The World’s Worst Nightmare

AQ Khan and his nuclear sales network pose a big danger to India and the world.

AQ Khan is an amazing man. A scientist, smuggler, nationalist, prisoner, all rolled into one. His life has subterfuge, it has arms shipments across continents, high tech nuclear skulduggery and millions of dollars electronically transferred in a matter of seconds. His true life story is racier and more dangerous than any Ludlum or Le Carre novel you will ever read.

Nuclear weapons, by their very nature, are dangerous. They can end the world. However, as long as they are in the hands of a state, even one as unstable as Pakistan, there are some safety valves. What AQ Khan represents is the ability of non-state actors, in this case the Taliban, to get their hands on nuclear weapons.

For a start, there is the issue of retaliation. Should a non-state actor nuke your biggest city, do you bomb back? It puts into question the entire nuclear deterrence theory that the world has learnt since the Cold War. Remember, you are dealing here with a group of terrorists for whom suicide is routine—a ticket to heaven, an appointment with ‘virgins’. You cannot deter the Taliban, and if they have the nuclear bomb, you are done for.

The AQ Khan revelations by themselves are not new. That the Pakistani nuclear doyen helped Iran develop centrifuges, those little spinning gears that enrich uranium and bring bombs within reach. This has been known for some time. What is also known is that he sold technology and equipment to Libya. Lastly, his nuclear Wal-Mart also did barter deals—missiles for nuclear technology—with North Korea. This barter gave the North Koreans a headstart in making a nuclear bomb, and Pakistan, in exchange, a leg up in delivering them. If AQ Khan’s Wal-Mart ever needed a marketing line, it would be ‘Shop with us for a nuke win-win’.

These revelations point to three very worrying things for the global strategic community. First, AQ Khan has done a U-turn by claiming that the Pakistan government was fully in the know of his nuclear smuggling network. Pakistan as a state has no qualms in plying weapons of mass destruction across the world. This is no academic distinction. AQ Khan was not a ‘rogue trader’, as earlier claimed, and his set-up was not a mom ’n’ pop store—it was a true Pakistani multinational. And if you had the money or something to barter, you could get nuclear bombs, no questions asked.The second critical element is the role of China. By all accounts, a Chinese nuclear weapons design is at the heart of this nexus of intercontinental nuclear supply. This is a design of one of the early Chinese nuclear tests from 1966. The US State Department, in a document that was recently declassified, points to Sino-Pak cooperation in design technology. Again, the AQ Khan barter system came into play, and China got a uranium enrichment plant in return. Now, China is a signatory to the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty that prohibits transfer of technology to non-signatories like Pakistan. If the treaty has to regain credibility, China needs to be held to account. Without its supply, AQ Khan’s Wal-Mart would have had nothing to sell. Skirting this issue will weaken the non-proliferation regime.

The third reason why the world in general but India in particular should be concerned is that the Taliban are still shopping, whether it is AQ Khan’s peddlers or anybody else’s. They would only lack a delivery system. But picture a scenario in which the US launches a ‘pre-emptive strike’ to ‘take out’ (as Americans say) Pakistan’s nukes. If a bomb or two survives (quite likely), a counter-attack aimed at America’s bigger ally could turn New Delhi into vaporised hell.

To conclude, AQ Khan’s network poses serious dangers to India and the world. This is worsened by letting Pakistan retain its weapons and letting China get away with brazen proliferation. The biggest danger of all is the attitude of the world community, which thinks if you ignore the problem it will go away. Catastrophe may not be far; India may yet have the most to lose from all those vouchers that AQ Khan’s Wal-Mart has issued.

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