Summary
Since their inception, nuclear weapons have multiplied at an alarming rate, leaving everyone from policymakers to concerned citizens wondering what it will take to slow, stop, or even reverse their spread. With clarity and expertise, Joseph Cirincione presents an even-handed look at the history of nuclear proliferation and an optimistic vision of its future, providing a comprehensive survey of the wide range of critical perspectives.
Cirincione begins with the first atomic discoveries of the 1930s and covers the history of their growth all the way to current crisis with Iran. He unravels the science, strategy, and politics that have fueled the development of nuclear stockpiles and increased the chance of a nuclear terrorist attack. He also explains why many nations choose not to pursue nuclear weapons and pulls from this the outlines of a solution to the world’s proliferation problem: a balance of force and diplomacy, enforcement and engagement that yields a steady decrease in these deadly arsenals.
Though nuclear weapons have not been used in war since August 1945, there is no guarantee this good fortune will continue. A unique blend of history, theory, and security analysis, Bomb Scare is an engaging text that not only supplies the general reader and student with a clear understanding of this issue but also provides a set of tools policymakers and scholars can use to prevent the cataclysmic consequences of another nuclear attack.
Country or Region: Pakistan
Salik, Naeem
Summary
The Genesis of South Asian Nuclear Deterrence is an attempt to provide a complete picture of the dynamics of South Asian nuclearization. It covers the historic evolution of the technological developments of the Indian and Pakistani programs and the nuances of the countries’ respective policies towards the international non-proliferation regime. The book also covers developments since May 1998 in the two countries with respect to the development and articulation of their nuclear doctrines, setting up of command and control systems and the creeping operationalization of their nuclear capabilities.
Naeem Salki provides an overview of the rapidly developing nuclear delivery systems in India and Pakistan as well as their efforts at stabilizing the nuclear environment by agreeing on some significant nuclear and missiles related Confidence Building Measures. Given the controversies, myths and misconceptions surrounding the A.Q. Khan network the book attempts to provide a realistic and balanced view of the episode. It also addresses issues related to international concerns about safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Rehman, Shahid-Ur
Book on history of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Book title derived from Chagai-I, the name given to the five underground nuclear tests conducted by Pakistan in May 1998.
Langewiesche, William
Summary
In his shocking and revelatory new work, the celebrated journalist William Langewiesche investigates the burgeoning global threat of nuclear weapons production. This is the story of the inexorable drift of nuclear weapons technology from the hands of the rich into the hands of the poor. As more unstable and undeveloped nations find ways of acquiring the ultimate arms, the stakes of state-sponsored nuclear activity have soared to frightening heights. Even more disturbing is the likelihood of such weapons being manufactured and deployed by guerrilla non-state terrorists.
Langewiesche also recounts the recent history of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist who masterminded the theft and sale of centrifuge designs that helped to build Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and who single-handedly peddled nuclear plans to North Korea, Iran, and other potentially hostile countries. He then examines in dramatic and tangible detail the chances for nuclear terrorism.
From Hiroshima to the present day, Langewiesche describes a reality of urgent consequence to us all. This searing, provocative, and timely report is a triumph of investigative journalism, and a masterful laying out of the most critical political problem the world now faces.
Chambers, Michael, ed
Summary
Whither South Asia? This is not a question that has troubled many Americans, although the number has been growing over the last few years. The nuclear weapons tests of 1998 and the Kargil crisis of 1999 helped to increase that number. But as this is written in June 2002, perhaps more Americans than ever are concerned about the future of South Asia. This, of course, is a result of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 (9/11 as it is often referred to) and the resulting war on terrorism that has been conducted in part through Pakistan. It is also a result of the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian Parliament by Islamic militants out of Kashmir, and the escalation of tensions that followed between India and Pakistan. By June 2002, these two nuclear-armed neighbors seemed on the threshold of war.
In an attempt to answer this increasingly pressing question, the Asia/Pacific Research Center and the Center for International Security and Cooperation of Stanford University joined the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute to cosponsor a conference on January 4-5, 2002. This volume consists of revised versions of papers presented at that conference.
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Khan, Feroz
Summary
The history of Pakistan’s nuclear program is the history of Pakistan. Fascinated with the new nuclear science, the young nation’s leaders launched a nuclear energy program in 1956 and consciously interwove nuclear developments into the broader narrative of Pakistani nationalism. Then, impelled first by the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan Wars, and more urgently by India’s first nuclear weapon test in 1974, Pakistani senior officials tapped into the country’s pool of young nuclear scientists and engineers and molded them into a motivated cadre committed to building the ‘ultimate weapon.’ The tenacity of this group and the central place of its mission in Pakistan’s national identity allowed the program to outlast the perennial political crises of the next 20 years, culminating in the test of a nuclear device in 1998.
Written by a 30-year professional in the Pakistani Army who played a senior role formulating and advocating Pakistan’s security policy on nuclear and conventional arms control, this book tells the compelling story of how and why Pakistan’s government, scientists, and military, persevered in the face of a wide array of obstacles to acquire nuclear weapons. It lays out the conditions that sparked the shift from a peaceful quest to acquire nuclear energy into a full-fledged weapons program, details how the nuclear program was organized, reveals the role played by outside powers in nuclear decisions, and explains how Pakistani scientists overcome the many technical hurdles they encountered. Thanks to General Khan’s unique insider perspective, it unveils and unravels the fascinating and turbulent interplay of personalities and organizations that took place and reveals how international opposition to the program only made it an even more significant issue of national resolve.
