Concern Over Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are “widely dispersed” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Does that include the large weapons storage complex at Sargodha? Click for image. |
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By Hans M. Kristensen
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the light of increasing violence in the country. The weapons “are widely dispersed in the country – they are not at a central location,” she said in what is perhaps the first U.S. public indication of its knowledge about how Pakistan stores its nuclear weapons.
We’re pleased that both Washington Times and the Carnegie Endowment use our estimates for how many nuclear weapons Pakistan and other countries have. For additional information about Pakistan’s nuclear forces, see:
* Preparation of Shaheen-2 ballistic missile launchers.
* Nuclear Notebook: Pakistan’s Nuclear Forces, 2007 (most recent update).
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A military depot in central Belarus has recently been upgraded with additional security perimeters and an access point that indicate it could be intended for housing Russian nuclear warheads for Belarus’ Russia-supplied Iskander missile launchers.
The Indian government announced yesterday that it had conducted the first flight test of its Agni-5 ballistic missile “with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology.
While many are rightly concerned about Russia’s development of new nuclear-capable systems, fears of substantial nuclear increase may be overblown.
Despite modernization of Russian nuclear forces and warnings about an increase of especially shorter-range non-strategic warheads, we do not yet see such an increase as far as open sources indicate.