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In the 1998 George Clooney thriller The Peacemaker, Serbian terrorists smuggle a nuclear weapon sold to them by a renegade Russian general and try to detonate in the heart of New York city. It was one of a wave of pulp fiction and film which followed the break-up of the former Soviet Union where alarms were rung over the possibility of loose nukes from the FSU finding their way into the hands of terrorists.
Some of it was fuelled by reports of a Greenpeace activist trying to bribe a former Soviet officer to buy a weapon and others by claims from the stony-faced General Lebed that an unspecified number of Soviet 'suitcase nukes' were missing. Terrorists did strike in New York, like The Peacemaker warned us. But not using nuclear weapons, but as airliners turned into guided missiles by kamikaze pilots.
Now in 2009, alarums are being run about another scenario: the Taliban and Al Qaeda barreling down from their strongholds mountain redoubt and stealing Pakistani nuclear weapons and probably using it against western targets. A scenario worthy of the next Bond thriller is now the case for greater civilian and military aid to Pakistan!
Nuclear weapons are political weapons. That is, their use is controlled by the political establishment. This is true of the five nuclear weapon states, an unrecognized one, India and an undeclared one, Israel. Pakistan is different. A country in the state of a permanent coup-where the military rules regardless of who is in power and dreams big-strategic depth in Afghanistan and strategic thrusts into India.
It is perhaps the only country in the world where the nuclear weapons are in the hands of the military with the political establishment being at the fringes of the nuclear command and control chain. It was a civilian president, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who began the quest for nukes. But he was consumed by the all-powerful Pakistan army which then appropriated the nuclear weapons programme built up with covert assistance from China and A.Q. Khan's stolen designs.
It became a tool to ensure the survival of the Pakistan army to prevent another humiliation like the surrender in East Pakistan. Bhutto's daughter Benazir had little control over the programme and his son-in-law Asif Zardari now touring Washington with a silver-lined begging bowl, appears equally clueless.
The current scenario of Pakistan linking aid to its tumultuous internal situation is quite like the one of an organ grinder whose monkey is armed with a loaded pistol. The organ grinder asks for money because wants to feed his monkey. Else, he warns, his hungry monkey is likely to fire at bystanders.
Pakistan's nuclear weapons are the closest to Taliban and Al Qaeda redoubts. Geographically, that is. From all accounts, Pakistan's weapons are subject to the same stringent safeguards like Permissive Action Links (PALs) that all nuclear powers use. Pakistan's PALS were supplied to it by the US after 9/11 under a $ 100 million assistance programme.
For the Taliban or Al Qaeda to actually capture a nuclear weapon would take an extraordinary amount of effort. Collusion at the highest levels, perhaps from the Pakistan army itself. Extremely unlikely but not entirely impossible given the Pak military's dubious role in hawking weapon designs to North Korea, Iran and Libya for cash. The west should worry about the radicalized Pakistan army which supposedly controls the nukes rather than far-fetched scenarios
Some of it was fuelled by reports of a Greenpeace activist trying to bribe a former Soviet officer to buy a weapon and others by claims from the stony-faced General Lebed that an unspecified number of Soviet 'suitcase nukes' were missing. Terrorists did strike in New York, like The Peacemaker warned us. But not using nuclear weapons, but as airliners turned into guided missiles by kamikaze pilots.
Now in 2009, alarums are being run about another scenario: the Taliban and Al Qaeda barreling down from their strongholds mountain redoubt and stealing Pakistani nuclear weapons and probably using it against western targets. A scenario worthy of the next Bond thriller is now the case for greater civilian and military aid to Pakistan!
Nuclear weapons are political weapons. That is, their use is controlled by the political establishment. This is true of the five nuclear weapon states, an unrecognized one, India and an undeclared one, Israel. Pakistan is different. A country in the state of a permanent coup-where the military rules regardless of who is in power and dreams big-strategic depth in Afghanistan and strategic thrusts into India.
It is perhaps the only country in the world where the nuclear weapons are in the hands of the military with the political establishment being at the fringes of the nuclear command and control chain. It was a civilian president, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who began the quest for nukes. But he was consumed by the all-powerful Pakistan army which then appropriated the nuclear weapons programme built up with covert assistance from China and A.Q. Khan's stolen designs.
It became a tool to ensure the survival of the Pakistan army to prevent another humiliation like the surrender in East Pakistan. Bhutto's daughter Benazir had little control over the programme and his son-in-law Asif Zardari now touring Washington with a silver-lined begging bowl, appears equally clueless.
The current scenario of Pakistan linking aid to its tumultuous internal situation is quite like the one of an organ grinder whose monkey is armed with a loaded pistol. The organ grinder asks for money because wants to feed his monkey. Else, he warns, his hungry monkey is likely to fire at bystanders.
Pakistan's nuclear weapons are the closest to Taliban and Al Qaeda redoubts. Geographically, that is. From all accounts, Pakistan's weapons are subject to the same stringent safeguards like Permissive Action Links (PALs) that all nuclear powers use. Pakistan's PALS were supplied to it by the US after 9/11 under a $ 100 million assistance programme.
For the Taliban or Al Qaeda to actually capture a nuclear weapon would take an extraordinary amount of effort. Collusion at the highest levels, perhaps from the Pakistan army itself. Extremely unlikely but not entirely impossible given the Pak military's dubious role in hawking weapon designs to North Korea, Iran and Libya for cash. The west should worry about the radicalized Pakistan army which supposedly controls the nukes rather than far-fetched scenarios
