At a December forum co-hosted by the Arms Control Association, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said that Pakistan, which was granted “major non-NATO ally” status in 2004, is pursuing “increasingly sophisticated missile technology” that eventually could enable the country to “strike targets well beyond South Asia, including the United States.”
According to senior U.S. officials, Pakistan has sought for several years to increase the range and throw-weight capabilities of its medium-range ballistic missiles with help from entities in Belarus and China. They say Islamabad could have a long-range missile capability of greater than 3,000 kilometers “within a decade.”
The officials, who briefed me and other nongovernmental experts on Jan. 3, said that Pakistan turned down U.S. proposals for confidence-building measures. They explained that new U.S. sanctions on a Pakistani state enterprise and commercial entities in Belarus and China that are supplying missile-applicable equipment to Pakistan are designed to slow the program.
In response, Pakistani officials called Finer’s comments “devoid of rationality” and said that their country “has never had any ill-intention towards the United States.” Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities “are solely meant to deter and thwart a clear and visible existential threat from our neighborhood,” they said.
But the notion that long-range missiles are needed to deter Pakistan’s neighbor and nuclear rival, India, is specious. Pakistan's Shaheen-III ballistic missile, which was first tested in 2015 and has a range of 2,750 kilometers, already gives Pakistan the ability to strike any target in India.
With 170 plutonium-based nuclear warheads on short- and medium-range systems, Pakistan already has enough nuclear firepower to deter a nuclear attack from India and obliterate much of the subcontinent. The country continues to produce fissile material and retains the option to use nuclear weapons first against non-nuclear military threats.
Since 2012, India has developed and tested the Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which is capable of delivering multiple warheads at a distance of 5,000 kilometers and puts all of China within range of a devastating nuclear attack. But unlike India, there is no coherent nuclear deterrence rationale for Pakistan, an ally of China, to possess long-range missiles. For these and other reasons, Finer said, “t is hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States.”
