Q: Will India and Pakistan Press the Nuclear Trigger? ; A: No, but Nuclear Weapons Are an Irreversible Reality in Asia

Summary

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Following the Bangladesh conflict of December 1971, President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto convened a meeting of Pakistan's nuclear scientists in Multan in January 1972. Bhutto declared that never again should Pakistan allow India's superiority in conventional forces to give it an opportunity to repeat what it had done in December 1971. The scientists were instructed to devise plans to develop nuclear weapons, which would act as an "equaliser" to match Indian conventional superiority. In his memoirs, written in jail, Bhutto remarked that the "Hindu, Jewish and Christian" civilisations had nuclear weapons capability and that he was determined that the "Islamic civilisation" should set the balance right by developing nuclear weapons.

Pakistan's quest for nuclear weapons thus had nothing to do with whether or not India had nuclear weapons. This quest commenced before India's first nuclear explosion of July 1974.

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Extract

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Q: Will India and Pakistan Press the Nuclear Trigger? ; A: No, but Nuclear Weapons Are an Irreversible Reality in Asia

China agreed to assist Pakistan in developing nuclear weapons in 1976. Since then, China has provided Pakistan with nuclear weapon designs and equipment for uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. This assistance still continues. American nuclear analyst Gary Milho...

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