Geopolitics over Proliferation: the Origins of US Grand Strategy and Their Implications for the Spread of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia

ABSTRACT

How much does the United States care about nonproliferation? Recent scholarship suggests that the fear of spreading nuclear weapons was central to the US grand strategy in the Cold War. In one important case, however, this argument does not hold. This article draws on theoretical debates and newly declassified archives to demonstrate the primacy of geopolitics over nonproliferation in Washington’s policy toward India and Pakistan. Despite their rhetoric, Democratic and Republican leaders consistently relegated nonproliferation to the backburner whenever it conflicted with other strategic goals. Moreover, they inadvertently encouraged proliferation in South Asia at three inter-connected levels: technology, security, and identity.

KEYWORDS:

• United States
• Grand Strategy
• Nuclear Proliferation
• Pakistan
• India

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

The author is very grateful to Professor Joshua Rovner and to the two anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful comments.

Notes

¹ Albert Wohlstetter ‘Spreading the Bomb Without Quite Breaking the Rules’, in Henry Sokolski (ed.), Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wholstetter (Carlisle Barracks: Strategic Studies Institute 2009) 301; Henry Sokolski and Victor Gilinsky, ‘Serious Rules for Nuclear Power Without Proliferation’, in Henry Sokolski (ed.), Moving Beyond Pretense: Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation (Carlisle Barracks: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College 2014) 462.

² Matthew Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance: How ‘Atoms For Peace’ Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press 2012) 10–11; on ‘sensitive nuclear assistance’ see Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2010) 2–4; see also David Albright, Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies (New York: Free Press 2010).

³ Francis J. Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation’, International Security 40/1 (Summer 2015) 10.

⁴ Ibid., 20.

⁵ Or Rabinowitz and Nicholas L. Miller, ‘Keeping the Bombs in the Basement: U.S. Nonproliferation Policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan’, International Security 40/1 (Summer 2015) 47.

⁶ Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’, 11, 36–37.

⁷ Ibid., 11; Nicholas L. Miller, ‘The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions’, International Organization 68/4 (Fall 2014) 913–44.

⁸ Joshua Rovner, ‘After Proliferation: Deterrence Theory and Emerging Nuclear Powers’, in Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes (eds), Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age: Power, Ambition, and the Ultimate Weapon (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press 2012) 17–36.

⁹ Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’, 34.

¹⁰ On the security rationale, see Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, India, Pakistan and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia (New York: Columbia University Press 2010) 37; Ashley J. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal (Santa Monica, CA: Rand 2001) 10–11; on the identity rationale, see Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy, and the Postcolonial State (London, New York: Zed Books 1998) 124; Itty Abraham, ‘Contra-Proliferation: Interpreting The Meanings of India’s Nuclear Tests in 1974 and 1998‘, in Scott D. Sagan (ed.), Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford University Press 2009) 106–33; George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: the Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press 1999) 6; for a general perspective, see Scott D. Sagan, ‘Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb’, International Security 21/3 (Winter 1996-1997).

¹¹ David Armstrong and Joseph Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press 2007); Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press 2006); Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (New York: Walker & Company 2007); Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, The Man from Pakistan: the True Story of the World’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Smuggler (New York: Twelve 2007); Leonard Weiss, ‘It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again’, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 60/3 (May-June 2004) 52–59; Gerard C. Smith and Helena Cobban, ‘A Blind Eye to Proliferation’, Foreign Affairs 68/3 (Summer 1989) 53-70.

¹² On the post-Cold War weaponization of India and Pakistan’s nuclear programs, see (New York: Twelve 2007) Gaurav Kampani, ‘New Delhi’s Long Nuclear Journey: How Secrecy and Institutional Roadblocks Delayed India’s Weaponization’, International Security 38/4 (Spring 2014) 80, and, more broadly, 79–114.

¹³ Arms Control Association, Arms Control and National Security: an Introduction (Washington, DC: Arms Control Association 1989) 120.

¹⁴ Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’, 16, 19, 34.

¹⁵ Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, 16–19; Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 49.

