On his show last week, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria made bold claims about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. In a segment of his show called, “What in the World?” he claimed that Pakistan posed a bigger threat to global nuclear security than Iran and North Korea.
Zakaria then went on to declare that Pakistan had the fastest growing nuclear weapons program in the world, citing two recently published reports by the Federation of American Scientists and the Stimson Center, he warned that if Pakistan’s program continued to grow at its current rate it would become the 3rd or 5th largest nuclear weapons state by 2025 depending on which report you look at.
Addressing a gap in its deterrence capability, Pakistan introduced tactical nuclear weapons in 2011; Zakaria warns this is a big cause for concern because “Pakistan is a hotbed of jihadi radicalism,” and tactical nuclear weapons can easily fall into the hands of terrorists. For this reason, according to research done by Zakaria and his team, the United States has a contingency plan in place to take control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
Zakaria, an Indian born American, ended his segment looking desperate and blaming President Barack Obama for not doing enough to limit Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and accusing him of instead spending too much time on Iran, a country that does not have actual nuclear weapons.
Oh boy! If I were Fareed Zakaria I would fire my research team, until and unless the goal was in fact to misguide his viewers with one-sided biased reporting on a very serious issue.
I do not argue with the information he presented because the reports he cites actually exist and the projections in those reports do show an increase of Pakistani weapons by 2025. The issue however is the reports, which Zakaria completely ignored. The reports calculate the numbers of weapons Pakistan can develop if they used up all of their available resources. This should have raised a red flag if Zakaria actually cared how the reports were prepared. Pakistan is not a rich country, and furthermore it has very limited resources. The biggest resource constrain is access to uranium, which is an essential ingredient for making nuclear bombs.
The uranium stockpiles Pakistan has are used for both civil and military uses. Having recently announced a mid-century energy vision, the country plans to use most of its uranium to produce electricity, not weapons.
This is unlike in the case of India, a country whose nuclear weapons program is growing at a faster rate than Pakistan, but was completely ignored by Zakaria in his report. India having secured an NSG exemption from the USA in 2008, allowing it to import uranium from around the world, is able to dedicate all of its indigenous supply of uranium for weapons production.
Adrian Levy, an investigative journalist for the Guardian reported earlier this year that India is building an entire city dedicated to enriching uranium. Did Zakaria miss this report or dismiss it on purpose to mislead his audience?
Pakistan has the strongest nuclear security and safety framework in the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency has so much confidence and respect for Pakistan’s nuclear safety and security culture that it is now using Pakistan’s Center for Nuclear Excellence as a regional hub to train others in the norms of safety and security adopted by Pakistan.
Even the Nuclear Threat Initiative in its report earlier this year gave Pakistan a higher ranking than India on safety and security. I wonder if Zakaria knew this before making his allegations.
In a recent conference in Islamabad, Lt. General Khalid Kidwai, the former guardian of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal said, “Pakistan’s national security is intertwined with its nuclear security, therefore it is the state’s most pressing priority.” In addition to the multiple layers of security and protection applied to the physical nuclear material, the country under the leadership of General Kidwai has invested a great deal on strengthening intelligence capabilities.
Zakaria talks about Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons but does not say a word about India’s tactical nuclear weapons, like the Prithvi, a low yield short-range missile.
Pakistan is combating terrorism, unlike India, which is using terrorism as an instrument of its policy to destabilise Pakistan. Most recently a former Indian Naval officer, working for RAW was arrested in Baluchistan and has been tied to a number of terrorist attacks in the country.
If Zakaria wants his viewers to be concerned about a country, it should be India, not Pakistan. Their new nuclear naval and military developments are not just destabilising South Asia, but are a threat to global security.
The development of INS Arihant, a nuclear powered submarine capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and their recent tests of the SLBMs K-4, K5 will undoubtedly further worsen regional security.
Mr. Zakaria India now has the capability of targeting any site in the United States, a country you say you love and are now citizen of with nuclear weapons. Should this not concern you? India can park its nuclear submarine off the Western or Eastern US Coasts, easily bringing Washington DC, New York or Los Angeles, and San Francisco into its nuclear sights. Last I checked Pakistan did not possess such capabilities, and nor do they have any plans to develop them.