Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction

Pakistan
Nuclear program start date	20 January 1972
First nuclear weapon test	28 May 1998 (Chagai-I)[1]
First thermonuclear weapon test	28 May 1998 (Chagai-I)[2]
Last nuclear test	30 May 1998 (Chagai-II)
Largest yield test	40 kt in 1998 (PAEC claim)[3][4][5][2]
Total tests	6 detonations[1]
Peak stockpile	170 warheads (2023 estimate)[6]
Current stockpile	170 warheads (2023 estimate)[7]
Maximum missile range	2750 km (Shaheen-III)[8]
NPT party	No

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Pakistan is one of nine states that possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan began developing nuclear weapons in January 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan with a commitment to having the device ready by the end of 1976.^[9][10][11] Since PAEC, which consisted of over twenty laboratories and projects under reactor physicist Munir Ahmad Khan,^[12] was falling behind schedule and having considerable difficulty producing fissile material, Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist working on centrifuge enrichment for Urenco, joined the program at the behest of the Bhutto administration by the end of 1974. Producing fissile material was pivotal to the Kahuta Project's success and thus to Pakistan obtaining the capability to detonate a nuclear weapon by the end of 1984.^[13][14]

The Kahuta Project started under the supervision of a coordination board that oversaw the activities of KRL and PAEC. The Board consisted of A G N Kazi (secretary general, finance), Ghulam Ishaq Khan (secretary general, defence),^[15] and Agha Shahi (secretary general, foreign affairs), and reported directly to Bhutto. Ghulam Ishaq Khan and General Tikka Khan^[16] appointed Major General Ali Nawab as the ranking engineer on the program. Moderate uranium enrichment for the production of fissile material was achieved at KRL by April 1978.^[17] Eventually, the supervision passed to Lt General Zahid Ali Akbar Khan in President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's administration.

Pakistan's nuclear weapons development was in response to the loss of East Pakistan in 1971's Bangladesh Liberation War. Bhutto called a meeting of senior scientists and engineers on 20 January 1972.^[18][19] Bhutto was the main architect of this programme, and it was here that Bhutto orchestrated the nuclear weapons programme and rallied Pakistan's academic scientists to build an atomic bomb in three years for national survival.^[20]

At the meeting, Bhutto also appointed Munir Ahmad Khan as chairman of PAEC, who, until then, had been working as director at the nuclear power and Reactor Division of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna, Austria. In December 1972, Abdus Salam led the establishment of Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) as he called scientists working at ICTP to report to Munir Ahmad Khan. This marked the beginning of Pakistan's pursuit of nuclear deterrence capability. Following India's surprise nuclear test, codenamed Smiling Buddha in 1974, the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation outside the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council, the goal to develop nuclear weapons received considerable impetus.^[21]

Finally, on 28 May 1998, a few weeks after India's second nuclear test (Operation Shakti), Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices in the Ras Koh Hills in the Chagai district, Balochistan. This operation was named Chagai-I by Pakistan, the underground iron-steel tunnel having been long-constructed by provincial martial law administrator General Rahimuddin Khan during the 1980s. The Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission reported that the five nuclear tests conducted on May 28 generated a seismic signal of 5.0 on the Richter scale, with a total yield of up to 40 KT (equivalent TNT). Dr. A.Q. Khan claimed that one device was a boosted fission device and that the other four were sub-kiloton nuclear devices. The last test of Pakistan was conducted at the sandy Kharan Desert under the codename Chagai-II, also in Balochistan, on 30 May 1998. Pakistan's fissile material production takes place at Nilore, Kahuta, and Khushab Nuclear Complex, where weapons-grade plutonium is refined. Pakistan thus became the seventh country in the world to successfully develop and test nuclear weapons,^[22] although according to a letter sent by A.Q. Khan to General Zia, the capability to detonate a nuclear bomb using highly enriched uranium as fissile material produced at KRL had already been achieved by KRL in 1984.^[13][14]