¹⁶ Ibid., 36; James M. Jasper, Nuclear Politics: Energy and the State in the U.S., Sweden and France (Princeton University Press 1990) 46; on the influence of General Electrics and Westinghouse, Arjun Makhijani and Scott Saleska, The Nuclear Power Deception: U.S. Nuclear Mythology From Electricity ‘Too Cheap to Meter’ to ‘Inherently Safe’ Reactors (New York: Apex Press 1999) 84–88.

¹⁷ Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, 17.

¹⁸ J. Samuel Walker, ‘Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation: The Controversy over Nuclear Exports 1974-1980’, Diplomatic History 25/2 (Spring 2001) 216.

¹⁹ Shane J. Maddock, Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2010) 90–91.

²⁰ Albert Wohlstetter, ‘Spreading the Bomb’, in Sokolski (ed.), Nuclear Heuristics, 304–7.

²¹ Frantz, Collins, The Man from Pakistan, 10; Walker, ‘Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation’, 217.

²² Fred C. Iklé, ‘Nuclear Explosion’, The Wall Street Journal, 5 Aug. 2005, <http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB112321038195505852>; Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance, 146.

²³ Corera, Shopping for Bombs, XII.

²⁴ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 28.

²⁵ Ashok Kapur, Pokhran and Beyond: India’s Nuclear Behavior (New Delhi, New York: Oxford University Press 2001) 170; Bhumitra Chakma, Strategic Dynamics and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation in South Asia: a Historical Analysis (Berlin, New York: Peter Lang 2004) 21.

²⁶ S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford University Press 2007) 83.

²⁷ Abraham, The Making of the Indian Bomb, 129–30; Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 124, 148–49.

²⁸ Jeffrey T. Richelson, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (New York: Norton 2006) 222–23.

²⁹ S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent, 83–84.

³⁰ Ibid., 143–44; Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Press 2001) 103.

³¹ P.R. Chari, Indo-Pak Nuclear Standoff: the Role of the U.S. (New Delhi: Manohar 1995) 12–13.

³² Robert C. Horn, Soviet-Indian Relations: Issues and Influence (New York: Praeger 1982) 96.

³³ Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’, 25.

³⁴ Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2005) 83; Islamabad became the country’s capital in the late 1960s.

³⁵ Dennis Kux, Disenchanted Allies: The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2001) 130–31.

³⁶ Dennis Kux, Estranged Democracies: India and the U.S. (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press 1993) 209–13.

³⁷ Ibid., 217.

³⁸ Sumit Ganguly, ‘U.S.-Indian Relations during the Lyndon Johnson Era’, in Sumit Ganguly and Harold Alton Gould (eds), The Hope and the Reality: U.S.-Indian Relations from Roosevelt to Reagan (Boulder: Westview Press 1992) 82.

³⁹ Andrew B. Kennedy, ‘India’s Nuclear Odyssey: Implicit Umbrellas, Diplomatic Disappointments, and the Bomb’, International Security 36/2 (Fall 2011) 128–29; on Washington’s lack of determination and ‘intermittent’ efforts, see Nicholas L. Miller, ‘Nuclear Dominoes: a Self-Defeating Prophecy?’, Security Studies 23/1 (Jan. 2014), 44–49; see also Sumit Ganguly, ‘India’s Pathway to Pokhran II: the Prospects and Sources of New Delhi’s Nuclear Weapons Program’, International Security 23/4 (Spring 1999) 153–55.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 128-135; Chari, Indo-Pak Nuclear Standoff, 12.

⁴¹ Miller, ‘Nuclear Dominoes’, 44–45.

⁴² Kennedy, ‘India’s Nuclear Odyssey’, 134–35.

⁴³ Ganguly and Kapur, India, Pakistan and the Bomb, 37.

⁴⁴ Chari, Indo-Pak Nuclear Standoff, 11–12; Priya Chacko, Indian Foreign Policy: the Politics of Postcolonial Identity from 1947-2004 (London, New York: Routledge: 2012) 131.

