America, Britain and Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Programme, 1974-1980

A Dream of Nightmare Proportions

Malcolm M. Craig

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783319518800
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Moderne Geschichte

This book analyses US and UK efforts to shut down Pakistan's nuclear programme in the 1970s, between the catalytic Indian nuclear test of May 1974 and the decline of sustained non-proliferation activity from mid-1979 onwards. It is a tale of cooperation between Washington and London, but also a story of divisions and disputes. The brutal economic realities of the decade, globalisation, and wider geopolitical challenges all complicated this relationship. Policy and action were also affected by changes elsewhere in the world. Iran's 1979 revolution brought a new form of political Islamic radicalism to prominence. The fears engendered by the Ayatollah and his followers, coupled to the blustering rhetoric of Pakistani leaders, gave rise to the 'Islamic bomb', a nuclear weapon supposedly created by Pakistan to be shared amongst the Muslim ummah. This study thus combines cultural, diplomatic, economic, and political history to offer a rigorous, deeply researched account of a critical moment in nuclear history.

Table of contents

• America, Britain and Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Programme, 1974–1980
• 1 Introduction
• 2 “No hope of preventing proliferation” From the Indian Nuclear Test to the Politics of Limited Choice, May 1974 to December 1975
• 3 “An end to the first ‘easy’ phase” Pakistan’s Nuclear Reprocessing Plant Deal and the Clandestine Programme’s Discovery, January 1976 to January 1977
• 4 “The omens are scarcely encouraging” Jimmy Carter, Nuclear Reprocessing, and the Clandestine Programme, February 1977 to March 1978
• 5 “We do find this statement of intentions to be disquieting” The US-UK Diplomatic Campaign Against Pakistan, March 1978 to December 1978
• 6 “A dream of nightmare proportions” The ‘Islamic bomb’ and the ‘Khan Affair’, January 1979 to December 1979
• 7 “Dead End” The Failure of Political Solutions to Pakistan’s Nuclear Ambitions, January 1979 to December 1979
• 8 “Peanuts” The Cold War, Khan, Islam, and the Death of Non-proliferation, January 1980 to January 1981
• 9 Conclusions
• Primary Sources
• Select Bibliography
• Index