Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb : Ambitions, Politics, and Rivalries / Mansoor Ahmed.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ahmed, Mansoor (Writer on nuclear weapons), author.

Series:

South Asia in world affairs series.

South Asia in World Affairs Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nuclear weapons--Government policy.

Nuclear weapons.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Washington, DC : Georgetown University Press, [2022]

Summary:

"Mansoor Ahmed's Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb reveals a new history of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and the bureaucratic competition that shaped it from its inception in 1956 until the 1998 nuclear tests and beyond. While the enduring security dilemma from India was the chief driver for the country's quest for the bomb, heated domestic rivalries within the country's technocratic community influenced the direction and growth of the nuclear program in equal measure. Ahmed offers a revisionist assessment of the role of Dr. A. Q. Khan, the giant of Pakistan's nuclear program. He reveals the competition between Khan Research Laboratories and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, how A. Q. Khan was able to build a cult of personality that inflated his role in the public mind, and how Khan was able to build a fiefdom largely outside of state control that proliferated nuclear technology abroad. Drawing on elite interviews and previously untapped primary-source documents, this book sheds light on the process by which Pakistan became a nuclear power"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Bureaucratic Inertia and the Nuclear Option

The Triumph of the Mythmakers

Facing the Smiling Buddha

The Enticing Centrifuge

Procurements and Politics of the Special Project

Trials, Tussles, and Uranium Enrichment

Achieving the Plutonium Ambition

Building the Nuclear Device

Competition, Command and Control, and the Nuclear Tests Conclusion

Appendix 1. Major Figures in Pakistan's Nuclear Establishment, 1960-2001

Appendix 2. The Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Program, 1972-1998

Appendix 3. Note on "Nuclear Danger from India" submitted to President Ayub Khan by Munir A. Khan and Abdus Salam, Summer of 1967

Appendix 4. Newsletter of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission published in May 1974, a few days after India's first nuclear test

Appendix 5. A. Q. Khan's handwritten private letter to Munir A. Khan, June 1976, on the status of the centrifuge project before he took over as project-director a month later.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Ahmed, Mansoor Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb

ISBN:

9781647122324

1647122325

OCLC:

1304351392