“Dead End” The Failure of Political Solutions to Pakistan’s Nuclear Ambitions, January 1979 to December 1979

Abstract

Parallel to the emergence of the ‘Islamic bomb’ as an issue, there was also a hugely significant change in US-UK non-proliferation policy towards Pakistan during 1979. This was the change from a strategy of preventing nuclear acquisition to one of mitigating the worst effects of inevitable acquisition. The Carter administration and the Callaghan and Thatcher governments radically changed their non-proliferation policies in the case of Pakistan, in essence acquiescing to eventual Pakistani nuclear status while taking as much overt and covert action as possible to retard the attainment of that status. For the ardently non-proliferationist Carter administration, the gradual switch from prevention to mitigation came about because of Pakistani intransigence and an unwillingness to make concessions on the nuclear front. The request for Pakistan not to test a nuclear device was at the crux. Such a demand would maintain non-proliferation credibility by removing the potential for a very public embarrassment. The move to mitigation did not, however, go unchallenged. Dedicated non-proliferationists on both sides of the Atlantic sought to maintain a more stringent non-proliferation policy. British efforts to provide a global political answer foundered because of reticence amongst the nuclear weapon states and nuclear supplier states—particularly America—to consider yet another nuclear agreement at a time when SALT II, the CTB, and—in particular—INFCE were all being discussed.