⁴⁵ Christopher Van Hollen, ‘The Tilt Policy Revisited: Nixon-Kissinger Geopolitics and South Asia’, Asian Survey 20/4 (Apr. 1980) 360; according to most accounts it never entered the Bay of Bengal; Raghavendra Mishra, ‘Revisiting the 1971 “U.S.S. Enterprise Incident”: Rhetoric, Reality and Pointers for the Contemporary Era’, Journal of Defence Studies 9/2 (Apr.-June 2015) 60–62.

⁴⁶  

⁴⁷ Horn, Soviet-Indian Relations, 96.

⁴⁸ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 161.

⁴⁹ Ashok Kapur, Pokhran and Beyond, 52.

⁵⁰ Karsten Frey, India’s Nuclear Bomb and National Security (London, New York: Routledge 2006) 63.

⁵¹ V. Ramana, ‘Scientists and India’s Nuclear Bomb’, in Pervez Hoodboy (ed.) Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani and Indian Scientists Speak Out (Karachi: Oxford University Press 2013) 8.

⁵² Manjari Chatterjee Miller, Wronged by Empire: Post-Imperial Ideology and Foreign Policy in India and China (Stanford University Press 2013) 97.

⁵³ Jacques E.C. Hymans, ‘Why Do States Acquire Nuclear Weapons? Comparing the Cases of India and France’ in D.R. Sardesai and Raju G.C. Thomas (eds), Nuclear India in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Palgrave 2002) 145.

⁵⁴ Ira Chernus, Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace (College Station: Texas A&M University Press 2002) 98.

⁵⁵ Armstrong, Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, 13.

⁵⁶ Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’, 26.

⁵⁷ Arms Control Association, Arms Control and National Security, 122.

⁵⁸ Albright, Peddling Peril, 8.

⁵⁹ Abraham, The Making of the Indian Bomb, 140.

⁶⁰ Woodrow Wilson Center, Indian Nuclear History, ‘Rajya Sabha Debate on the Non-Proliferation Treaty’, 21 Nov. 1967 <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/assets/media_files/000/011/445/11445.pdf, 304>.

⁶¹ Jonathan Schell, The Seventh Decade: the New Shape of Nuclear Danger (New York: Metropolitan Books 2007) 39–40; on the connections between that issue and proliferation, see Jeffrey Knopf, ‘Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation: Examining the Linkage Argument’, International Security 37/3 (Winter 2012), especially 94, 130–32.

⁶² Maddock, Nuclear Apartheid, 2.

⁶³ Chatterjee Miller, Wronged by Empire, 2.

⁶⁴ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 144; the international nonproliferation regime contributed to push India’s program ‘underground’ only after the end of the Cold War; Kampani, ‘India’s Long Nuclear Journey’, 81–83, 86–87.

⁶⁵ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 166; Frey, India’s Nuclear Bomb and National Security, 87.

⁶⁶ NSA (National Security Archives), US Intelligence and the Indian bomb, ‘Office of Scientific Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Indian Nuclear Energy Program’, 18 Feb. 1958.

⁶⁷ NSA, US Intelligence and the Indian Bomb, Henry S. Rowen, Department of Defense, ‘The Indian Nuclear Problem’, 24 Dec. 1964, 1.

⁶⁸ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 94-95.

⁶⁹ NSA, India and Pakistan – on the Nuclear Threshold, State Department Cable, ‘Possible Indian Nuclear Weapons Development’, 29 Mar. 1966 (secret) 1.

⁷⁰ NSA, India and Pakistan – on the Nuclear Threshold, State Department Cable, ‘Regarding a U.S. Public Stance Nuclear Proliferation’, 27 Oct. 1966 (secret) 2–6.

⁷¹ Jayita Sarkar, ‘The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power: India’s Proliferation Drift, 1964-8’, International History Review 37/5 (Oct. 2015) 939.

⁷² FRUS, Nixon-Ford, vol. E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973-1976, doc. 162, Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission to the IAEA, 18 May 18 1974, 3; Maddock, Nuclear Apartheid, 254.

