FACT SHEET  Prepared by the Center for Defense Information  Ph: (202) 332-0600/Fax: (202) 462-4559

by Andrew Koch, Senior Research Analyst

May 28, 1998

PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR TESTS

A 28 May 1998 Pakistani announcement that it has conducted five nuclear tests should come as no surprise. They were held in response to a series of five nuclear explosions India conducted earlier in the month. The tests exacerbate the escalating tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad over the disputed territory of Kashmir and fuel the nuclear arms race in the region.

That Pakistan has the capability to detonate a nuclear device has been widely suspected for over a decade. Understanding the extent of Islamabad's nuclear capabilities requires knowing where its fissile materials (highly enriched uranium and plutonium) are produced and stored, and the steps taken to weaponize that nuclear capability. The nuclear tests occurred at the Chagai Hills test site, where "cold" tests of a nuclear implosion device were held in 1986. The recent tests were undoubtedly to develop a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on Islamabad's Ghauri and M-11 ballistic missiles. Building warheads necessitates acquiring or manufacturing a trigger and other non-nuclear components of a nuclear device; work that Pakistan does at its military-run Pakistan Ordnance Factory at Wah. The factory has the necessary expertise in fuzing, high explosives and heavy machining to manufacture the trigger and high explosives and has a unit for developing nuclear weapons.

To fuel the bombs, Pakistan has stockpiled fissile material consisting of weapons-grade uranium. The country's primary uranium enrichment plant is located at the Dr. A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta, while other experimental-scale enrichment facilities are located at Sihala and Golra Sharif. In total, Pakistan has a stockpile of approximately 460 to 785 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), enough for 23 to 29 nuclear weapons.

In addition to producing HEU, Pakistan is attempting to obtain weapons-grade plutonium by extracting it from spent reactor fuel. The Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) in Rawalpindi houses Pakistan's experimental-scale reprocessing plant which can extract10-20 kg of plutonium per year. Islamabad is also completing a plutonium reprocessing plant near Chashma the project for which was recently restarted after being abandoned in the 1970s.

To feed its reprocessing plants, Pakistan has built, with clandestine Chinese assistance, a 40 MW heavy water reactor at Khushab. The reactor, which began operating earlier this year, is Islamabad's only source of plutonium-bearing spent fuel that is not under international safeguards. The Khushab reactor could also produce tritium for boosted nuclear weapons or a hydrogen bomb.

Unfortunately, although the nuclear tests may be over, the arms race in the region is not. The tests give each side the ability to mount nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles, the development of which has been ongoing although largely overlooked. For instance, Islamabad recently flight-tested its newly unveiled Ghauri medium-range ballistic missile, which gives Pakistan the ability to deliver nuclear weapons via a ballistic missile deep into Indian territory for the first time. For its part, New Delhi ramped-up its efforts to develop and build a more capable version of the 2,500 kilometer range Agni ballistic missile, which could bring all of Pakistan and most of China in range.

The Clinton Administration would be wise to take immediate steps to dampen the emerging missile race and possible open deployment of nuclear weapons in South Asia. While this is a worst case scenario, it could lead to a situation far more dangerous than experienced during the Cold War standoff between the Soviets and the West.

For more information on India or Pakistan email Nicholas Berry