject the report’s assertion that Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal as utterly baseless”, the Foreign Office Spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said in a statement issued on Friday.

The newspaper also quoted Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani security commentator, as saying that Islamabad’s nuclear program was conceived to deter New Delhi, implying that the rate of its expansion is inextricably linked to India’s program.

“Assuming that each nuclear weapon would require five kg of plutonium or 15 kg of HEU, with existing stockpiles of fissile material India could theoretically construct up to 120 weapons, while Pakistan could construct up to 240″.

However, Ahmed did not dispute that Pakistan’s military is seeking to expand its nuclear capabilities.

A report in The Washington Post said that Pakistani military officials were not available to comment on the report when it was made available to journalists on Wednesday.

Western officials and analysts have struggled for years to get an accurate assessment of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. “It’s a culture that has been built up over the years because [nuclear weapons] have provided a credible deterrence against external aggression”. Pakistan has prepared for this eventuality by investing in a large nuclear weapons production complex.

But the report says India appears to be using most of its plutonium to produce domestic energy.

Obviously, we continue to urge all nuclear-capable states, including Pakistan, to exercise restraint regarding furthering their nuclear capabilities.

Both India and Pakistan declared themselves a nuclear power with a series of tests in May 1998. Just as the Soviet Union’s large nuclear arsenal was of no help whatsoever for its manifold economic and societal weaknesses, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons do not address its internal challenges.

On the other hand, India is only operating one plutonium reactor, and it seems to be developing around five nuclear warheads annually. The worldwide community is unlikely to accommodate Pakistan’s desire to enter the nuclear mainstream without corresponding steps by Paki- stan to align aspects of its nuclear policy and practices closer with global norms. France, China and the United Kingdom each possess between 200 and 300 warheads, while India is now thought to have about 100. Meanwhile, China has approximately 250.