WASHINGTON — The Indian subcontinent has lived under an umbrella of nuclear deterrence for years, yet the threat of a runaway arms race has always lurked near as India and Pakistan have accumulated nuclear material and developed deadly ways to deliver it.
India has one of the world's most ambitious missile programs, and far outpaces smaller Pakistan in almost every military category. Yet, over 26 years, Pakistan has bought and begged enough nuclear technology to make it a credible nuclear threat to its neighbor and rival.
India's atomic arms program has been built on the civilian nuclear effort that had its first operational reactor up and running in the early 1960s. By 1974, India announced that it had conducted a nuclear test for "peaceful" purposes--a sign to outsiders that it could make a bomb if it so chose.
Today, India is believed to have enough nuclear material to make 80 to 100 bombs, says the Center for Defense Information in Washington. Pakistan has enough for eight to 13, the group estimates.
Helping advance India's weapons-building program is a civilian and military nuclear infrastructure that has grown to be "enormous," says Andrew Koch, an analyst at the center. And the country has a space program that cross-pollinates its efforts to build ballistic missiles, analysts say.
India also has built up a large air force with several planes capable of carrying nuclear bombs: Soviet-built MIGs, Anglo-French Jaguars and French Mirages.
But bombers take longer to reach their target and are far more vulnerable to air defenses than the ballistic missiles, which can streak from New Delhi to Islamabad in minutes.
The shorter-range Indian missile, the Prithvi, is designed to deliver warheads more than 200 miles, a range that would allow strikes throughout most of Pakistan. The newer, longer-range Agni, nearing full-scale production, can probably reach at least 1,600 miles--which would take it as far west as the northern end of the Persian Gulf and as far east as China's eastern provinces.
Pakistan has never had resources enough for a large nuclear weapons development program.
But it has acquired weapons technology from other countries, including China.
Pakistan was far behind when the Indians announced their first nuclear test in 1974, but by 1983, the U.S. State Department was acknowledging that Pakistan had the know-how to produce a nuclear bomb, said Clay Bowen of the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
