Nuclear Threat Reduction Measures for India and Pakistan

Publication Date: February 2005

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Military and defense

Type:

Coverage: India Pakistan

Abstract:

Since India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, there has been a debate on whether the United States should provide assistance in making those weapons safer and more secure. In the wake of September 11, 2001, interest in this kind of assistance has grown for several reasons: the possibility of terrorists gaining access to Pakistan's nuclear weapons seems higher, the U.S. military is forging new relationships with both Pakistan and India in the war on terrorism, and heightened tension in Kashmir in 2002 threatened to push both states closer to the brink of nuclear war. In October 2001, media reported that the United States was providing assistance to Pakistan to keep its weapons safe, although those reports have not been confirmed. Revelations in 2004 that Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology (and reportedly a nuclear bomb design) to Iran, Libya, and North Korea also helped to renew interest in making, in particular, Pakistan's nuclear weapons program more secure from exploitation. The report of the 9/11 Commission also called for continued support for threat reduction assistance to keep weapons of mass destruction (WMD) away from terrorist groups.

In the 108th Congress, the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act (Section 1308 of FY2004 Defense Authorization Act, PL 108-136) allowed the Department of Defense to spend up to $50 million in unobligated funds on cooperative threat reduction (CTR) measures outside the former Soviet Union. In the 109th Congress, it is likely that similar legislation will be introduced again. The Bush administration used $20 million of CTR funds to dismantle chemical weapons-related items in Albania, but proponents of expanding CTR have mentioned many other countries as possible recipients: India, Pakistan, China, North Korea, Iraq, and Libya, to name a few.

This paper describes why Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs developed for the former Soviet Union are considered models for assistance elsewhere and their potential application in India and Pakistan. The paper considers the types of assistance provided under CTR and potential constraints on U.S. assistance in this area, including domestic and international legal and political restrictions on cooperation with states outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT); the low level of cooperation and transparency exhibited by India and Pakistan; lack of incentives for India and Pakistan to pursue threat reduction measures; and potentially competing objectives of threat reduction and nuclear deterrence.

This report, which will be updated as events warrant, complements CRS Report RL32359, Globalizing Cooperative Threat Reduction: A Survey of Options, and CRS Report RS21840, Expanding Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation Programs: Concepts and Definitions.