With Pakistan's nuclear proliferation scandal exposed and peace moves with India under way, South Asia should be a safer place these days. But even as the US vows to crush the atomic weapons black market and make civilian nuclear programs safer, it is being seen as at least partly responsible for a growing arms imbalance between India and Pakistan that could have alarming consequences.
The risks raise the stakes as Indian and Pakistani officials meet in Islamabad from today for the first formal peace talks between their countries in nearly three years, and the first since they came to the brink of war in 2002.
With US blessing, analysts say, India is seeking to build its conventional and non-conventional weapons defenses, making Pakistan feel increasingly vulnerable and driving it to make more and better weapons to counter its rival.
Pakistan is on the back foot after its top scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan admitted leaking technology and hardware to North Korea, Libya and Iran via a sprawling nuclear black market.
Analysts believe the scandal could make it harder for Pakistan to expand and upgrade its arsenal.
India is soon to sign a US$1.1 billion deal with Israel for the delivery of three Phalcon early warning radar systems. India also wants the US$2.5 billion Arrow anti-ballistic missile system from Israel, although no US clearance has been given.
"India's interest in Arrow is precisely to challenge Pakistan's nuclear deterrence," said Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Pakistan is right to worry about the longer-term nuclear and conventional weapons threat from India, which is being allowed by Washington to acquire dual-purpose technology and increasingly sophisticated early warning systems."
For its part, Pakistan seeks to acquire second-hand F-16 fighters from Belgium after the US refused to deliver 28 of the fighters in the 1990s due to concerns over Islamabad's nuclear program.
Pakistani officials make no secret of their concern of the arms build-up by their neighbor.
"These are new elements being introduced in the India and Pakistan scenario," said military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan. "They are going to result in an arms race and tilt the balance back in India's favor."
India already has a bigger army, a far more effective air force and more nuclear warheads.
According to Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems, India has around 50 nuclear warheads and Pakistan 25, although estimates vary widely on the secret arsenals.
The warheads can be fitted either to aircraft as bombs, or, more recently, to ballistic missiles. Lennox said India's defence acquisitions are made with China in mind, not just Pakistan.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and prominent anti-nuclear campaigner, doubts the effectiveness of anti-missile systems.
"The anti-ballistic missile system doesn't really work," he told reporters. "India is making a mistake."
But he agreed that it did have a destabilising effect and could fuel the arms race nonetheless.
"Here the United States has much to be blamed for," he said.
As the imbalance widens, Pakistan will be encouraged to build more warheads and missiles to maintain what it calls its "minimum deterrence," analysts say.
Samina Ahmed, Pakistan director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, believes Pakistan's small nuclear arsenal is an effective deterrent to India, for now.
The further India gets ahead in an arms race, the more dangerous the situation becomes.
"The real problem lies not in Pakistan being unable to access technology, but when India decides to put its nuclear weapons in the field," Ahmed said. "That is when the arms race starts. It's very destabilizing. If India fills in the gaps in its technology through this external assistance, it will encourage them to deploy. Do you think the Chinese will then sit back?"
In Pakistan, the proliferation scandal has pushed other issues to the background, at least for now.
While Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has vowed to put his own house in order, questions remain over how secure the nuclear apparatus in the country is.
If Musharraf is to be believed, Pakistan's intelligence services knew little or nothing of Khan's misdemeanors.
"Do you admit there was an intelligence failure? How can a well-guarded laboratory export without state permission?" asked A.H. Nayyar, a physicist and anti-nuclear lobbyist in Islamabad. "By their own admission this was a huge intelligence failure."
Trust in Pakistan, its intelligence services and Musharraf has clearly been shattered by the proliferation scandal, although the general will receive a sympathetic hearing in the West as long as he is a key ally in the US war on terror.
Pakistanis fear Musharraf one day will cease to be useful, just as other military rulers have in the past.
"Pakistan must stay useful to the United States as long as it can. Once its utility is over, the harsh treatment will come," said Nayyar, referring to possible pressure in the long term to freeze or roll back its nuclear weapons program.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS