Nuclear Program in Pakistan is Exploding

Today’s lead story in The New York Times is alarming, and we seem to be complicit in its development. Apparently, the size of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is increasing rapidly, and we are supporting their government with several billion dollars every year.

Ostensibly, our aid is supposed to help them fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but Pakistan’s not like the United States where every dollar is strictly appropriated and accounted for. We need to build safeguards into the monetary aid we supply, and we have failed to do so.

The story is also alarming because Pakistan “has more terrorists per square mile than any place on Earth,” and because it estimates that there are approximately 2,000 people in Pakistan’s nuclear program who possess critical information on how to build a nuclear weapon.

The crux of the matter revolves around the sovereignty of the Pakistani government. Ideally, we should be able to go in there with our own military, root out Al Qaeda in the northwest provinces and institute fail-safe measures to protect their nukes.  However, Pakistan has its own way of doing things, and they even had a peace treaty with the Taliban militants until just last week.

The Pakistani government is increasing its nukes as a deterrent because of the current instability, the same reason why we wish they wouldn’t.