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Topic:
Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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DarthBoba
Registered:
Jun '00
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 1:23am
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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Techie question here..just what sort of nukes does Pakistan have-mobile or silo-based, or bombs?
If they're silo-based, seizing/destroying them would be several magnitudes easier than finding mobile missiles or bombs.
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ObiWan506
Title: JC Head Admin
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 5:04am
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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This took longer than expected.
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Darth-Ghost
Registered:
Oct '03
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 6:52am
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
- Date Edited:
12/28/07 7:22am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Darth-Ghost
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I don't think Musharraf was behind it, I think he truly wants stability, and her death will certainly not help with Pakistan's stbility problems. Though it seems he didn't provide the protection for her that was needed.
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ObiWan506
Title: JC Head Admin
Registered:
Aug '03
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 9:21am
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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They're going after the usual suspects. It's sad and scary that it's so predictable. Pakistani government pins Bhutto death on al-Qaeda. And the finger pointing continues.
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Mr44
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
12/28/07 12:58pm
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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Techie question here..just what sort of nukes does Pakistan have-mobile or silo-based, or bombs?
Both. Pakistan uses missile technology from China and North Korea which fall into the intermediate range category. Most have a 750km/460mile range, although a couple have a maximum of 1500 miles.
And the most common type is the mobile SCUD derived platform that we're all familiar with:
However, as this State Department report indicates:
HERE
(warning 138 page .pdf file!)
Pakistani doctrine is unique in that its weapons are stored in sections.
-This is good because it means that Pakistan is less likely to launch a nuke in the heat of the moment ( missile crews train to gather and then assemble the sections to prepare them to fire)
-But it's bad because the sections themselves are easier to steal. Instead of an outside organization having to steal an entire missile, the fissionable core (which is stored on its own) can be diverted, which would make available approx 15kg of nuclear material.
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Alpha-Red
Registered:
Apr '04
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Date Posted:
12/29/07 12:09pm
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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So supposing there's a breakdown in the chain of command, is it possible that Musharraf would (or could) destroy his own country's nuclear arsenal or provide the means to allow NATO or the U.S. to do so?
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darthdrago
Registered:
Dec '03
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Date Posted:
12/29/07 1:32pm
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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Interesting question, but I'd say that's a total impossibility. I think it's a safe bet that most Pakistani civilians and members of their armed forces feel their nukes are safeguard against India's own nukes. When India went ahead with their nuclear tests in 1997, Pakistan was right behind with a few of their own, as a display of tit-for-tat. Things have settled down a bit since then, with Musharraf having been in direct talks with India over border issues, cross-border terrorism, etc. But with the sense of pride Pakistanis have over their nuke arsenal (observe their rallying around nuclear physicist/proliferator A.Q. Khan), watching any leader unilaterally dismantle them would probably be a dangerous act for said leader, no matter who it is.
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Darth-Ghost
Registered:
Oct '03
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Date Posted:
12/29/07 2:02pm
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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Nawaz Sharif, who says he's the only real opposition leader left now Bhutto is dead, is the one who oversaw the creation of Pakistan's nuclear weapons when he was the Prime Minister, and was the guy Musharraf ovverthrew in the 1999 military coup, right? I don't know, but it makes him seem very suspicious to me. We were pushing for a power deal between Musharraf and Bhutto, shutting Sharif out. He had little to lose but much to gain from Bhutto's assassination. Now with Bhutto being made into a martyr against Musharraf, the opposition could rally around Sharif and bring about his return to power. He is also not West-friendly, and seems to have supported the Taliban and even met with Osama before 9/11.
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DarthKarde
Registered:
Jun '02
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Date Posted:
12/30/07 9:33am
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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Alpha-Red posted:
So supposing there's a breakdown in the chain of command, is it possible that Musharraf would (or could) destroy his own country's nuclear arsenal or provide the means to allow NATO or the U.S. to do so?
I think such a scenario is highly unlikely. Much of the Pakistani military and inteligence establishment still regard India (and not the islamists) as their true enemy.
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Jediflyer
Registered:
Dec '01
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Date Posted:
12/30/07 5:29pm
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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I don't have much to say about this, other than to point out one good take-away I read at Matthew Yglesias's blog:
Elizabeth Bumiller leads her retrospective on Benazir Bhutto with wise words: "Benazir Bhutto always understood Washington more than Washington understood her." This is the kind of thing I was driving at when I observed that "it's much easier for Pakistani actors to manipulate US policy than the reverse." We don't have American political leaders who speak fluent Urdu, went to Pakistani schools, and count a wide swathe of influential members of the Pakistani elite as among their personal friends.
We can and should take steps to improve the US governing class' understanding of foreign countries, but we shouldn't have any illusions about our ability to totally upend the imbalance in Pakistani elites' ability to understand the US versus our elites' ability to understand Pakistan. Our efforts to meddle can have a big impact (since the United States is a very large, rich, and powerful country) but they seem unlikely to have the intended impact.
Along with a commenter's quote of Douglas Adams:
"So what of this horse, then, that actually held opinions, and was sceptical about things? Unusual behaviour for a horse, wasn't it? An unusual horse perhaps?
"No. Although it was certainly a handsome and well-built example of its species, it was none the less a perfectly ordinary horse, such as convergent evolution has produced in many of the places that life is to be found. They have always understood a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion on them.
"On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever."
--Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Some of the other commenters referred to this as asymmetric blindness, and I think the concept is a very useful one when we talk about foreign policy. The political classes of countries we are interested in know far more about the people, political structures, and key players in the U.S. than the political classes in the U.S. know of them. This asymmetric knowledge relationship, especially unacknowledged as it currently is, greatly distort our foreign policy endevours/outlook.
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Mr44
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
12/30/07 9:38pm
Subject:
RE: Martial Law in Pakistan and what it means for the war on terror
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An important point is not to canonize Bhutto though.
Remember, she wasn't a particularly effective Prime Minister and was removed for corruption, twice I believe. (Maybe she was only removed once, but due to multiple instances)
When she was in power, she also courted the Taliban much like Musharraf is doing now, and only became critical of the organization when she became the "opposition leader."
None of this means that Bhutto wasn't an effective later check and balance within Pakistan, but she's a lot like Carter in that her effectiveness outside of government surpassed her effectiveness when she was actually in power. But I don't think Pakistani politics would have been that much different than they are now had Bhutto remained in power after the mid 1990's.
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