Indira Gandhi chose not to bomb Pak nuclear facilities in 1981, look where they have reached now

A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document titled 'India's Reaction to Nuclear Developments in Pakistan', which was declassified in June 2015, highlights how former prime minister Indira Gandhi may have considered eliminating Pakistan's gestating nuclear weapons program when she returned to power in 1981. It also brings to light her unhappiness over the US move to arm Pakistan with F-16 fighter jets in the early 1980s.

The document also states that India's own programme to test a device on short notice was activated when Pakistan was close to enriching weapon grade uranium and producing plutonium.

"In February (1981), excavation began in the Thar desert to permit the underground explosion of an Indian test device on short notice. In three months, India was ready to test a 40-kiloton nuclear device," said the report.

The CIA said India reportedly was to explode the device about a week after the expected Pakistani test. "Evidently, the Indian government calculated that a Pakistani nuclear explosion per se would not constitute a national security threat and that the damage to India's image of pre-eminence in the region could be minimised by a resumption of the peaceful nuclear explosive (PNE) programme" said the report.

Surprisingly, according to The Times of India, previous accounts have suggested that Mrs Gandhi may have had the option of eliminating Pakistan's nuclear programme with Israeli help in as late as 1984, but India objected to the support.

Pakistan's nuclear ambitions

However, it is amazing to learn how Pakistan's nuclear powerbank has swelled over the years since its inception in the early 1980s. Significantly, a new paper published by two American think tanks (the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center) titled "A Normal Nuclear Pakistan" argues that Pakistan could have the third-biggest nuclear stockpile within a decade and could end up producing 20 nuclear warheads annually.

The report also adds that due to the larger amount of fissile material dedicated to the production of nuclear weapons, Islamabad could "have a nuclear arsenal not only twice the size of India's but also larger than those of the United Kingdom, China, and France, giving it the third-largest arsenal behind the United States and Russia."

According to the paper, Pakistan will retain its diverse nuclear capabilities for the foreseeable future as a necessary deterrent against perceived existential threats from India. It mentions that Islamabad is successfully competing with - and likely outperforming - New Delhi in the build-up of its nuclear arsenal.

"Pakistan operates four plutonium production reactors; India operates one. Pakistan has the capability to produce perhaps 20 nuclear warheads annually; India appears to be producing about five warheads annually," the report states.

Pakistan is estimated to possess around 120 nuclear weapons against India's 100. However, "[w]hether New Delhi chooses to compete more intensely or not, it is a losing proposition for Pakistan to sustain, let alone expand, its current infrastructure to produce greater numbers of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery," the study finds.

The calculation

The study also finds that while Pakistan dedicates more fissile material to the production of nuclear weapons in comparison to India, in terms of total stockpiles of plutonium and HEU (highly enriched uranium) for nuclear weapons, India has about 600 kilograms of plutonium, while Pakistan has about 170 kilograms of plutonium and 3.1 metric tons of HEU. Assuming that each nuclear weapon would require five kilograms of plutonium or 15 kilograms of HEU, with the existing stockpiles of fissile material India could theoretically construct up to 120 weapons, while Pakistan could construct up to 240.

But India has a leverage

Overall, however, India has a larger stockpile of plutonium than Pakistan, which will be an advantage for New Delhi in the long-run. Plutonium is, in most respects, more desirable than HEU as a material for nuclear weapons, given that less of it is required for an equivalently powerful fission bomb, which makes plutonium warheads lighter and more suitable for delivery by ballistic missile.

The report has also used the reference of U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race, which played a part in bankrupting the Soviet Union. It emphasises, "Just as the Soviet Union's large nuclear arsenal was of no help whatsoever for its manifold economic and societal weaknesses, Pakistan's nuclear weapons do not address its internal challenges."