Cooperative Monitoring Center Occasional Paper/6: Pakistani Perceptions and Prospects of Reducing the Nuclear Danger in South Asia
- Sandia National Laboratories
The Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in May 1998 triggered a full-blown nuclear debate. For the first time, hard-liners, moderates, and pacifists engaged in an extensive public discussion that helped to make the people of Pakistan more sensitive to the dangers of nuclear competition. Pakistan's concerns about its conventional military inferiority, both in the present and future, and the belief that nuclear capability would deter India from exerting its superior military strength, constituted the bedrock of its perception on the nuclear issue. Ofilcial Pakistani statements, both immediately after the nuclear tests and later, have advocated restraint on the issue of nuclearization, indicating cognizance of the importance of avoiding a regional nuclear arms competition, both for security and economic reasons. This paper suggests a variety of nonweaponization and nondeployment options that would serve the security interests of India and Pakistan. Besides preventing a hair-trigger situation, these options could reduce the financial and logistical burden of ensuring the safety and security of nuclear weapons as well as lower strategic threat-perceptions.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 3187
- Report Number(s):
- SAND98-0505/6; ON: DE00003187
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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