⁷³ NSA, Department of State, McGhee to Rusk, ‘Anticipatory Action Pending Chinese Communist Demonstration of Nuclear Capability’, 13 Sept. 1961 <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/DOCUMENT/950428.htm>.

⁷⁴ Robert F. Goheen, ‘U.S. Policy toward India during the Carter Presidency’, in Ganguly and Gould (eds), The Hope and the Reality, 127.

⁷⁵ Woodrow Wilson Center, Indian Nuclear History, India Department of Atomic Energy, Letter from Dr. Glenn Seaborg to Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, ‘Cooperation with U.S.A. in the Development of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes’, 19 Nov. 1966 <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/assets/media_files/000/007/949/7949.pdf>, 2.

⁷⁶ Albert Wohlstetter, ‘Spreading the Bomb’, in Sokolski (ed.), Nuclear Heuristics, 324.

⁷⁷ Roberta Wohlstetter, ‘Buddha Smiles: U.S. Peaceful Aid and the Indian Bomb’, in ibid., 348.

⁷⁸ Sarkar, The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power’, 940–41.

⁷⁹ Woodrow Wilson Center, The Nixon Administration and the Indian Nuclear Program, H. Daniel Brewster to Herman Pollack, ‘Indian Nuclear Developments’, 16 Jan. 1973, Enclosing Summary, 1 Sept. 1972, Secret Source: RG 59, SN 70-73, AE 6 India; <http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-nixon-administration-and-the-indian-nuclear-program-1972-1974>; Nicholas L. Miller, ‘The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions’, 919–20.

⁸⁰ Clarence Long, ‘Nuclear proliferation: Can Congress Act in Time?’, International Security 1/4 (Spring 1977) 59–60.

⁸¹ Mark Hertsgaard, Nuclear Inc.: The Men and Money Behind Nuclear Energy (New York: Pantheon Books 1983) 55.

⁸² Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’, 35.

⁸³ FRUS, vol. E-8, doc. 162, Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission to the IAEA, 18 May 1974.

⁸⁴ New Delhi, Nehru Library, Indian Government Archives, T.N. Kaul papers, Subject Files, number 2, Foreign secretary from ambassador, 7 June 1974, 1.

⁸⁵ Yorba Linda (CA), Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, N.S.C. Files – Country Files – Middle East, India, Telegram from Washington to the Embassy in New Delhi, 20 June 1974.

⁸⁶ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 185.

⁸⁷ Kux, Estranged Democracies, 328–29.

⁸⁸ FRUS, Nixon-Ford, vol. E-7, Documents on South Asia: 1969-1972, doc. 298, Special National Intelligence Estimate, 31-72, Washington, 3 Aug. 1972.

⁸⁹ FRUS, vol. E-7, doc. 222, Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Nutter) to Secretary of Defense Laird, Washington, 4 Feb. 1972.

⁹⁰ FRUS, vol. E-7, doc. 298, Special National Intelligence Estimate 31‘72, Washington, 3 Aug. 1972, 3.

⁹¹ Walker, ‘Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation’, 222; Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2012) 108.

⁹² Leonard S. Spector, Nuclear Proliferation Today (New York: Vintage Books 1984) 37.

⁹³ Walker, ‘Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation’, 222; on Nixon’s decision to turn a blind eye on Israel’s nascent nuclear-weapon capacity, see Avner Cohen, William Burr, ‘Don’t Like that Israel Has the Bomb? Blame Nixon’, Foreign Policy (online), 12 Sept. 2014 <http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/12/dont-like-that-israel-has-the-bomb-blame-nixon/>; on the Nixon Administration’s ‘benign neglect and geopolitical pragmatism’ vis-à-vis the NPT, see Or Rabinowitz, James Cameron, ‘Eight Lost Years? Nixon, Ford, Kissinger and the Non-Proliferation Regime, 1969–1977’, Journal of Strategic Studies (online), 5 January 2016, 4–10.

⁹⁴ Ibid., 13–14.

⁹⁵ Ibid., 13.

⁹⁶ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 191.

