Making the Bomb: Pakistan’s Nuclear Journey

developed in secrecy and tested in defiance, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program has been a degree of pride for Pakistanis, a worrisome presage for Indians, a supply of profit for nuclear proliferators, and a security concern for U.S.A. policymakers. whereas a lot of is feared, very little is absolutely known  concerning Pakistan’s nuclear program. Retired brigadier Feroz Khan’s feeding Grass (the title comes from a 1965 statement by Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto proclaiming that if Bharat noninheritable  the bomb, therefore would Islamic Republic of Pakistan, although it had to “eat grass, or leaves or maybe go hungry”) is vital as a result of it presents an entire account of Pakistan’s go after nuclear weapons, with shut target the role contend by culture, temperament, domestic, regional, and international politics, and technical challenges within the development of the “Islamic Bomb.”

The book’s author may be a former Islamic Republic of Pakistan military officer and senior official within the National Command Authority. Khan wasn't solely a key policymaker in Pakistan’s nuclear command and system, however contend vital roles in negotiations with yankee and Indian officers over the nuclear program, particularly concerning Pakistan’s force posture.

Drawing on primary and secondary sources, his own experiences, and various interviews with decisionmakers and former scientists World Health Organization were intimately concerned within the program, Khan recapitulates Pakistan’s nuclear journey. He analyzes key selections by its leaders that formed the mechanical phenomenon of Pakistan’s strategic capabilities and its foreign relations, functionary disputes over the program, and competition between actors within the scientific community attempting to place their individual stamp on the bomb.



Eating Grass begins within the Nineteen Sixties, throughout General Ayub Khan’s military monocracy, once several Pakistani leaders were reluctant to pursue nuclear weapons as a result of they felt the country couldn't afford them. The author then provides a careful account of many major selections that created a weapons program, then the cold tests in 1983, and eventually the testing of the bomb itself in 1998.

Inside this chronology, Khan conjointly explores the technological and capability challenges Pakistani scientists long-faced, particularly because the international bar regime created nuclear trade progressively troublesome. He details however they developed metallic element enrichment and element production capabilities and also the secret procural networks to provide the covert program. on the approach, Khan reveals the extreme group action that developed between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan nuclear energy Commission (PAEC) and also the Khan analysis Laboratories to develop and claim credit for the weapon.

The role of foreign countries was a big a part of this nuclear journey. Once North American nation stopped activity nuclear technology, Islamic Republic of Pakistan received loans and investments price many variant bucks from African nation, at the side of compound from Niger and metallic element from Chad. China provided high enriched metallic element and a bomb style, and helped in missile production.

No history of Pakistan’s march toward nuclearization would be complete, of course, while not the sub-narrative of complications caused in relations between Islamic Republic of Pakistan and also the U.S.A., that was at first powerfully hostile the nuclear program, however later became covertly complicit in it, solely afterwards to penalise Islamic Republic of Pakistan and ultimately grudgingly settle for its membership within the international assemblage.

Khan conjointly discusses Pakistan’s nuclear philosophy, the event of its command and system, and also the approach the disreputable soul A.Q. Khan became the government’s proliferator in chief, merchandising Pakistan’s nuclear innovations to the North Koreans, Iranians, and others.

The fundamental question driving this book is why Islamic Republic of Pakistan set to accumulate nuclear weapons within the initial place. Khan attributes this call to “Pakistan’s distinctive strategic culture”—that is, the beliefs, values, and historical experiences of the ruling elite that influenced however it perceives and responds to the safety atmosphere. He contends that the defeat and torture of Islamic Republic of Pakistan within the 1971 war and India’s 1974 nuclear tests, that altered the balance of power, became central parts of Pakistan’s strategic culture, resulting in the perception that nuclear weapons were a national necessity.

But between the lines of the book may be a slightly totally different story: that domestic politics instead of national security in and of itself was key to the choice to travel forward with a nuclear program. As Scott Sagan, a far-famed scholar of nuclear weapons, has argued, countries acquire nuclear weapons as a result of people at intervals the atomic energy institution and analysis laboratories (who profit financially and in terms of prestige), the military, and political leaders become chief advocates for acquisition of those weapons, seeing them as tools to accomplish parochial political or functionary goals.

