By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
    
An arms race, especially between neighbours with an unending record of hostility that has seen three devastating wars, is a horrifying idea.
What if the two belligerents possess nuclear weapons and are not members of the NPT (Non Proliferation Treaty) to keep under check and control their unbridled ambitions?
The immediate answer could be "destructive”, but on second thoughts the better word to describe such a situation would be "deterrence”, or more properly "balance of terror” – as was the term used to describe US-USSR relations during the Cold War.
The adversaries in question here are not super powers, but India and Pakistan, the two regional states, whose policies are based on military competition to deter the other from gaining the upper hand and turning into a practical threat.
Recently, when India claimed on November 5 that it had succeeded in launching its first nuclear-powered submarine, Pakistan wasted no time in announcing its intention.
What Mohammad Faisal, the foreign ministry spokesman in Islamabad said was not a mere bluster, but indication of things to come in the arms race between the two rivals of the Subcontinent.
He said: "No one should doubt Pakistan’s resolve and capabilities to meet the challenge posed by the latest developments.”
It means, Pakistan, apprehensive that the latest Indian move could disturb the delicate military balance between the nuclear-armed neighbours, is already secretly engaged in a similar project that might soon assume practical proportions – given Islamabad’s close ties to Beijing, which in turn has a cold attitude towards New Delhi.
It should be recalled that twenty years ago in 1998, when India carried out a series of successful nuclear blasts from May 11 to 13, Pakistan promptly came out with its own explosive answer by triggering at least five nuclear blasts on May 28.
This time, though India which has of late developed close ties with the US, holds the upper hand in economy compared to Pakistan’s dire financial situation, the monetary and military means at the latter’s disposal to maintain the weapons balance at any cost, should not be ruled out.
If China accounts for most of Pakistan’s weapons needs, Saudi Arabia is known to grant it blank petro-dollar cheques running into billions of dollars.
Thus, since the two countries, according to experts, have an estimated stockpile of roughly 150 nuclear warheads, Pakistan can ill afford to let India take the edge through its nuclear-powered submarine.
Moreover, in view of India’s plans to build two more such submarines as sequels to its first one named "Arihant”, for completing a "triad” that would give it the ability to deliver nuclear payloads from land, air and sea, Pakistan might borrow a deterrent from China, if it hasn’t completed its own version.
Leasing out a nuclear submarine is nothing new. In the past, Moscow had leased a nuclear sub to New Delhi, which means Beijing might already be in the process of leasing one to Islamabad on a temporary basis.
Whatever the speculations, an arms race between the two nuclear armed neighbours is not even alarming but speaks of the hypocrisy of the big powers, as far as their proxies are concerned.
The fueling of a nuclear weapons race is a dangerous development and threat to the security of the entire region, but when double standards are in vogue, even at the UN, a blind eye is turned to catastrophes in the making (similar to the case of the nuclear armed Zionist entity), while hypocrites in Washington try to mislead the world by imposing sanctions and crying hoarse over Iran’s IAEA-attested peaceful atomic project and Tehran’s right to upgrade its conventional ballistic missile defence capabilities.