⁹⁷ Walker, ‘Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation’, 224.

⁹⁸ Herbert Krosney and Steve Weissman, The Islamic Bomb: the Nuclear Threat to Israel and the Middle East (New York: Times Books 1981) 150.

⁹⁹ Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance, 248.

¹⁰⁰ Walker, ‘Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation’, 225; Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: the Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford University Press 2012) 165.

¹⁰¹ Rabinowitz and Cameron, ‘Eight Lost Years?’, 15–16.

¹⁰² Miller, ‘The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions’, 919–22.

¹⁰³ US Congress, 93rd Congress, 2nd session, Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives subcommittee on Foreign Operation and Related Agencies, 11 June 1974.

¹⁰⁴ Surjit Mansingh, India’s Search for Power: Indira Gandhi’s Foreign Policy, 1966-82 (New Delhi: Sage 1984) 100.

¹⁰⁵ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 198.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid., 206–7.

¹⁰⁷ Pierre Melandri, Histoire des États-Unis Contemporains (Bruxelles: André Versaille 2008) 557–59; Louis Balthazar, Charles-Philippe David, Justin Vaïsse, La Politique Etrangère des Etats-Unis: Fondements, Acteurs, Formulation (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po 2008) 44.

¹⁰⁸ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 198.

¹⁰⁹ Ibid., 176, 190–225.

¹¹⁰ Ibid., 187–88.

¹¹¹ Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, 20–22.

¹¹² Khan, Eating Grass, 53.

¹¹³ Naeem Ahmed Salik, ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme: Technological dimensions’, in P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and If Tekharuzzaman (eds), Nuclear Proliferation in India and Pakistan: South Asian Perspectives (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers 1996) 87.

¹¹⁴ Fuhrmann, Atomic Assistance, 193–94.

¹¹⁵ Armstrong, Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, 21.

¹¹⁶ Ibid., 21–22.

¹¹⁷ Zia Mian, ‘The Coming of the Atomic Age to Pakistan’, in Itty Abraham (ed.), South Asian Cultures of the Bomb: Atomic Publics and the State in India and Pakistan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2009) 35.

¹¹⁸ Ziba Moshaver, Nuclear Weapons Proliferation in South Asia (London: Macmillan 1991) 63.

¹¹⁹ Salik, ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme’, in Chari, Cheema and Tekharuzzaman (eds), Nuclear Proliferation in India and Pakistan, 105.

¹²⁰ Levy and Scott-Clark, Deception, 19.

¹²¹ Kux, Estranged Democracies, 112.

¹²² Husain Haqqani, Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States, and an Epic History of Misunderstanding (New York: Public Affairs 2013) 83.

¹²³ Kux, Disenchanted Allies, XVIII.

¹²⁴ Ibid., 160–64.

¹²⁵ Daniel Markey, No Exit from Pakistan: America’s Tortured Relationship with Islamabad (New York: Cambridge University Press 2013) 87; C. Christine Fair, Fighting to the End: the Pakistan Army’s Way of War (New York: Oxford University Press 2014) 191.

¹²⁶ Howard B. Schaffer, Teresita C. Schaffer, How Pakistan Negotiates with the United States: Riding the Roller Coaster (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace 2011) 3.

¹²⁷ Eqbal Ahmad, cited in Mian, in Abraham (ed.), South Asian Cultures of the Bomb, 27.

¹²⁸ Ibid., 31.

¹²⁹ Ibid., 32–35.

¹³⁰ Khan, Eating Grass, 2.

¹³¹ Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb, 31.

¹³² FRUS, Nixon-Ford, doc. 162, Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission to the IAEA, 18 May 1974; CIA, Electronic Reading Room, National Intelligence Daily, 24 May 1974, 1; State Department, P-reel 1974, P740078-1033, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Intelligence Note, ‘Pakistan’s Response to the Indian Nuclear Explosion’, 3 June 1974.

¹³³ DNSA (Digital National Security Archives), Kissinger Transcripts, secret, Memorandum of conversation, ‘Discussion with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on South Asian Issues’, 31 Oct. 1974, 4.

