Must They All Go Nuclear? : Nations Hovering Near the Bomb Need Help on a Safe Future

Pakistan’s prime minister was in Washington a few weeks ago--and I would bet that somebody met his plane with a copy of the Washington Post’s front-page story headlined “Pakistan A-Project Upsets Superpowers.” He probably was the only person in Washington who knew just how upset the superpowers--and India--should be. Just what are Pakistan’s plans for the bomb?

There are people in Washington who want to believe that Pakistan is not building nuclear weapons. When Congress considers foreign aid for Pakistan this fall, the President by law must certify Pakistan’s nuclear purity. We must cut the Pakistanis off without a dime if they “possess” nuclear weapons; we can continue to help them if they don’t. A lot turns on the word possess.

America’s foreign aid has not always depended on hair-splitting word definitions. In 1978 the British uncovered a worldwide Pakistani network of dummy companies that were secretly buying the nuclear equipment critical to the production of nuclear-bomb material. In April, 1979, we cut off aid to Pakistan, as required by U.S. law, because the Pakistanis had received certain sensitive nuclear equipment from abroad. We were sure then that the Pakistanis were in hot pursuit of the bomb, and we hoped to dissuade them.

But when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan later that year, we reconsidered our stance toward neighboring Pakistan--and immediately opened negotiations with the Pakistanis on a new aid program. The deal (a six-year, $3.2-billion program) was completed early in the Reagan Administration, and reports say that Pakistan began funneling more U.S. aid to the Afghan rebels.

But what about the bomb?

At the time the six-year aid package was signed, President Zia ul-Haq reportedly assured U.S. officials that Pakistan did not intend to build a bomb. But now something has provoked the Soviets and the Indians: Is it evidence of a new and major Pakistani step toward nuclear-weapons capability? Are they losing patience with U.S. timidity in exercising leverage on an ever-advancing Pakistani bomb program? Are the Pakistanis holding to Zia’s promise or not? And what does possession of the bomb mean, anyway?

Whatever definition the United States and Pakistan agree on, the Soviet Union and India must deal with the reality of Pakistan’s nuclear capability. If all the components that are necessary for building bombs stand ready and assembly is all that’s left, does a country possess the bomb or not? What if a country has gone nine of the 10 steps to the bomb and then goes to a nuclear holding pattern, knowing that the last step can be taken quickly if need be?

A look at the friendship and enmities in the region shows why Pakistani progress toward the bomb is so disconcerting. India and Pakistan have gone to war three times since 1947. In the last war Pakistan lost all of East Pakistan--now Bangladesh.

India exploded a nuclear device in 1974, and could produce at least a handful of bombs in a relatively short time. The Soviet Union is India’s ally; the United States and China side with Pakistan. What if there is another Pakistan-India war--or even a bloody border skirmish? Will one side or the other brandish its nuclear capability--or even use it? What will its allies do then?

These are not idle questions in a world that’s as dangerous as this one. The United States cannot look the other way on nuclear proliferation because of competing foreign-policy concerns and expect other nations to do nothing. Right or wrong, the Indians and the Soviets are rethinking their options on dealing with Pakistan, and the United States ought to think about the choices that these countries are considering.

The first is probably “do nothing”--always the easiest, and sometimes the best, choice for governments. But the consequence of that choice is that Pakistan gets the bomb--or hovers just shy of a sprint toward final assembly. Threats are always possible options, and so are military assaults that are designed simply to remove the problem--at least temporarily--with an all-out conventional weapons attack on an enemy’s nuclear facilities (the route that Israel took in bombing an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981). How could the United States respond if India (or, worse yet, the Soviet Union) chose this option and attacked Pakistani nuclear facilities? This inherent potential for superpower conflict in the spread of the bomb to troubled regions of the world must give us pause.

The United States, the Soviet Union and China must not go on seeing only their own short-term national interest, or they will all contribute to a situation in which war may come again to South Asia--maybe this time nuclear war. Better that these three nuclear powers work together (it will be hard work) to help India and Pakistan negotiate a safe nuclear future--perhaps one that does not include nuclear arsenals. If that could happen in South Asia, maybe it could spread to other hot spots where the nuclear specter also has appeared--like the Middle East, where a similar drama may play out all too soon. The alternative is a future of repeated threats and counterthreats by regional enemies, backed by the bomb and all too often involving the superpowers as well.

The United States cannot by itself move the world toward a safer path into the Nuclear Age. But it can lead, and it could rethink its policy toward Pakistan. It could decide that averting a full-scale nuclear-arms race in South Asia is its overriding aim in that region, and that competing aims--even the wish to make the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan more costly--must be subordinate. If it did so, it might be able to talk both the Soviet Union and China--and eventually the other nuclear powers--into a similar ordering of priorities.

The nuclear powers are running out of time in which they could make a difference in how the world works. By the year 2000, 50 countries will have the choice of whether or not to build the bomb. The policies that present nuclear powers adopt now will help to determine how many of those 50 countries choose to go nuclear. There is a need for leadership. Why not this country, now, on the matter of Pakistan? If not us, who? If not now, when?