In the case at hand, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the prime minister (1973–77) World Health Organization created the choice to travel nuclear, already belonged to a coalition comprising PAEC scientists and a few foreign-ministry bureaucrats World Health Organization had been powerfully advocating such a capability since a minimum of 1965. By the time he took workplace, the military was conjointly on board. so the will to pursue nuclear weapons predated the 1971 war or India’s 1974 tests. In Khan’s own words, with Bhutto’s rise, “the bomb lobby was currently in power.”

According to weapons specialist Bhumitra Chakma, Pakistan’s nuclear program has long-faced 2 key challenges: the absence of a formally declared nuclear philosophy, as well as ambiguity concerning the “redline risks” that would prompt use, and also the lack of AN institutionalized and clear command and system.

Pakistan’s ten-point nuclear philosophy is India-focused, and has 3 major principles: minimum credible deterrence, nuclear initial use, and big getting even. whereas tilt that counterforce targeting is progressively turning into a principle for each Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Bharat, Khan conjointly reports that Islamic Republic of Pakistan is operationalizing its minimal  deterrence construct by regularly up its delivery suggests that, by inducting flight and cruise missiles, and by developing a second-strike capability.

What’s missing during this book is AN investigation into Pakistan’s separate risks on the far side what's already known . Khan states that the nuclear program has 2 objectives: deterring Bharat from overwhelming Islamic Republic of Pakistan with a traditional attack ANd victimization nuclear weapons within the event of an Indian invasion, the sizable destruction of its defense force, or Indian-perpetrated political destabilization and punishment. whereas Khan acknowledges that these criteria ar “deliberately inexact,” the paradox, he argues, may be a state as a result of with “the improbableness of Pakistan’s acceptive a no-first-use policy, the belief puzzle of the Pakistani nuclear program is place to rest.”

But the author will offer AN perceptive analysis of the foremost vital issue: Pakistan’s nuclear command and management design. Since 2000 the National Command Authority, composed of chief civilian and military leaders, has been chargeable for decisionmaking on the program’s policy, planning, procural, and use. even so this oversight and system was developed virtually forty-five years once the weapons program began. The author attributes A. Q. Khan’s ability to erect an alternate universe of proliferation to the present absence of oversight, explaining that Khan’s important autonomy in on the Q.T. procuring nuclear technology for Islamic Republic of Pakistan and immunity from frequently coverage to a government body allowed his non-public and illicit operations to travel undiscovered.

In the aftermath of the “Khan Network” collapse, Islamic Republic of Pakistan revised its export management laws, whereas the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) began victimization assessment tools, like Personnel and Human responsibleness Programs, to screen personnel, ANd created a personnel with an intelligence unit to counter assaults, espionage, and different threats against nuclear installations and weapons.

But whereas the author describes the reforms in command and management, explains that Islamic Republic of Pakistan undertakes a spread of assessments to make sure the “secrecy, dispersal, and survivability” of its strategic weapons against foreign attacks, and mentions that safety measures ar in situ for weapons storage and transport, he inexplicably fails to handle directly the threat of terrorists effort Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and materials, maybe the best concern among U.S.A. and international policymakers these days.

There has been a gradual accumulation of books on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, starting from accounts by former Islamic Republic of Pakistani military officers giving their views concerning why Pakistan sought-after the bomb, to educational analyses exploring school of thought and stability in South Asia, to print media accounts that specialize in Pakistan’s covert acquisition of nuclear technology, the Khan Network’s proliferation, and America’s secret compliance in exchange for help throughout the Soviet-Afghan war and also the War on Terror.

Khan’s book may be a little bit of all of this, framed by AN corporate executive account of Pakistani decisionmaking which will facilitate policymakers higher perceive however Pakistani leaders thought through a number of the foremost crucial selections of the country’s history, what assumptions they created, and the way they read the globe. A nuanced narrative accessible to a general audience, feeding Grass may be a comprehensive study on however and why Islamic Republic of Pakistan went nuclear.