India-Pakistan Nuclear Tests
India conducted five nuclear tests at Pokhran in Rajasthan on 11 and 13 May 1998, and Pakistan answered with six at Chagai in Balochistan on 28 and 30 May. Both states, which had fought three wars, became declared nuclear powers within a fortnight. India had tested once before, in 1974, describing it as a peaceful nuclear explosion, and had then held back for twenty-four years. The 1998 tests came weeks after a BJP government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee took office committed to exercising the option. The preparations were concealed from American satellites by working at night and restoring the sand, and the tests were a complete intelligence failure for Washington. The declared yields included a thermonuclear device of about 45 kilotons, a figure disputed by outside seismologists who read the data as lower. Pakistan's programme had been driven since 1974 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's determination and built with centrifuge designs A.Q. Khan took from a European consortium, with Chinese assistance. It responded despite American offers of aid to hold off, on the reasoning that ambiguity would no longer deter. Both were sanctioned, and the sanctions were largely lifted within three years. The following spring, Pakistani forces occupied heights above Kargil on the Indian side of the line of control, producing the first war between two nuclear states. It stayed limited, which is read either as evidence that deterrence works or as evidence of how narrow the margin is. Neither state has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. India adopted a declared no-first-use posture; Pakistan explicitly did not, since its arsenal exists to offset Indian conventional superiority. Both have since built delivery systems on land, at sea and in the air. The 2008 civil nuclear agreement effectively admitted India to the nuclear order without disarming it.
- Year: 1998 CE
- Category: Military
