Opinion | How Pakistan Became World's Only Muslim Nuclear-Powered Nation - Secretly

(In photo: Abdul Qadeer Khan)

These were not empty words. It was a question of survival for his country. Soon after India's test, Bhutto quietly launched Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme under the secret code name, 'Project-706', according to US classified information.
The declaration was audacious: build the bomb.

A Rogue Scientist

A drama has to have a hero and a villain. The central character, in Pakistan's case, was Abdul Qadeer Khan, a hero in his own country but a villain abroad.

Khan was a skilful metallurgist working in the Netherlands in the early 1970s. According to records in the US archives, Khan had a job with a contractor linked to URENCO, a European consortium developing uranium enrichment technology. Enrichment is the key step in making nuclear fuel. Done to a certain level, it powers nuclear reactors. Taken further, it produces material for nuclear bombs.

While working in the Netherlands, the documents revealed, Khan gained access to highly sensitive centrifuge designs, machines used to spin uranium at extreme speeds to separate the isotope needed for weapons. According to Dutch investigations, Khan secretly copied classified blueprints and supplier lists.

Then in 1975, Khan quietly left Europe and returned to Pakistan. Of course, he did not return empty-handed. Armed with stolen designs and detailed knowledge of how centrifuge technology worked, Khan helped his country establish a uranium enrichment facility at Kahuta, near Islamabad. The laboratory would later be renamed after him, thus immortalising him in his country. This laboratory became the beating heart of Pakistan's nuclear programme.

A Global Black Market

Nuclear scientists say building a nuclear bomb is not simply about ideas; it requires thousands of specialised components. They say that gas centrifuges, for instance, need precision engineering - vacuum pumps, high-strength alloys, specialised bearings and electronics. Pakistan did not have many of these technologies. So, it went on a shopping spree.

Soon, a worldwide procurement network was formed. It used middlemen, front companies and suppliers across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. According to investigators, many items were "dual-use" technologies. These are equipment that can be used in a normal industry but also in nuclear enrichment. 

The scenery in Kahuta, Pakistan

Western intelligence agencies soon realised what was happening. According to declassified documents published by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, American officials had already detected signs of Pakistan's secret enrichment programme by the late 1970s. One internal US State Department document from January 1979 warned that Pakistan was "moving more rapidly toward acquisition of nuclear capability than we had earlier estimated".

It's unclear whether Pakistan knew it was being watched. Regardless, the enrichment plant at Kahuta was growing fast. And yet, surprisingly, Washington did not stop it. 

Enter: The Cold War

The reason came up in December 1979. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Suddenly, Pakistan became one of the most important countries in the world for American foreign policymakers. The hatred against communism and its spread in the US was (still is) so deep that it overlooked Pakistan's secret efforts at developing the bomb. They needed Pakistan as the frontline state to support Afghan resistance fighters - the Mujahideen - battling Soviet troops. Billions of dollars in economic assistance began flowing into Islamabad.

The US was perhaps not inclined to stop Pakistan's nuclear programme because it did not want to risk alienating a crucial ally. US officials openly admitted the dilemma at the time. A State Department telegram from the period described the situation as an "acute dilemma": Washington wanted to stop nuclear proliferation, but it also needed Pakistan to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Geopolitics Won. Pakistan Won

Through the 1980s, American intelligence monitored Pakistan's nuclear programme closely but by and large tolerated it or looked the other way. Even US laws, such as the Symington Amendment, which required cutting off aid to countries pursuing unsafeguarded nuclear enrichment, were often waived, or ignored, or both. Under President Ronald Reagan, US aid to Pakistan surged. It was clear that America's priority was defeating the Soviet Union. Pakistan's bomb became a secondary concern.

China's Quiet Hand?

Another important player was watching events closely: India's next-door neighbour, China. India's 1974 nuclear test had alarmed Beijing as well. It had already fought a war with India in 1962 and saw New Delhi as a strategic rival. A nuclear-armed India raised the stakes in the region. Many analysts believe China quietly helped Pakistan's programme as a counterbalance to India. Over the following years, Beijing is widely believed to have provided technical assistance, key materials and possibly even a nuclear weapon design. This support helped accelerate Pakistan's nuclear progress.

The Bomb Takes Shape

By the early 1980s, Pakistan was moving steadily towards nuclear capability. The centrifuges at Kahuta were producing highly enriched uranium, the essential ingredient for nuclear weapons. Pakistan also conducted what nuclear scientists call 'cold tests'. These are, they say, experiments that simulate nuclear explosions without actually detonating a bomb. According to later claims by Pakistan's President Arif Alvi, the country had effectively achieved a nuclear deterrent capability by 1981. Historians debate the exact timeline, but there is little doubt that the foundations of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal were firmly in place by the early 1980s. 

And yet, Washington avoided a direct confrontation.

Sanctions Come, But Too Late

When the US actually decided to act, it was too late. As we know, it eventually imposed sanctions on Pakistan's nuclear programme, but only in 1990. By then, the Soviet Union had already withdrawn from Afghanistan. Pakistan was no longer indispensable to American strategy. The American action was ineffective as it came quite late. Pakistan had already mastered uranium enrichment and possessed the capability to build nuclear weapons. Eight years later, the world would see the result. In May 1998, Pakistan conducted a series of nuclear tests in the Chagai mountains, days after India carried out its own tests. 

Yes, South Asia had officially become a nuclearised region. 

(In photo: A snap from India's Pokhran nuclear tests conducted in May 1998. Pakistan carried out its own tests in the Chagai mountains days later.)

The Scientist Who Sold The Bomb

Just when the story seemed complete, the drama had another twist. Years after Pakistan's nuclear tests, investigators uncovered a vast, global black-market network run by none other than AQ Khan. According to investigations painstakingly conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and reporting by The New York Times, Khan's network had secretly sold nuclear technology and centrifuge designs to countries including Iran, North Korea and Libya.
The network operated across continents. Factories in Malaysia produced components. Shipments passed through Dubai. Middlemen moved money and equipment around the world. In 2003, the network was finally exposed when a ship, funnily called BBC China, carrying centrifuge parts to Libya was intercepted. Later, Khan publicly confessed to running the proliferation network. But in Pakistan, he remained a national hero. The government quickly pardoned him.

America's Double Standards

Today, Pakistan is one of the world's nine nuclear-armed states. Washington now insists that Tehran must never acquire nuclear weapons. Yet, when Pakistan was building its bomb, the US knew what was happening and chose not to stop it.

The lesson is that nuclear policy is rarely just about weapons. We already know that, but this American duplicity only reinforces the point. More often, it is about self-interest, America's use-and-discard approach to alliances, and the shifting priorities of geopolitics.

There is another interesting dimension. Investigators of Pakistan's nuclear programme believe countries such as Libya and Saudi Arabia contributed millions of dollars to help finance it. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have recently signed a NATO-like agreement that allows each to come to the other's defence if attacked by a third country. Today, Saudi Arabia itself is under attack from Iran. Will Pakistan come to Saudi Arabia's rescue? So far, there are no signs of that.

(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a London-based senior Indian journalist with three decades of experience with the Western media)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author