Pardon, but I think this is worth posting in full.
While we will stupidly follow a "secular" foreign policy ad nauseam, just take a gander at what our dear neighbor is really up to.
The chinese have also been in the very same game with the saudis since a very long time.
This is our "interlocutor" as per that twit tharoor.
Nice that he has been interlocuted himself.
http://www.livemint.com/2009/06/2422152 ... -Nars.html
Posted: Wed, Jun 24 2009. 10:15 PM IST
Pakistan’s growing N-arsenal
Nitin Pai
Why is Pakistan—a country teetering on the brink of breakdown and heavily dependent on the international community for life support—not only increasing its stockpile of fissile material for nuclear weapons, but also expanding its capacity to produce more? The reflexive answer usually is: because of India. Now, there is little doubt that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is India-centric, but this by itself does not completely explain Pakistan’s behaviour. Understanding Pakistan’s nuclear expansion will be incomplete without accounting its participation in the West Asian arms race and its insecurities arising from Washington’s involvement in its nuclear affairs.
First, the Pakistani military establishment knows from its experiences of the 1999 Kargil war, the 2002 military stand-off and the events following the terrorist attacks on Mumbai last November that its existing nuclear deterrent works. The gravest Pakistani provocation is routinely reciprocated by Indian restraint. Indeed, were it not for Pakistan’s unwillingness to abandon the use of terrorism as an instrument of its policy towards India, it is evident that nuclear weapons would nearly eliminate all risk of war between the two countries.
Second, it is implicit in India’s nuclear doctrine—no first use, with a minimum credible deterrent—that it does not matter greatly to New Delhi whether Pakistan has 60 warheads or 120. Even if Pakistan’s nuclear guardians distrust mere words, they cannot be entirely oblivious to the fact that, despite having the means to do so, India has not invested in a single new nuclear reprocessing plant—which would increase India’s capacity to build warheads—over the last decade.
Also, while the India-US nuclear deal enables New Delhi to expand its civilian nuclear power generation capacity, without new reprocessing plants, it constrains the number of warheads India can produce. Under the terms of the deal, India agreed to the separation of its civilian and military facilities. It also agreed to prematurely close down the weapons-related CIRUS research reactor near Mumbai by 2010; as of date, India has not even announced plans for a replacement.
Third, up until 26/11, India and Pakistan were engaged in a peace process: not quite the conditions for Pakistan to seek a quantum leap in its nuclear arsenal.
At the margin, therefore, more warheads do not provide more security for Pakistan vis-à-vis India. So, an analysis of Pakistan’s motives must consider alternative explanations.
Bruce Riedel, who chaired US President Barack Obama’s policy review for Afghanistan-Pakistan, points out in a recent essay in The Wall Street Journal that there have been “persistent reports of some kind of understanding between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for Islamabad to provide nuclear weapons to Riyadh if the Saudis feel threatened by a third party with nuclear weapons.” And although they both deny a secret deal, “rumours of one continue to surface as Iran gets closer to developing its own bomb”.
British journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, citing former senior US and Pakistani officials, write that the Saudis wanted the “finished product, to stash away in an emergency, and Pakistan agreed to supply it in return for many hundreds of millions of dollars”. Pakistan also brokered the transfer of the nuclear-capable CSS-2 missiles from China to Saudi Arabia in the late 1980s.
As Iran gets closer to building a nuclear arsenal, Saudi Arabia—the Iranian Shia theocracy’s geopolitical and ideological rival—is likely to seek a nuclear balance across the Persian Gulf. Using Pakistan to hold its arsenal in trust allows Saudi Arabia to stay clear of violating its non-proliferation commitments. Now, even if Pakistan’s own insecurities with respect to its eastern neighbour are kept out of the calculation, Iran’s nuclearization suggests that Pakistan will have to build additional capacity for its Saudi Arabian partner. In other words, Pakistan is in a nuclear arms race all right—but it’s probably a West Asian one.
There is another angle: After 9/11, the US took steps to “secure” Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to prevent its unauthorized use. The military establishment fears that its arsenal is compromised by US supervision and potential plans to snatch it. Pakistani leaders believe that nuclear weapons are their ultimate insurance policy. Therefore, the army is likely to protect its nuclear autonomy by building a second, more secret arsenal. The US Congressional Research Service reports that Pakistan has indeed developed such an arsenal although it is described as a “second strike capability” against India. Because of their inability to fully secure Pakistan’s arsenal, US efforts might have paradoxically increased proliferation risks.
Persuading Pakistan to halt the expansion of its nuclear weapons programme requires both the US and China to change their ways. Money is fungible—it is untenable to argue that US taxpayers are not financing Pakistan’s bomb: US cash going to Islamabad, even if not targeted for military use, only frees up Pakistan’s other resources for nuclear weapons. Washington must then tie its aid to Pakistan freezing further capacity addition. Unless the US shows that it is serious about the matter, how can it expect to get China to stop selling nuclear technology to Pakistan?
Nitin Pai is editor of Pragati—The Indian National Interest Review, a publication on strategic affairs, public policy and governance.
And
The chinese hand.
http://geimint.blogspot.com/2009/02/sau ... force.html
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Saudi Arabia's Ballistic Missile Force
INTRODUCTION
One of the most overlooked military arsenals in the Middle East is the Saudi Arabian ballistic missile force. The presence of this capability, in context with the specific weapon system employed, raises a number of significant questions about the potential nuclear ambitions of Saudi Arabia. Analysis of currently available imagery also suggests that ballistic missiles are not a capability which Saudi Arabia will be seeking to divest itself of at any point in the near future.
THE SAUDI MISSILE FORCE
At some point in the mid 1980's, Saudi Arabia chose to pursue a ballistic missile force. Friendly Islamic nations such as Pakistan did not possess a significant ballistic missile program at this time, nor did North Korea. The only other nation producing ballistic missiles which would have been amenable to an export was China. Towards the end of the 1980's China agreed to develop a conventionally-armed ballistic missile for export to the Saudis. The weapon chosen for modification was the DF-3A (CSS-2) IRBM, a nuclear-tipped weapon already in service with the Chinese military for well over a decade.
The first weapons were delivered to Saudi Arabia in 1988, and it is not known precisely how many were purchased. Sources provide varying estimates, ranging from between 30 missiles and 9 launchers to 120 missiles and 12 launchers. Identified DF-3A associated facilities inside of Saudi Arabia suggest that the number may well be far closer to the latter estimate; two facilities have been positively identified, each housing two garrisons and various support and storage facilities. These facilities are Al Joffer and Al Sulayyil, approximately 90 and 450 km southwest of Riyadh, respectively. The locations of these facilities, as well as two other facilities which may be related to the Saudi Arabian ballistic missile force and will be described later, can be seen in the image below: