Two nuclear stories are again emerging as key issues for the United States. First, the Iranians have developed an enrichment capability that leaves them only several months away from a nuclear warhead, to complement the largest ballistic missile inventory in the region. And second, North Korea, already with an arsenal of nuclear warheads, is testing lots of new missiles, some reportedly capable of deploying a nuclear warhead and reaching the U.S. mainland.
Both threats are serious, and their origins are connected.
AQ Khan, Pakistan and China
The common thread is AQ Khan, a nuclear scientist and the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, who died just recently at eighty-five.
Global non-proliferation strategy has historically sought to control the production of nuclear fuel used for nuclear energy and power plants. Uranium could be enriched, or plutonium reprocessed to make nuclear bomb fuel; If the process was strictly monitored, the chances of weapons material being produced deliberately or surreptitiously would be significantly curtailed.
This process was codified in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT. One would think that the NPT has been particularly successful. A half-decade after President John Kennedy’s 1963 warning that the world could soon see a number of nations pursue clandestine nuclear weapons programs, only three have—officially—proliferated: Pakistan, India, and North Korea. Israel, who has neither confirmed nor denied its nuclear weapons capabilities, makes for a fourth proliferator. Notably, none of those four states are parties to the NPT. (South Africa, which once possessed nuclear weapons, was persuaded to give its weapons up in unprecedented fashion.)
Thus, today it is not just the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—Russia, China, the United States, France, and Britain—that are all nuclear-armed nations. Pakistan, India, North Korea, and Israel bring the total to nine.
However, the United States must examine the origins of Pakistan’s nuclear program, in particular, to understand the nuclear proliferation threats the United States has faced in the past and will face in the future. That, in turn, requires understanding the role China played in nuclear weapons proliferation.
