Introduction
Recently there has been renewed debate about “normalizing” or “mainstreaming” Pakistan’s nuclear programme, with a number of western analysts calling for Islamabad to commit to “strategic deterrence”, or “to a recessed deterrence posture and limit production of short-range delivery vehicles and tactical nuclear weapons”. There is increasing concern about a nuclear arms race in the region, as well as the implications of the development of tactical nuclear weapons for strategic stability. But these developments are not taking place in a vacuum: Pakistan’s nuclear policy is in great part a consequence of its evolving security environment. But as Maleeha Lodhi has pointed out, “Western analysts have often depicted this [Pakistan’s enhancement of its nuclear capability] as a mindless, irrational drive motivated by the unbridled ambitions of the nuclear scientific-military lobby.” She further argues that the issue of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal cannot be divorced from its context, specifically “the chain of rapid developments that have undermined the region’s strategic equilibrium and affected Pakistan’s nuclear threshold.”
