A US based think tank has estimated that Pakistan will become the fifth largest nuclear power by 2025 on the basis of nuclear warheads development performance over past 20 years and its current weapons deployments.
In a new report released by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, two authoritative nuclear analysts, Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, estimated that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile has increased to between 110 and 130 warheads from an estimated 90 to 110 in 2011.
The analysts foresee it possibly expanding further to 220 to 250 warheads in another 10 years. That would make Pakistan the world s fifth largest nuclear weapons state behind the United States, Russia, China and France.
Kristensen and Norris said Pakistan appears to have six nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in its arsenal, three more than in 2011.
At least two other nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and two new cruise missiles, the ground-launched Babur (Hatf-7) and the air-launched Raad (Hatf-8), are in development, they said, adding that they see signs that Pakistan also is developing a nuclear weapon , possibly a cruise missile, for deployment on submarines.
The report comes at time when US President Barack Obama is welcoming Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the White House on Thursday for talks expected to touch on U.S. financial assistance to Islamabad and the prospects for Pakistani acceptance of limits on the scope of its nuclear weapons arsenal.
The U.S.-Pakistan relationship has been rocky over the years, not least because of U.S. concerns about the growth ofPakistan s nuclear arsenal. The U.S. is interested in moving Pakistan toward an arrangement limiting the scope of its nuclear stockpile, but there are few signs that any breakthrough is in sight.
