Victoria Krumova
October
On July 16, 1945—the Manhattan project—a collaboration between the USA and the UK—proved to be a success. The trinity test fireball exploded merely 16 milliseconds after ignition. This revolutionary experiment reset the course of warfare and put the stakes of having peace even higher as the threat of mass destruction became rather simple to envision.
The realization of the dangers of this invention came to 20th century politicians more than 20 years after it did to the ordinary man. Following the massive shock from the catastrophic consequences of America’s two atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Japan, antinuclear movements were formed in the 1950s in the USA, with a dialectic advocating for the end of use of nuclear weapons. And though those movements lost momentum after people shifted their focus to the exploration of the potential benefits of nuclear energy, on July 1 1968, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed in New York City.
Despite sporadic hints and threats that have been made by governments of countries such as North Korea, the probability of them actually using their weapons remains slim. This is especially true, when they are fully aware that an engagement of arms on their side will trigger the same counteraction from other countries. Governments and governors, no matter how totalitarian, authoritarian, democratic, capitalist or communist, know the devastating consequences of such actions. They care about their people surviving and, if not about that, at least about their nations. The question is: do terrorists? The answer is most probably no. So, the following question arises: If they are not phased by the deterrence mechanism of the risk of their own country being reduced to rubble, what stops them from using nuclear weapons against their enemies if they get access to them?
Pakistan is a country with a vast cultural and historical background. It is rich in its practices, it is known for the hospitality of its people, for its palatable range of languages and for its historical sites. But it is also known for its possession of nuclear weapons. In fact, it was the first Muslim country to be given the rights to own one. What it is also not known for is stability: neither territorial, nor political. To understand what prompted today’s reality into existence, we need to understand what factors gave way to the infiltration of terrorists in the country in the first place.
To do that, we have to go back to the 20th century. Following the Afghan Mujahideen’s efforts to drive out the Soviets from Afghan territory, Pakistan's security services established groups by the same model to regain full control over Kashmir—an area of territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. The religious population was subjected to the tactics of Islamist groups that tried to radicalize it by citing the hadith—sayings of the Prophet Muhammad conveying values deemed proper for a Muslim to have. Given the significance of this for many Muslims, the Islamist groups expected that their rhetoric would act as a catalyst for turning the population against India and believed it would embolden Pakistan’s allies in Afghanistan. This idea, theoretically, should have worked because of sentiments of resentment against India after the violent outbursts between the two, regarding the displacements, following the partition of British India. On a second level of consideration, it should have worked because of the establishment of Pakistan as a separate state to India, with a principal difference between the two being religion. However, not only did this approach fail to achieve its goal of unifying the two populations under a common ideology, it also led to further divisions due to the distinct interpretations of the proposed radical ideologies. What this meant was that different fractions of Pakistan’s population found themselves on different parts of the spectrum with the following extremes: strong support for the Jihad groups and participation in the USA’s “War on terror. ”
Pakistan’s geographical location also means it finds itself close to constantly evolving conflicts that fuel instability throughout the whole region. Besides the longstanding conflict with India that has been destabilizing Islamabad’s position on the international scene for decades now, the proximity to neighboring Afghanistan has meant further undermining of Pakistan’s political position. The Taliban at first gave false hope of alliance to the Pakistani government, as it thought it had found an ally in fighting against the liberal Afghan groups aligned with India, and then took that hope away by starting to act against Pakistan. In January 2023, a branch of the Taliban—Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan—operating on the premises of Pakistan’s territory claimed responsibility for a suicide mission killing 59 people in a mosque in the city of Peshawar. This same organization’s motives for acting against Pakistan lay in its disagreement to the country’s mutual effort with the US in the “war on terror.”
Because the reasons for the installment of terrorism on Pakistan’s territory lay in ever-relevant factors—religion and geopolitics—new groups are bound to continue being established. The pluralism in religious aspirations in both spiritual and practical (territorial) aspects lead to the desire of different radical believers and opportunists to try and impose their interpretation of “what should be” on the state. Thus, organizations, such as the Islamic State Khorasan Province, that were formed as late as 2015, can be found operating simultaneously in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The latter, being a branch of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, aims to establish a caliphate in the Khorasan. To achieve that, it is now recruiting some of its leaders from Pakistan and simultaneously committing atrocities on the way—shooting pregnant women and nurses in hospitals and targeting girls’ schools. The question is: for organizations such as ISKP to have the power to inflict the horror they do, do they have the power to infiltrate Pakistan’s nuclear weapons system if they choose to do so?
One also needs to be aware of the fact that radicals do have the incentive to use those nuclear weapons. It is a question of “how”, not “if”. As they interpret the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad to entail a Holy War, they in all likelihood will aim to rush to it. This becomes clear from their efforts to use said sayings to accelerate people’s wish for war with India out of hatred and therefore give rise to the promised Holy War.
In the past, Pakistan has launched initiatives to battle with terrorism. In response to an attack on a military school in Peshawar in December of 2014, it initiated Operation “Zarb-e-Azb”, focusing on the North Waziristan region, known to be used as a stronghold by groups such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Chechen Islamic Jihad Union, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and other branches of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. For this operation, Pakistan faced heavy criticism because of the mass displacement of civilians it caused. Figures like Rahmatullah Nabil, former head of Afghanistan’s national directorate of security, expressed concerns about Pakistan’s ability to control terrorist groups, thus challenging the idea that the country is capable of ensuring that no unauthorized use of its nuclear arsenal will occur.
After the heated interactions between India and Pakistan, following the 2019 initial attack on Indian troops in Kashmir, and Delhi’s response in launching strikes against Pakistani militants, the world waited in anticipation for the next move of the international community. However, no organization or country holds the ultimate authority to take away Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and an act of disarmament can only be committed through mutual agreement upon having diplomatic discussions.
This leads us to today, when Pakistan still has access to its nuclear arsenal. Looking at the lack of control it has over the terrorist groups acting on its territory, those groups might, sooner or later, gain access to the weapons too. That is if the government doesn't enact tangible policies to stop the continuous threat that the radicals impose with each and every next atrocity they commit.
With all eyes on Gaza and Lebanon, does the next threat for an even greater number of casualties develop quietly away from the media's focus in Pakistan?