WASHINGTON — The Obama
administration is exploring a deal with Pakistan that would limit the scope of
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, the fastest-growing nuclear technology on Earth.
The talks are being held in advance of the arrival of Pakistan’s prime minister,
Nawaz Sharif, in Washington next week. They focus on American concern that
Pakistan might be on the verge of deploying a small tactical nuclear weapon —
explicitly modeled on weapons the United States put in Europe during the Cold
War to deter a Soviet invasion — that would be far harder to secure than the
country’s arsenal of larger weapons.
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But outside experts familiar with the discussions, which have echoes of the
Obama administration’s first approaches to Iran on its nuclear program three
years ago, expressed deep skepticism that Pakistan is ready to put limits on a
program that is the pride of the nation, and that it regards as its only real
defense against India.
The discussions are being led by Peter R. Lavoy, a longtime intelligence expert
on the Pakistani program who is now on the staff of the National Security
Council. At the White House on Thursday, Josh Earnest, the press secretary, was
asked about the talks and broke from the administration’s previous position of
refusing to comment.
“A deal like the one that’s been discussed publicly is not something that’s
likely to come to fruition next week,” he said. “But the United States and
Pakistan are regularly engaged in a dialogue about the importance of nuclear
security. And I would anticipate that that dialogue would include conversations
between the leaders of our two countries.”
The central element of the proposal, according to other officials and outside
experts, would be a relaxation of strict controls put on Pakistan by the Nuclear
SUPPLIERS Group, a loose affiliation of nations that tries to control the
proliferation of weapons.
“If Pakistan would take the actions requested by the United States, it would
essentially amount to recognition of rehabilitation and would essentially amount
to parole,” said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, who has maintained contacts with the
Pakistani nuclear establishment.
David Ignatius, a columnist for The Washington Post, first disclosed the
exploratory talks in a column a week ago. Since then, several other officials
and outside experts have talked in more detail about the effort, although the
White House has refused to comment.
When in 2003, it included a nearly complete design for one of China’s first
nuclear weapons.
President Obama was interested in addressing the Pakistani nuclear problem,
considered by most proliferation experts to be the most dangerous in the world.
But until now, most efforts to manage the problem have been covert.
During the Bush administration, the United States spent as much as $100 million
on a highly classified program to help secure the country’s nuclear arsenal,
helping with physical security and the training of Pakistani security personnel.
Those efforts continued in the Obama years, with State Department, Energy
Department and intelligence officials meeting secretly, in locales around the
world, with senior Pakistani officials from the Strategic Plans Division, which
controls the arsenal.
They used those sessions to argue to the Pakistanis that fielding the small,
short-range nuclear weapons, which Pakistan designed to use against an invading
Indian ground force, would be highly risky.
American officials have told Congress they are increasingly convinced that most
of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is under good safeguards, with warheads separated
from delivery vehicles and a series of measures in place to guard against
unauthorized use. But they fear the smaller weapons are easier to steal, or
would be easier to use should they fall into the hands of a rogue commander.
“All it takes is one commander with secret radical sympathies, and you have a
big problem,” said one former official who dealt with the issue.
The message appears to have resonated; an unknown number of the tactical weapons
were built, but not deployed. It is that problem that Mr. Lavoy and others are
trying to forestall, along with preventing Pakistan from deploying some
long-range missiles that could reach well beyond India.
But American leverage has been hard to find. Unlike Iran, Pakistan never signed
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the international agreement that prohibits
nations, except for existing declared nuclear states like the United States,
from possessing a nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is not alone in that distinction:
India and Israel also have not signed.
Ordinarily, any country’s refusal to sign the treaty would preclude American
nuclear cooperation. So Pakistani officials remain angry with the American
decision to enter an agreement with India in 2005 allowing India to buy civil
nuclear technology, even though it remains outside the treaty and put no limits
on its nuclear program.
Under that agreement, India’s nuclear infrastructure was split with a civilian
program that is under international inspection.
Pakistani officials have demanded the same arrangement.
That does not appear to be on the table. Instead, the United States is exploring
ways to relax restrictions on nuclear-related technology to Pakistan, perhaps
with a long-term goal of allowing the country to join the Nuclear Suppliers
Group, which regulates the sale of the technology. That would be largely
symbolic: Pakistan manages to import or make what it needs for its nuclear
arsenal, and China has already broken ground on a $9.6 billion nuclear power
complex in Karachi. Mr. Sharif presided over the ceremony.
(Specail thanks to Mr.William J. Broad & Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Washington)