Pakistan’s nuclear insecurity: A dangerous legacy of military negligence
By M A Hossain
For decades, Pakistan has wrapped its nuclear program in the mythology of national pride, strategic deterrence, and military guardianship. The narrative is simple and endlessly repeated by Rawalpindi: the Army alone stands as the custodian of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and therefore, the state’s ultimate protector. But behind this self-constructed image lies a far more troubling record—one marked by incompetence, complicity, and catastrophic lapses that continue to threaten not only South Asia, but the global security landscape.
The case of Abdul Qadeer Khan, hailed domestically as the “father of the bomb,” remains the most glaring window into this dangerous dysfunction. It demonstrated, beyond ambiguity, that Pakistan’s nuclear establishment is neither secure, nor professional, nor insulated from corruption and ideological extremism. And the responsibility for this rests squarely with the Pakistan Army.
The revelations made by former CIA operations officer James Lawler in ‘The Economic Times’ have only reinforced what proliferation experts have argued for years: the Pakistani military failed in its fundamental duty to safeguard its nuclear centrifuge technology. According to Lawler, who helped lead the CIA’s covert penetration of Khan’s network, American intelligence presented President General Pervez Musharraf with “absolutely incontrovertible evidence” that AQ Khan was exporting Pakistan’s nuclear secrets to Libya and possibly other states.
That a single scientist could run a global trafficking operation—complete with procurement agents, front companies, shipping routes, and clandestine buyers—should have been impossible within a well-regulated security structure. Instead, it thrived for decades, right under the military’s nose.
If Pakistan’s nuclear program were truly under tight military control, how did centrifuge designs, components, and enrichment blueprints end up sailing on the freighter BBC China, destined for Tripoli? How did a network spanning Malaysia, Dubai, Europe, and North Africa operate without the Army’s knowledge—or, worse, without its tacit protection?
Lawler’s account of the tense confrontation between the CIA and Musharraf is revealing. When George Tenet told the Pakistani president that Khan was betraying national nuclear secrets, Musharraf exploded, declaring, “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.” It was a theatrical display of outrage, perhaps genuine in the moment, yet utterly disconnected from his subsequent actions.
For despite the enormity of Khan’s betrayal, Musharraf refused to impose meaningful punishment. Instead, he placed Khan under a carefully staged “house arrest” that looked more like political protection than accountability. No formal trial. No international interrogation. No disclosure of how much technology was sold—or to whom. The episode was sanitized for domestic consumption, and the Army emerged once again as the self-proclaimed guardian of national honor.
The message was unmistakable: nuclear proliferation on a global scale was a forgivable offense, so long as it remained politically inconvenient to punish.
To understand why the Pakistani security establishment turned a blind eye to Khan’s illicit empire, one must examine its broader behavioral pattern. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Army’s powerful espionage arm, has long been implicated in the global narco-trade. From the Soviet-Afghan war onward, ISI operatives facilitated heroin production and smuggling networks, using drug revenues to finance militant groups that later mutated into the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and a spectrum of extremist outfits.
This appetite for illicit revenue streams—and the operational culture it fostered—made the ISI uniquely susceptible to corruption. If ISI channels were willing to traffic heroin across continents, it is hardly implausible that elements within the military establishment saw AQ Khan’s nuclear bazaar not as treason, but as a lucrative geopolitical tool.
Thus emerges the uncomfortable question: Was Khan truly acting alone? Or did he operate within a permissive environment shaped by an intelligence network accustomed to black-market dealings?
The danger did not end with Libya’s admission of its clandestine nuclear program. Lawler himself warned that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were closely monitored and that proliferated designs originating from Khan’s network had reached multiple states.
Indeed, it remains plausible—even likely—that Tehran benefited from Pakistani-origin technology. Iran’s early centrifuge models bear striking similarity to the Urenco designs that Khan first stole in Europe before replicating them for Pakistan. From there, the step toward proliferation was small and tempting.
Today, as Iran advances its enrichment capabilities and approaches the threshold of weaponization, the world confronts the downstream consequences of Pakistan’s negligence. A nuclear Iran, Lawler warns, risks triggering a “nuclear pandemic” in the Middle East. But the root of that potential crisis lies not in Tehran’s laboratories alone—it lies in Rawalpindi’s failure two decades earlier.
Perhaps the gravest danger is the one no government dares discuss openly: what if nuclear centrifuge technology, or even rudimentary bomb designs, slip into the hands of non-state actors? Pakistan’s internal instability, the rise of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the ideological infiltration of segments of the military compound this concern.
AQ Khan already proved that proliferation networks can be built, run, and shielded from scrutiny. If one man—operating under the protection of the state—could sell secrets to foreign
governments, what prevents rogue officers, ideologically motivated groups, or criminal syndicates from doing the same?
A nuclear state where militants once attacked an airbase housing strategic aircraft is not a state capable of ensuring nuclear security. A military that shelters extremist proxies cannot guarantee that its own officers are immune to radicalization. The possibility of nuclear technology leaking to jihadist groups may seem unthinkable in Washington or Brussels. But in Pakistan, “unthinkable” loses meaning quickly.
The AQ Khan saga is more than history. It is a warning that Pakistan’s nuclear program rests on an unstable foundation: a politicized, unaccountable military that treats nuclear weapons as bargaining chips rather than sacred responsibilities. It is a reminder that corruption and extremism can coexist with nuclear stewardship—often with disastrous consequences.
Rawalpindi still insists it is the sole guardian of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. But guardianship is measured by integrity, transparency, and professionalism—not by chest-thumping national narratives or sanitized documentaries.
Until Pakistan holds its own proliferators accountable, reins in its intelligence networks, and subjects its military to civilian oversight, the world will remain at risk from the dangerous legacy of AQ Khan and those who enabled him. And Pakistan’s nuclear insecurity will continue to shadow the world.
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