A great time for a nuclear Pakistan

A government unable to control large parts of its territory, a military in disarray, loss of control over nuclear assets, radical Islamists intent on acquiring WMDs – it is the stuff of nightmares.

And Pakistan's current turmoil is causing jitters around the world precisely because the nightmarish scenario evoked above might just come to pass as General Pervez Musharraf drags himself and his country to the brink of collapse.

For long, the US and the West have viewed nuclear weapons in South Asia with dread because of the possibility that a conventional war between India and Pakistan might escalate into a nuclear one. Former US president Bill Clinton called the Kashmir conflict "the most dangerous flashpoint on earth" precisely because of this fear of a nuclear holocaust in the Indian sub-continent.

Indian and Pakistani officials, on the other hand, have continued to argue that just as the threat of Mutual Assured Destruction resulted in a "hot peace" between the US and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, nuclear weapons in South Asia will also have a stabilizing impact. They point out the fact that despite several provocations, India and Pakistan have behaved "rationally" during various crises by keeping their conflicts limited and avoiding escalation.

But since 11 September 2001, the nature of the problem for the West has changed in so far as the threat is now more of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal being used against the West by radical Islamists if they can lay their hands on it.

There is little hope that the rational actor model on which classical nuclear deterrence theory is based would apply as much to militant Islamist groups as it would to the Pakistani government. In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks, there were suggestions that the US had explicitly sought guarantees from the Musharraf government that its nuclear arsenal was safe and had also assured India of its security.

The present turmoil in Pakistan has once again raised concerns about the safety, security and command and control of its nuclear stockpile. Though Pakistan's government was quick to dismiss media reports that its nuclear weapons were in danger of falling into the "wrong hands" as "inspired," and stressed that Pakistan provided the highest level of institutionalized protection to its strategic assets, the credibility of such claims remains open to question.

Instituted in 2000, Pakistan's nuclear command and control arrangements are centered on the National Command Authority, which comprises the Employment Control Committee, the Development Control Committee and the Strategic Plans Division. Only a small group of military officials apparently have access to the country's nuclear assets.

However, these command and control arrangements continue to be beset with some fundamental vulnerabilities that underline the reluctance of the Pakistani military to cede control over the nation's nuclear assets to civilian leaders.

It is instructive to note that of all the major nuclear states in world, Pakistan is the only country where the nuclear button is in the hands of the military. It is not at all comforting when former civilian leaders - including former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif - make it clear that even at the height of various crises, the Pakistani military kept the civilian authorities out of the decision-making loop on the crucial issue of nuclear weapons.

Moreover, senior civilian and military officials responsible for these weapons have a problematic track record in maintaining close control over them. A Q Khan was the head of the Pakistani nuclear program (and a veritable national hero), but was also instrumental in making Pakistan the center of the biggest nuclear proliferation network by leaking te