Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal continues to grow, as that country's fear of Indian dominance in the region continues. At least that's what some non-governmental experts think.
Four years ago, the Pakistani arsenal was estimated at 30 to 60 weapons.
"They have been expanding pretty rapidly," Albright said. Based on recently accelerated production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, "they could have more than doubled in that period," with current estimates of up to 110 weapons.
Kristensen said it was "not unreasonable" to say that Pakistan has now produced at least 100 weapons. Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Britain's University of Bradford, put the number at between 100 and 110.
Some Pakistani officials have intimated they have even more. But just as the United States has a vested interest in publicly playing down the total, Pakistan sees advantage in "playing up the number of weapons they've got," Gregory said. "They're at a disadvantage with India with conventional forces," in terms of both weaponry and personnel.
While US government officials won't talk about this in public, I'm sure that others will use this as evidence that US forces can't leave Afghanistan until Taliban forces are completely subdued. Pakistan's nuclear weapons have been the driving factor in idealist discussions as to terrorist intentions, even as Pakistan's military continues to be firmly in charge of that arsenal.
For what its worth, this logical development also shows that there is no case for delusional concepts of US-led efforts to safeguard the PAK-nuke arsenal in case of some sort of internal collapse, whatever the probability of the latter.
Elemination of Taliban-forces in Afghanistan is a rather unrelated matter anyways, however feasible. The troubles for Pakistans current and recent regimes have always come out of the tribal areas. These areas could not be "controlled" in any conventional manner for well over a hundred years and I dont see that changing, even assuming some kind of miracle in AFGH.
One way or another, the Pakistani military needs to get over their outright obsession with deterring India. From a historical point of view this is absolutely ludicrous (all conflicts instigated by Pakistan in more or less amateurish manners).
Massive amounts of ressources are being wasted on the mirage of an enemy, while on the other side radicals such as the TTP can use the tribal areas to make inroads into Swat and right towards Islamabad, even taking out high-ranking military officials. All this wile the PAK military is essentially turning a blind eye on them, even playing a dangerous game of not taking serious action to extort more US-payed for equipment, that will never be employed in a "war on terror", a concept, that itself exists only in certain offices in Washington.
But I'm ranting...suffice to say, China is the winner, while PAK and the US are playing "who wears the best blindfold".
Posted by: para | 01 February 2011 at 12:07 AM