Pakistan’s Nuclear Program and the Ongoing Slander

On June 18, 2025, The Wall Street Journal published Sadanand Dhume’s opinion piece titled, “Iran’s Nuclear Pursuit and the Pakistani Example,” leaving analysts in a disappointing bewilderment. The piece first advocated military actions against Iran’s nuclear pursuits and then unfairly defamed Pakistan’s Nuclear Program. The piece was broadly aimed at framing Pakistan’s nuclear program as a destabilizing agent, ignoring Pakistan’s security threats and its necessity and strategic rationale behind going nuclear in the first place, and thus avoiding the whole geopolitical context behind it. This piece seeks to counter those false accusations and the biased opinion in regards to Pakistan’s nuclear program and the article’s depiction of Pakistan as an impulsive nuclear power.

Developed in the late 1980s and tested officially in 1998, Pakistan’s nuclear program has been linked with terrorism, instability, and proliferation in the article. which is a biased and misleading rhetoric, avoidant of an essential nuclear history, and seemingly ‘unaware’ of the fact that Pakistan’s pursuit of nuclear was not a belligerent act but was compelled by its rival neighbor’s nuclear pursuit in 1974. Pakistan shares a history of Indian aggression and wars with India, as evident in 1947, 1965, 1971, including the recent clash of 2025 as well. Pakistan’s nuclear program is India-centric, for its defense and deterrence, and to ensure survival. Unlike Iran, which has not yet developed nuclear weapons, Pakistan’s program was a direct reaction to a clear and present danger. To portray Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal as a reckless endeavor ignores the stabilizing role it has played in South Asia, where mutual deterrence has arguably prevented large-scale conventional wars between India and Pakistan since 1998.

The accusation that Pakistan’s nuclear program was built on “theft, charity, and clever diplomacy” oversimplifies a complex process and unfairly maligns Pakistan’s scientific achievements. Dhume omits the broader context of global nuclear proliferation during the Cold War. He also seems to omit that the geostrategic standpoint of Pakistan in the Soviet Afghan war also gave it enough diplomatic posture to run its nuclear program without further opposition from the eastern countries. Moreover, China’s assistance, while significant, was part of a broader strategic partnership, not unlike the technological transfers that have occurred between other allies globally. Pakistan’s nuclear program required significant indigenous effort, scientific expertise, and national resolve, which Dhume dismisses in favor of a sensationalized narrative.

It is falsely claimed that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal enables “death by a thousand cuts” through support for terrorism is a gross exaggeration. A stat report of the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database estimates 4,000 deaths in India from 1990 to 2020 attributed to Islamist terrorists, lacks nuance. Many of these incidents predate Pakistan’s nuclear tests, and the complex dynamics of militancy in South Asia cannot be reduced to state-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan has itself been a victim of terrorism, with over 80,000 casualties from militant attacks since 2001, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal. The suggestion that Pakistan’s nuclear status emboldens terrorism ignores the country’s efforts to combat extremism, including military operations like Zarb-e-Azb, which significantly weakened groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. Furthermore, the 2005 London bombings, cited by Dhume, involved individuals of Pakistani descent, not state-directed actors, and linking such acts to Pakistan’s nuclear program is a rhetorical overreach.

Moreover, the portrayal of Pakistan as a proliferation risk is outrightly untrue and biased.Pakistan has implemented robust command-and-control mechanisms, including the National Command Authority, to secure its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. State Department’s 2023 report on nonproliferation acknowledges Pakistan’s efforts to align with international nuclear security standards, contradicting Dhume’s insinuation of ongoing recklessness. The fear of jihadists accessing fissile material, while a concern, is speculative and not unique to Pakistan that similar risks exist in other nuclear states, yet Pakistan is singled out.

The article then asserts that Pakistan’s nuclear program is “too far along to be easily ended” implies a missed opportunity to prevent its development, referencing a failed India-Israel plan to strike Pakistan’s nuclear facilities in the 1980s. This narrative ignores the catastrophic consequences such an attack would have had, including regional escalation and global condemnation. India’s restraint, according to the article was not a “national-security blunder” but a pragmatic decision to avoid war with a determined adversary. Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence has ensured its sovereignty, forcing India to engage diplomatically, as seen in the 1999 Lahore Declaration aimed at fostering peace. The argument that it was purely a liability to Pakistan to become a nuclear state is very short sighted and fails to take into account that it has brought a balance of power in South Asia.

Comparison between Iran and Pakistan further gives distorted ground realities since the article does so. Pakistan is not the same as Iran. Iran which is yet to be a successful nuclear state is closely monitored by the IAEA and is a signatory of NPT has an alternative strategic ecology that is driven by a confrontation with Israel and the US. The nuclear weapons of Pakistan on the contrary are a responsible production in a quite different strategic culture. It is India specific. That the weapon of Pakistani should fall in the hands of its religious clerics as Dhume jokes out to be true in Pakistan military is ridiculous and untrue. Even after Pakistan has gained nuclear, there has never been any threat by them towards this end. Whatever concern the US administration ever had in this regard was actually about the Ballistic Missile Program of Pakistan and it was not because of the US threat perceptions but it was actually the reason that emanated about the program on regular strategic assessments.

In summation, the article by Dhume is a lopsided argument that portrays the nuclear program of Pakistan inimically as a threat to the whole world neglecting its defensive nature, strategic importance and the measures taken by the nation in ensuring security of its weaponry. The terrorism and proliferation charges are overstated, based upon old or cherry-picked facts. Even though dangerous, Pakistan nuclear program is not a cautionary story but testifies to the value of deterrence as a means of securing the country. Instead of continuing extolling narratives that brand its strategic options demonic, the international community ought to be engaged in matters concerning diplomacy and nonproliferation systems, which have been the case in Pakistan and the global nuclear regimes.