Bast, Andrew

Abstract
In recent years, Pakistan has developed the world’s fastest-growing nuclear weapons program. The most current estimates are that Pakistan now possesses enough fissile material for more than 100 warheads, which makes it the world’s sixth largest arsenal, and is stockpiling enough material to manufacture as many as 20 additional weapons a year. These current growth rates will almost undoubtedly be proven to be conservative over the next 20–30 years, given the revelation in May that  Islamabad is constructing a fourth plutonium reactor at the Khushab nuclear site about 140 miles south of the capital. That newest reactor will come online as soon as 2013 and significantly increase Pakistan’s production capacity.
Considered in a global context, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal looks even more extreme. In the next decade, only two states—Pakistan and India—are  expected to increase their nuclear weapons arsenal. (North Korea also could weaponize its program, and many in theWest believe that Iran has nuclear weapons ambitions.) Granted, the United States and Russia still possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, but those two countries have now spent decades negotiating reductions of their arsenals and are expected to continue slashing for decades to come. By 2021, however, Pakistan is expected to double the number of weapons in its arsenal to at least 200, surpassing the United Kingdom. Soon thereafter, analysts say there is a good chance that Pakistan will even surpass France to become the world’s third largest nuclear-armed state.
The author argues that the decisions being undertaken in Islamabad are both strategic and rational. At the same time, it is unclear what the West is currently doing to disincentivize Pakistan from stockpiling fissile material and expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal. What is clear, however, is that to devise any long-term strategy to reverse the momentum in Islamabad, and in turn increase the trust and cooperation necessary to address the questions of nuclear security, one must understand exactly where Pakistan’s nuclear program is heading, and why it is on a trajectory at odds with nearly every other nuclear-capable country in the world.
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