Kapur, Ashok
Frantz, Douglas, and Catherine Collins
Summary
The world has entered a second nuclear age. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation is on the rise. Should such an assault occur, there is a strong likelihood that the trail of devastation will lead back to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani father of the Islamic bomb and the mastermind behind a vast clandestine enterprise that has sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Khan’s loose-knit organization was and still may be a nuclear Wal-Mart, selling weapons blueprints, parts, and the expertise to assemble the works into a do-it-yourself bomb kit. Amazingly, American authorities could have halted his operation, but they chose instead to watch and wait. Khan proved that the international safeguards the world relied on no longer worked.
Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins tell this alarming tale of international intrigue through the eyes of the European and American officials who suspected Khan, tracked him, and ultimately shut him down, but only after the nuclear genie was long out of the bottle.
Durrani, Mahmud Ali
The introduction of nuclear weapons into the national defense structures of Pakistan and India in
1998 has not brought an era of peace and stability as some had forecast. Full-scale war was only
narrowly avoided in 1999 and 2002. The objective of this study is to evaluate the stability of
deterrence, particularly the concept of minimum deterrence in South Asia today. Within this
context, the study analyzes Pakistan’s strategic thinking about the role of nuclear weapons.
Interviews with Pakistani and U.S. officials, ex-officials, military officers, and academics were
conducted to gain insight into the development of policy. Site visits to civilian nuclear facilities
were also conducted. The conclusions outline a path for Pakistan that would help achieve nuclear
stability in South Asia, including a possible role for the U.S.
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Corera, Gordon
Summary
A.Q. Khan was the world’s leading black market dealer in nuclear technology, described by a former CIA Director as “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.” A hero in Pakistan and revered as the Father of the Bomb, Khan built a global clandestine network that sold the most closely guarded nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
Here for the first time is the riveting inside story of the rise and fall of A.Q. Khan and his role in the devastating spread of nuclear technology over the last thirty years. Drawing on exclusive interviews with key players in Islamabad, London, and Washington, as well as with members of Khan’s own network, BBC journalist Gordon Corera paints a truly unsettling picture of the ultimate arms bazaar. Corera reveals how Khan operated within a world of shadowy deals among rogue states and how his privileged position in Pakistan provided him with the protection to build his unique and deadly business empire. It explains why and how he was able to operate so freely for so many years. Brimming with revelations, the book provides new insight into Iran’s nuclear ambitions and how close Tehran may be to the bomb.
In addition, the book contains startling new information on how the CIA and MI6 penetrated Khan’s network, how the U.S. and UK ultimately broke Khan’s ring, and how they persuaded Pakistan’s President Musharraf to arrest a national hero. The book also provides the first detailed account of the high-wire dealings with Muammar Gadaffi, which led to Libya’s renunciation of nuclear weapons and which played a key role in Khan’s downfall.
The spread of nuclear weapons technology around the globe presents the greatest security challenge of our time. Shopping for Bombs presents a unique window into the challenges of stopping a new nuclear arms race, a race that A.Q. Khan himself did more than any other individual to promote.
Clary, Christopher
Summary
Following revelations in 2003 about the illicit sale of Pakistani nuclear technology to Iran and Libya, Pakistan initiated an investigation. On February 4, 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a national hero for his role in Pakistan’s nuclear program, addressed his nation on television. Khan confirmed: “The investigation has established that many of the reported activities did occur, and that these were invariably initiated at my behest.” His explanation was less forthcoming. The “activities … were based in good faith but on errors of judgment.” His subordinates were just following orders.
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Sinha, Prem Bahadur
Moshaver, Ziba
Summary
This book examines nuclear proliferation in the two major threshold countries in the Indian subcontinent, India and Pakistan. Both countries are at the forefront of international concern over weapons proliferation for being involved in nuclear activities which could provide the capability to produce nuclear weapons, and for having retained the political and diplomatic option to do so. The subject is tackled from an international relations viewpoint. It looks at the issue of proliferation in terms of the evolution in the two countries’ perception of national, regional, and international security imperatives. Each country’s civil nuclear program and its arms control diplomacy is also examined to see whether they facilitate or inhibit a decision to proliferation, and it what way. The study concludes that while India and Pakistan are strongly determined to retain their nuclear option, and that they are both engaged in perfecting this option, neither country is yet committed to a weapons program. thus there is a nuclear stalemate in the subcontinent and any change of policy would take into consideration complex political, strategic, economic, and diplomatic interests. These interests have so far discouraged nuclear proliferation. The future depends on national, regional and international stability on the one hand, and global perceptions of nuclear deterrence and trends in the nuclear arms race and disarmament on the other.
Mian, Zia
Summary
This book is a collection of papers written by Pakistani atomic weapon and policy experts who support disarmament in South Asia. The essay topics range from discussing the myths and realities of nuclear weapons possession, to the idea of nuclear security, to the regional issues associated with nuclear weapons. There are biographies of all of the contributors, as well a glossary and an appendix which gives a brief explanation of what is needed to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
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Matinuddin, Kamal
Summary
Tracing the nuclear and missile programs of India and Pakistan from their inception, this book places an important focus on their present state. It highlights security models, shedding light on the role of outside powers in promoting or retarding nuclear weapon status. It also discusses theories of nuclear deterrence and suggests that the likelihood of their failure is strongest in South Asia.
