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By Franz-Stefan Gady
Just how many nuclear weapons does Pakistan have?
As my colleague Prashanth Parameswaran already reported last week (See: “Time for Pakistan to Change its Nuclear Strategy: Experts”), a new paper by two American think tanks titled “A Normal Nuclear Pakistan” [PDF] argues that Pakistan could have the third-biggest nuclear stockpile within a decade and could end up producing 20 nuclear warheads annually.
Furthermore, the report, co-written by two scholars of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center, notes that Islamabad is successfully competing with – and likely outperforming – New Delhi in the build-up of its nuclear arsenal.
“Pakistan operates four plutonium production reactors; India operates one. Pakistan has the capability to produce perhaps 20 nuclear warheads annually; India appears to be producing about five warheads annually,” the report states.
Pakistan is estimated to possess around 120 nuclear weapons against India’s 100. However, “[w]hether New Delhi chooses to compete more intensely or not, it is a losing proposition for Pakistan to sustain, let alone expand, its current infrastructure to produce greater numbers of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery,” the study finds.
Read the full story at The Diplomat