Cover Story

Pakistan’s Missile Programme

A Force for Peace and Stability in South Asia

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme was conceived as ‘The Great Equalizer’ against India. It was always India-specific, and it will remain India-specific. Pakistan has no other agenda.

By Lt Gen (R) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, NI, HI, HI (M) | February 2025


When one examines the history of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, as distinct from the civil nuclear energy programme, wherein, the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant -1 (KANUPP-1) was constructed and commissioned in the period 1966-1971, one can safely conclude that the nuclear weapons programme was a direct outcome of the 1971 debacle in East Pakistan. In early 1972, to foreclose forever the recurrence of any similar military debacle in the future, especially with a permanent state of relative asymmetry in conventional forces between Pakistan and India, the then President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto challenged Pakistan’s nuclear scientific community, in a meeting in Multan, to give Pakistan a “nuclear bomb” as soon as possible. The Pakistani desperation to develop The Great Equalizer viz India was enshrined in Bhutto’s famous quote that Pakistanis would eat grass but would have the nuclear bomb, or words to that effect. It was Pakistan’s “Never Again” moment. Subsequently, India’s first nuclear test at Pokhran in May 1974 simply reinforced the Pakistani determination to fast-track the national nuclear effort in order to strike a strategic balance in South Asia.

Pakistani nuclear scientists and engineers rose to Bhutto’s challenge and, given absolute support over the years, irrespective of the politics or governments of the day, they delivered to the nation, in style, on the mission assigned. On 28th and 30th May 1998, Pakistan conducted six nuclear tests at Chaghi in response to India’s five nuclear tests on 11th and 13th May 1998 at Pokhran.

India and Pakistan became the 6th and 7th nuclear weapons powers respectively in the world. Both were non-signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Strategic Balance in South Asia was established, forever; Pakistan’s perennial dilemma of relative conventional asymmetry viz India stood resolved forever; and doors to Indian aggression against Pakistan were closed, forever.

Proof:
No major war has taken place between India and Pakistan since 1971 because of the plain but simple illogical logic of the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Notwithstanding low-level provocations, better sense ever since has always prevailed at the end of the day in view of the large nuclear weapons inventories of India and Pakistan, lurking over the horizon, and acting as strategic deterrence to war.

It would be prudent on their part to register that Pakistan “does not have a No First Use policy.” Pakistan’s Full Spectrum Deterrence capability has an overarching reach to every nook and corner of the Indian land mass and its outlying territories.

Conclusions:
a. Nuclear powers do not fight direct wars. The theory of MAD is as relevant to South Asia as it is to Europe, Trans-Atlantic, and Trans-Pacific.

b. Pakistan’s Nuclear and Missile Programme has enforced peace and stability in South Asia howsoever fragile it might seem at times.

From May 1998 onwards till today, the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), newly established in early 1999 at Chaklala, picked up the thread from the scientific nuclear experiments at Chaghi and embarked upon the onerous task of converting the scientific experiments into a fully operationalized nuclear weapons capability. The capability comprised a variety of strategic delivery systems on land, air, sea, and under-sea, initially according to the policy of Credible Minimum Deterrence, and subsequently from 2011 onwards, according to the policy of Full Spectrum Deterrence.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, from the outset, was conceived to provide deterrence against India’s aggression. The weapons and the delivery systems were developed keeping in mind India’s vast eastern and southern geographical dimensions as well as some of its outlying territories like the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal where India chose to develop strategic bases. Since India chose to keep its nuclear programme dynamic, including developing long-range tri-services weapons and an ambitious space programme, Pakistan too was compelled to keep its nuclear weapons development programme dynamic to include appropriate ranges spread across powerful tri-services strategic forces, and a modest space programme. Pakistan would neither allow India to dilute the strategic deterrence effect of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons nor to let it avail and create spaces in-depth, presumably out of reach of Pakistan’s strategic weapons, so as to provide India a land-based second-strike capability. As such, Full Spectrum Deterrence policy, within the larger philosophy of Credible Minimum Deterrence, has enabled Pakistan to maintain strategic balance in South Asia and thereby, enforce peace howsoever fragile it might seem at times.

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