Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif has said no meeting of the National Command Authority (NCA), the country’s top nuclear-weapons body, was scheduled on Saturday, hours after reports that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had convened such a meeting.
Reuters had reported quoting the Pakistani military that the meeting of the NCA, the top body of civilian and military officials that takes security decisions including those related to the country's nuclear arsenal, was supposed to take place on Saturday.
Asif later debunked the Reuters report in an interview to ARY TV.
Pakistan had convened an NCA meeting after the Balakot strike in 2019. Speaking to the media at the time, a Pakistani official had said: “I hope you know what the [National Command Authority] means and what it constitutes. I said that we will surprise you. Wait for that surprise.… You have chosen a path of war without knowing the consequence for the peace and security of the region.”
The report about the meeting is a signal that Pakistan is sending to both India and the world, said Dr Debak Das, a nuclear security expert who teaches at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and whose previous work includes organising Track II dialogue between India and Pakistan specifically on nuclear security issues.
“It’s a reminder that Islamabad has nuclear weapons. If it’s true, it’s an irresponsible escalation. It is possible that Islamabad is seeking greater involvement of the international community to get them to mediate or intercede on their behalf,” Das told The Telegraph Online.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, Pakistan has a nuclear weapons stockpile of approximately 170 warheads. With four plutonium production reactors and an expanding uranium enrichment infrastructure, Pakistan’s stockpile has the potential to increase further over the next several years.
India may have produced enough military plutonium for 130 to 210 nuclear warheads but likely has produced only around 172. India has a no first use policy for nuclear weapons, according to a separate article in the Bulletin.
In May 2023, Lt. Gen. (retired) Khalid Kidwai, the first chief of Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division, the secretariat of the NCA, gave a speech at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) where he outlined the country’s nuclear philosophy of “full spectrum deterrence.”
“Pakistan possesses the full spectrum of nuclear weapons in three categories: strategic, operational and tactical, with full range coverage of the large Indian land mass and its outlying territories; there is no place for India’s strategic weapons to hide,” he had claimed.
“Pakistan possesses an entire range of weapons yield coverage in terms of kilotons (KT), and the numbers strongly secured, to deter the adversary’s declared policy of massive retaliation; Pakistan’s “counter-massive retaliation” can therefore be as severe if not more. Pakistan retains the liberty of choosing from a full spectrum of targets in a “target-rich India,” notwithstanding the indigenous Indian BMD or the Russian S-400, to include counter value, counter force and battlefield targets.”
Is Pakistan sending signals? Will India react to this posturing?
“I'm not sure that India will react. It does not need to send back a similar signal - any one hardly needs reminding that India too possesses nuclear weapons,” Das said.