First of all, an apology. I was out of town for the last couple of weeks and couldn't write about the latest developments in the region (which were quite exciting !). Now that I'm back, I'll try to take things along with me.
Responding in kind to five Indian nuclear test explosions earlier this month, Pakistan conducted its maiden round of five nuclear tests last Thursday. With an average recorded intensity of 40-50 kiloton yield, these nuclear tests were carried out in the Ras Koh range in Chagai Hills in Balochistan. By virtue of these nuclear tests, Pakistan became the first Muslim country to explode the nuclear device and the latest to have joined the coveted nuclear club.
Although justified by the perceived national security need to counter the looming threat from nuclear armed India, these Pakistani nuclear tests will entail significant diplomatic and economic costs for the country. Managing these costs effectively is the most daunting challenge facing the government. On the diplomatic front Islamabad will have to face the unpleasant reality of strong international condemnation. Unlike Indian nuclear tests which caught the world flat-footed, Islamabad, as a matter of necessity, had to carry out its nuclear tests under intense international gaze and in evident disregard of the world advice to the contrary.
This factor combined with the entrenched western perception that Pakistan's nuclear programme has an Islamic dimension may overshadow the reality of the reactive and secondary nature of Pakistan's proliferation behaviour.
Luckily, the emerging international reaction to Pakistan's nuclear tests has not been very dissimilar to those conducted by India. Having failed in its determined bid to dissuade Islamabad from treading the nuclear path, Washington has announced that it will retaliate by imposing sanctions against Pakistan consistent with US non-proliferation laws. While deploring Pakistan's tests as a replication of Indian mistake, President Bill Clinton said in Washington last Thursday that by "failing to exercise restraint...Pakistan lost a truly priceless opportunity to strengthen its own security, to improve its political standing in the eyes of the world." In a separate comment the same day, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said that by carrying out its nuclear tests Pakistan had "sacrificed" prospects of recovering more that half a billion dollars which it paid for 28 US F-16 fighters.
Japan, Australia, Sweden and the Netherlands have announced that they would also be imposing economic sanctions against Pakistan. While strongly criticising Pakistan's nuclear tests as a setback for world efforts to promote nuclear non-proliferation, France and Germany have refused to support EU and US calls for economic sanctions against Islamabad. Bonn and Paris have questioned the wisdom of using sanctions as an
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