1. Pakistan's Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War
- Author:
- Henry Sokolski
- Publication Date:
- 01-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- Raise the issue of Pakistan's nuclear program before almost any group of Western security analysts, and they are likely to throw up their hands. What might happen if the current Pakistani government is taken over by radicalized political forces sympathetic to the Taliban? Such a government, they fear, might share Pakistan's nuclear weapons materials and know-how with others, including terrorist organizations. Then there is the possibility that a more radical government might pick a war again with India. Could Pakistan prevail against India's superior conventional forces without threatening to resort to nuclear arms? If not, what, if anything, might persuade Pakistan to stand its nuclear forces down? There are no good answers to these questions and even fewer near or mid-term fixes against such contingencies. This, in turn, encourages a kind of policy fatalism with regard to Pakistan.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Nuclear Weapons, and War
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, India, and Asia