Pakistan Adding to Its Nuclear Arsenal
More evidence that the Pakistani security establishment doesn’t see eye-to-eye with American priorities:
Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.
Talk about “diverting” funds strikes me as misleading in this context—the money is necessarily going to be fungible. It’s not as if in the absence of American aid, the Pakistani military would just let the Taliban seize the capital. The underlying issue is that our excessively transactional relationship with Pakistan isn’t producing the kind of bilateral relationship we want.
At any rate, I also think it’s worth noting that nowhere in a story about the new Indian government’s priorities do you see “secret plan to conquer Pakistan.” They’re trying to cope with the global recession, with hundreds of millions of impoverished citizens, etc.
12 Responses to “Pakistan Adding to Its Nuclear Arsenal”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
May 18th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Meanwhile, Obama won’t update our stores.
=========================
May 18th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
And uh, it’s ‘capitol’, Matt. I’m not generally in the grammar police, but I just made the same mistake on the Cap and Trade thread, only in reverse. Spellcheck is no help in this one.
======================================
May 18th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
It wouldn’t be “secret” if it was in a plan of priorities. Violence makers cover up their intentions with soaring rhetoric.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
The “Rapidly” is a bit much, given the basis that NYT cites for its report:
“Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony… he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. “Yes,” he said quickly, adding nothing…”
Clearly, the “Rapidly” is not justified by either the question, or the answer; nor has the New York Times made it easier for anyone who wishes to verify the accuracy of this tendentious article from the “lengthy” testimony, by mentioning who asked the question, and in what context.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
The running joke is that while most states have an army, Pakistan is an army that has a state. One should only be surprised, therefore, if Pakistan does anything but plan for war.
Pakistan believes that strong neighbors are a threat to its security, so destabilizing them is in its interest. That’s a pretty off-the-wall concept. As long as Pakistan believes it, and the U.S. believes the opposite, there is no hope for good faith or progress from them.
May 18th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
To be fair to Pakistan, it takes a lot of effort on their part to match half-assed efforts on the part of their much larger, wealthier, and more scientifically advanced neighbor. So there’s a perception imbalance. Also, I suspect there’s some hubris at work: the US keeps harping on Pakistan’s presumed instability and therefore inability to safeguard its nukes, so the less-than-rational but more-than-predictable Pakistani reaction is to build more of them, if only to convince themselves that they can handle the responsibility. If you tell me I’m not old enough for a pet, I want that damn pet!
May 18th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
“…I also think it’s worth noting that nowhere in a story about the new Indian government’s priorities do you see “secret plan to conquer Pakistan.” They’re trying to cope with the global recession, with hundreds of millions of impoverished citizens, etc.”
That the struggle between the two nations is more central to Pakistan and its identity than it is to India and its, is probably part of the problem. It might tempt India, on the one hand, to ignore Kashmir as more of an irritant than an existential question. And it might tempt Pakistan, on the other, to do things to get India’s attention: nothing says “existential” like nuclear weapons.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Should it not become a foreign policy priority to broker some sort of agreement between Pakistan and India so that they feel less inclined to continue arming themselves with nukes? That they could be drawn into a nuclear exchange over Kashmir seems utterly mad, but as far as I understand that’s the primary rationale behind South Asian nuclear arms.
How can we convince Pakistan to change their course without India’s participation?
May 18th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Juan Cole said on Bill Moyers’ show that the instability in Pakistan is exaggerated, that the Taliban is at best a minor irritant to Pakistan.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
In agreement with Rich in PA, nothing says “big swinging dick” like nukes. Or F-22’s. Look how hard it is to take those away from our Air Force generals.
In both cases, the war you’d like to fight is far more glamorous than the war you have to fight.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
So Adm. Mullet Head has finally come clean on where Saddam’s nukes went!
S’bout time…
May 19th, 2009 at 1:35 am
“Pakistan believes that strong neighbors are a threat to its security, so destabilizing them is in its interest. That’s a pretty off-the-wall concept. As long as Pakistan believes it, and the U.S. believes the opposite, there is no hope for good faith or progress from them.”
Where’d you get the notion that the US isn’t interested in destabilizing countries?
It’s NEIGHBORS, maybe – I don’t see a lot of effort going into destabilizing Canada…But then again, I’m not looking that closely.
Everybody else? Oh, yeah, the US specifically stated in the PNAC documents that NO other country is allowed to even become a REGIONAL power, let alone a larger power.
That means the US has to work to destabilize basically everybody.
And even when it doesn’t INTEND to destabilize a country, it ends up doing so due to its incompetence in understanding the country. The US is DIRECTLY involved in the destabilization of Pakistan, probably due to both deliberate and non-deliberate reasons, and probably to a greater degree than the Taliban themselves.