For Immediate Release May 28, 1998

The Nuclear Arms Race in South Asia:
The Other Shoe Drops

In a widely anticipated action, Pakistan today followed India's recent nuclear tests by detonating its first nuclear devices at its Chagai Hills test site in Baluchistan Province. Pakistan thus openly joins what heretofore has been a very small, tightly controlled group of nuclear weapon states.

With Pakistan's decision a foregone conclusion in view of the indecisive world reaction to India's tests, the challenge for the White House is to prevent further escalation of tensions in South Asia.

"The Administration, indeed the world, must pursue two objectives," said Andrew Koch, Senior Analyst at the Center for Defense Information, who has studied the nuclear weapons complexes in both India and Pakistan.

"Most importantly, deployment of nuclear weapons by both countries must be prevented. Secondly, both Pakistan and India must be discouraged from continuing the development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads."

Koch noted that a ballistic missile race in South Asia is already underway. On April 6^th Pakistan tested a new medium range ballistic missile, the GHAURI, that can reach deep into India. For its part, India is attempting to extend the range of its AGNI intermediate range ballistic missile to enable it to reach all of Pakistan and most of China.

Admiral Eugene Carroll, Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information, called for the Administration to send a clear and unambiguous message to Pakistan and India. "Both countries, and others that might be tempted to follow suit, must understand that the U.S. and the international community regard nuclear testing as unacceptable in today's world. Pakistan and India should cease all further tests, sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and immediately join the current negotiations to develop a treaty banning the production of fissile materials."

"At the same time," said Carroll, "the five declared nuclear states (U.S., Russia, France, U.K., and China), which have some 38,000 nuclear weapons among them, should take positive actions to accelerate progress toward complete nuclear disarmament as they promised to do in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."