But what about an arms race in the region? Look at it this way: If India wanted to reinforce its arsenal, you think it couldn't? India knows that its 80-odd weapons are more than enough for deterrence purposes. At any rate, just five well aimed N-bombs are all it'll take to send Pakistan permanently into the archive section.
The nuclear standoff is all about deterrence as was amply demonstrated during the Cold War. At the most dangerous point in the 20th century, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the superpowers stepped back from the brink.
Also, nuclear stock takes are never accurate. Except the United States, no country's nuclear tally is exact. Russia frankly has lost count of how many working nukes it has. For all other countries, the modest size of their arsenals precludes transparency.
The FAS admits as much regarding its own estimates: "The exact number of nuclear weapons in each country's possession is a closely held national secret. While the estimate for the United States is based on real numbers, the estimates for several of the other nuclear weapon states are highly uncertain."
Pakistani bombs have also never been mated to ballistic missiles because doing so would incur the full wrath of the United States. No Pakistani general wants to eat grass.
So who knows, the Pakistanis may be building Potemkin nukes to scare the world. As is well known, it is the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its head.
The rest of the world, therefore, has nothing to fear from Pakistan's bombs, which seem destined to stay locked in central storage.
Because of the heightened global alert post-9/11, the crude, albeit clever, ploy of converting fuel engorged aircraft into deadly projectiles may forever remain the high point of Islamic terrorism.
As for India, it has dealt with various forms and magnitudes of Islamic terror for over a thousand years. You can bet they'll survive this one too.
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