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As the lies come crashing down
In the midst of the political turmoil engulfing Egypt and much of the Arab world, last month's revelation that Pakistan has doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal over the past four years has been largely ignored.

Nuclear proliferation analysts from the Federation of American Scientists and the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) assess that since 2006, Pakistan has increased the size of its nuclear arsenal from 30-60 atomic bombs to approximately 110. That makes Pakistan the world's fifth largest nuclear power ahead of Britain and France.

As for delivery systems, according to The Washington Post, Pakistan has developed nuclear-capable land- and air-launched cruise missiles. Its Shaheen II missile, with a range of 2,400 kilometers, is about to go into operational deployment.

On Wednesday, Pakistan test-fired its new Hatf- VII nuclear-capable cruise missile with a 600-kilometer range.

The Obama administration has been silent on Pakistan's nuclear proliferation activities. As ISIS President David Albright said to the Washington Post, "The administration is always trying to keep people from talking about this knowledgeably. They're always trying to downplay the numbers [of Pakistan's nuclear warheads] and insisting that 'it's smaller than you think.'"
At a certain level it doesn't matter. Whether the Paks have 20 or 200 warheads, they have enough to deter the Indians from coming after them, and that's the key issue for them. At a certain point in time the U.S. had over 10,000 warheads. How many did we need to deter the USSR? We weren't sure but we decided to have plenty just in case. I suspect that the Paks think of nuclear deterrence in the same way -- more is better.

Posted by: tu3031 2011-02-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=315944