¹³⁴ State Department, P-reel 1974, P740124-0729, Telegram from the Embassy in Islamabad to State, ‘Pakistan’s Plans on Nuclear Energy’, 11 Nov. 1974.

¹³⁵ FRUS, vol. E-8, doc. 224, Telegram 40475 from the Department of State to the Embassy in Pakistan, 19 Feb. 1976.

¹³⁶ Rabinowitz, Miller, ‘Keeping the Bombs in the Basement’, 71.

¹³⁷ Stanley A. Wolpert, Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times (New York: Oxford University Press 1993) 260.

¹³⁸ The New York Times, ‘Ford Sees Bhutto and Hints U.S. May Ease Pakistan Arms Curb’, 6 Feb. 1975.

¹³⁹ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 195.

¹⁴⁰ Walker, ‘Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation’, 234–36; Or Rabinowitz, Bargaining on Nuclear Tests: Washington and its Cold War Deals (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014) 141.

¹⁴¹ Ann Harbor (MI), Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, National Security Adviser’s File, Presidential correspondence with foreign leaders, 1974–1977, Letter from Prime Minister Bhutto to President Ford, 30 Mar. 1976.

¹⁴² Armstrong, Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, 63.

¹⁴³ NSA, The US. and Pakistan’s Quest for The Bomb, Acting Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the President, ‘Reprocessing Negotiations with Pakistan: a Negotiating Strategy’, 2 Apr. 1977.

¹⁴⁴ Atlanta (GA), Jimmy E. Carter Presidential Library, Collection 1, Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily Report File, box 2, Memorandum from Zbigniew Brzezinski to President Jimmy Carter, Information items, 7 July 1977, 2.

¹⁴⁵ Kux, Disenchanted Allies, 235.

¹⁴⁶ Carter Library, Collection 24, Staff Material, North/South, box 100, Memorandum for Zbigniew Brzezinski, Evening Report, 18 July 1978, 2.

¹⁴⁷ CIA Electronic Reading Room, ‘Re: Pakistan Strong Motivations to Develop Their Nuclear Capability’, 26 Apr. 1978, 25–27.

¹⁴⁸ Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, 76-77; Krosney and Weissman, The Islamic Bomb, 215–16.

¹⁴⁹ NSA, The US and Pakistan’s Quest for The Bomb, Gerard C. Smith to the Secretary, ‘Consultations in Europe on Pakistan’, 15 Nov. 1979.

¹⁵⁰ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 217.

¹⁵¹ Carter Library, Collection 10, box. 25, Staff Evening Reports, Memorandum from North/South for Zbigniew Brzezinski, Evening Report, 26 Nov. 1979.

¹⁵² Carter Library, Collection 2, National Security Advisor, box 10, Executive Secretariat, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Current Reports, 19 May 1978, 2–3.

¹⁵³ Kux, Disenchanted Allies, 241.

¹⁵⁴ Bruce O. Riedel, What We Won: America’s Secret War in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press 2014) 98.

¹⁵⁵ Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: the Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (New York: Oxford University Press 1995) 35.

¹⁵⁶ NSA, China, Pakistan and the Bomb, Friday Morning Session, General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, Secret, Excised Copy, 14 Sept. 1979, Source: State Department FOIA Release, 11; see also Presidential Review Committee [sic] Meeting, 9 Mar. 1979, ‘Pakistan’, Secret, excised copy, 2.

¹⁵⁷ Carter Library, Collection 24, Staff Material, North/South, box 102, P.R.C. Meeting, ‘P.R.C. Meeting on Regional Implications of Iran – Summary of Conclusions’, 23 Feb. 1979, 4:00 p.m.–5:30 p.m., 2.

¹⁵⁸ Carter Library, Collection, Brzezinski Material, Staff Evening Reports File, box 19, Memorandum from Thomas Thornton to Zbigniew Brzezinski, Evening Report, 4 Apr. 1979, 2.

