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Essay on The Nuclear Weapons Programs Of India And Pakistan
There is much literature available on the history of India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons programmes. India's overall policy on non-proliferation issues, specially during the 1990s, could be summed up as follows:
1. Willing to join any genuine effort at bringing about arrangements for non-discriminatory non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament.
2. Not willing to join any interim discriminatory regimes, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, regardless of assurances and security guarantees the US and others were willing to offer.
3. Opposed to a South Asian nuclear weapons-free zone and to any conference aimed at meeting this limited objective.
4. Willing to participate in a broader Asian conference with a large number of participants to discuss the possibilities of creating a nuclear-free zone in the whole Asian landmass and its adjacent seas, provided that all the countries of the region, plus all the countries that have the nuclear weapons capacity to affect the security environment of the region, undertake mutual and equal obligations.
5. Indicated that details pertaining to the terms of reference, the objectives and the participants in the conference (if held at all) should be worked out carefully and that it should be comprehensive. India would participate in such a conference only if there was a formal a priori assurance that the proposed enlarged Asian conference would be an interim step towards holding a global conference on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament within a definite time limit.
6. Clearly indicated to all interlocutors that India would develop and deploy missiles of various categories depending upon its security requirements and that it would not accept unilateral or admonitory stipulations and "disciplinary measures" from any quarter.
7. When the US changed its position on nuclear testing, thus enabling the beginning of negotiations, we agreed to work together to finalize the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty....
