will pakistan build a nuclear breeder?
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Answer:
Explanation:
Pakistan’s nuclear program has been at the center of attention for nonproliferation pundits for several decades for a variety of reasons. For them, the acquisition of nuclear technology, even for non-NPT states, both for peaceful and military applications (self-defense), is the divine right of the chosen few who are either unable or unwilling to recognize the legitimate security concerns of states in regions mired in a perpetual cycle of hostility. Faced with the traumatizing separation of its Eastern Wing in 1971, Pakistan resolved never to witness such an event at the hands of India again, and was forced to respond to India’s nuclear challenge only three years later in the wake of Pokhran-1. Pakistan had taken the lead in calling for nuclear restraint in South Asia even before India’s 1974 test when it first proposed a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in 1972. This call was repeated twice, once after Pokhran-1 and again in 1978 when Pakistan proposed that both countries simultaneously renounce the acquisition or manufacture of nuclear weapons. The following year, Pakistan again offered India mutual inspection of each other’s nuclear facilities and also proposed a simultaneous accession of India and Pakistan to the NPT and full-scope IAEA safeguards. In 1987, it expressed willingness to enter into a bilateral nuclear test-ban treaty with India and proposed a missile free zone in South Asia in 1994. None of these proposals were given any serious consideration. Since 2007, India has consistently rejected six nuclear-related Confidence Building Measures proposed by Pakistan on one pretext or another. Regrettably, India has rejected each one of these proposals in the past four decades even though there have been a few successful CBM’s which have stood the test of time such as the agreement of non-attack on each other’s nuclear facilities and the agreement of pre-notification of flight tests of ballistic missiles. However, proposals for a strategic restraint regime that would include a commitment not to build missile defenses and include prior notification of cruise missiles were not accepted by India.
But Pakistan has no Fast Breeder Reactor and no unsafeguarded heavy water power reactors on its soil. India already has 100 MWt Dhruva-I in operation coupled with 125 MWt Dhruva-II nearing completion along with another 30 MWt reactor being planned. Its 40 MWt CIRUS reactor had already produced 500 kg of weapon-grade plutonium up to 2006 (IPFM 2006) and an additional 45 kg before it was shut down in 2010. Dhruva-I continues to produce 20-25 kg of weapon-grade plutonium every year. India’s 8 heavy water power reactors kept outside safeguards under the Indo-US nuclear deal can produce 1250 kg of weapon-grade plutonium each year, even though India claims that the unsafeguarded reactor-grade plutonium produced by them during normal operations would be used as fuel (MOX) for its breeder reactor program (also unsafeguarded). India’s 500 MWe EFBR can produce 145 kg of weapon-grade plutonium each year.