¹⁵⁹ US Congress, Hearings, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs, ‘Crisis in the Subcontinent: Afghanistan and Pakistan’, 96th Congress, 1st session, 15 May, 26 Sept. 1979, 8.

¹⁶⁰ David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven, London: Yale University Press 1983) 97.

¹⁶¹ CIA Electronic Reading Room, Memorandum from Stansfield Turner to the President, vice-President…, ‘Soviet Union and Southwest Asia’, January 15 1980.

¹⁶² Dan Caldwell, ‘The Demise of Détente and U.S. Domestic Politics’, in Odd Arne Westad (ed.), The Fall of Détente: Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years (Oslo, Boston: Scandinavian University Press 1997) 110.

¹⁶³ Rabinowitz, Miller, ‘Keeping the Bombs in the Basement’, 50, 77.

¹⁶⁴ Gavin, Strategies of Inhibition’, 19, 37.

¹⁶⁵ NSA, Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: a Case of Mission Creep, edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Malcolm Byrne, Memorandum from NSA Brzezinski to President Carter, ‘Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan’, 26 Dec. 1979, 3.

¹⁶⁶ Carter Library, Collection 33, Donated Historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File, Weekly Reports (to the President) 71-91 9/78 – 12/78) through Zbigniew Brzezinski index, box 42, NSC Weekly Report 125, from Zbigniew Brzezinski for the President, 11 Jan. 1980.

¹⁶⁷ Carter Library, Memorandum from the DCI for the President, 10 Jan. 1980, 1.

¹⁶⁸ Carter Library, Donated historical Material, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Subject File [Meetings – SCC 202: 11/14/79] through [Meetings – SCC, 250: 1/14/1980], box 31, Memorandum from Tom Thornton for Zbigniew Brzezinski, SCC Meeting, 14 Jan. 1980.

¹⁶⁹ Ibid., Subject File, Weekly Reports (to the President) 71-91 9/78 – 12/78) through Zbigniew Brzezinski index, box 42, NSC Weekly Report 125, Memorandum from Zbigniew Brzezinski for the President, 11 Jan. 1980, 1.

¹⁷⁰ Carter Library, Collection 25, Staff Material, Middle East, box 98, NSC Meeting, 2 Jan. 1980.

¹⁷¹ Carter Library, Collection 12, Brzezinski Material, General Odom File, box 1, Memorandum from the State Department to the vice-President, the Secretary of State…, ‘The Allied Response to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’, 29 May 1980, 8.

¹⁷² Carter Library, Collection 132, NSC Institutional Files 1977-1981, box 112, Memorandum from Thomas Thornton for Zbigniew Brzezinski, Framework SCC, ‘Pakistan’, 11 Apr. 1980, 2-3; Collection 24, NSA-North/South, Pakistan, Memorandum from Thomas Thornton for Zbigniew Brzezinski, 24 July 1980, 1.

¹⁷³ Rabinowitz, Miller, ‘Keeping the Bombs in the Basement’, 77.

¹⁷⁴ Carter Library, Collection 7, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Memorandum from Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, ‘Persian Gulf Security Framework’, 2 Sept. 1980, 2.

¹⁷⁵ Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: the Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster 1996) 149.

¹⁷⁶ Briefing Memorandum, department of State, from Peter D. Constable to the Secretary, ‘Assistance for Pakistan’, 22 May 1980, 3.

¹⁷⁷ Carter Library, Collection 17, Staff Material: Office, box 44, Report prepared for South West Asia Security Framework, ‘Indigenous Force Capabilities and Military Assistance Program’, Nov. 1980, 2.

¹⁷⁸ Carter Library, Collection 128, Plains File, box 3, Memorandum of Conversation, 3 Oct. 1980, 11:10–11:50 a.m..

¹⁷⁹ US Congress, Foreign Assistance for Fiscal Year 1981, Hearings before the subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, ‘Economic and Security Assistance in Asia and the Pacific’, 96th Congress, 1st session, 11 Feb. 1980, 9.

¹⁸⁰ US Congress, Hearings, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, subcommittee on Near Eastern an South Asian affairs, ‘U.S. Security Requirements in the Near East and South Asia’, 96th Congress, 2nd session, 6, 7, 20, 27 Feb., 4, 18 Mar. 1980, 138.

¹⁸¹ Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli, The U.S. and Pakistan: the Evolution of an Influence Relationship (New York: Praeger 1982) 139–40.

¹⁸² Author’s correspondence with Leonard Weiss, Dec. 2011–Jan. 2012.

¹⁸³ Leslie H. Gelb, Richard H. Ullman, ‘Keeping Cool at the Khyber Pass’, Foreign Policy 38 (Spring 1980) 17–18.

¹⁸⁴ Frank B. Cross, Cyril V. Smith, ‘The Reagan Administration’s Nonproliferation Policy’, Catholic University Law Review 33/3 (Spring 1994) 633–65.

¹⁸⁵ Schaffer, Schaffer, How Pakistan Negotiates, 129–32.

¹⁸⁶ Khan, Eating Grass, 214.

¹⁸⁷ Myron A. Brilliant, ‘Pakistan: a Test Case for United States Nonproliferation Laws’, American University International Law Review 4/1 (Jan.-Apr. 1989) 118.

¹⁸⁸ Fair, Fighting to the End, 208; C. Christine Fair, ‘The U.S.-Pakistan F-16 Fiasco’, Foreign Policy (online), 3 Feb. 2011 <http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/02/03/the-u-s-pakistan-f-16-fiasco/?wp_login_redirect=0>.

¹⁸⁹ Kux, Disenchanted Allies, 277.

¹⁹⁰ Frédéric Grare, Le Pakistan Face au Conflit Afghan (Paris: L’Harmattan 1997) 83.

¹⁹¹ NSA, The US and Pakistan’s Quest for the Bomb, ‘Reinforcing Pakistani Resolve to Go Ahead’, Special Assistant for Nuclear Proliferation Intelligence via Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment [and] National Intelligence Officer for Warning to Director of Central Intelligence, ‘Warning Report - Nuclear Proliferation’, 30 Apr. 1980, secret, excised copy, 2.

¹⁹² Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 205.

¹⁹³ Swaran Singh, ‘The China Factor in South Asia’s Nuclear Deterrence’, in E. Sridharan (ed.), The India-Pakistan Nuclear Relationship: Theories of Deterrence and International Relations (New Delhi, Abingdon, UK: Routledge 2007) 296.

¹⁹⁴ Aparna Pande, Explaining Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: Escaping India (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge 2011) 126.

¹⁹⁵ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 231.

¹⁹⁶ Stephen P. Cohen, Arming Without Aiming: India’s Military Modernization (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press 2010) 99; Kampani, ‘India’s Long Nuclear Journey’, 88.

¹⁹⁷ NSA, New Documents Spotlight Reagan-era Tensions over Pakistani Nuclear Program, US Embassy Pakistan Cable 10239 to State Department, ‘My First Meeting with President Zia’, 5 July 1982; ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Programs and U.S. Security Assistance’, Kenneth Adelman, director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, to Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 16 June 1986.

¹⁹⁸ Zahid Husain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam (New York: Columbia University Press 2007) 160–61.

¹⁹⁹ Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton University Press 2014) 59–60.

²⁰⁰ Kux, Disenchanted Allies, 282–83.

²⁰¹ Schaffer, Schaffer, How Pakistan Negotiates, 8.

²⁰² Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’, 19.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas P. Cavanna

Thomas P. Cavanna is a postdoctoral fellow at the SMU Tower Center for Political Studies. He holds a PhD in history from Sciences Po in Paris, France. He writes widely on grand strategy and American foreign policy in South and East Asia. Dr Cavanna is the author of two books: Hubris, Self-Interest, and America’s Failed War in Afghanistan: the Self-Sustaining Overreach (Lexington, Rowan and Littlefield, 2015); and Paradigmatic Volatility: US Foreign Policy towards India and Pakistan in the 1970s (French National Committee for Scientific Research, 2016). His current book project is on the history and future of US grand strategy toward China.