Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction
Pakistani nuclear weapons program
Pakistan is one of nine states that possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pakistan's arsenal is estimated at 170 nuclear weapons as of 2025. Pakistan carried out two nuclear tests, Chagai-I and Chagai-II, both in 1998 and underground.
Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme began in 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto following Pakistan's defeat in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and India's advancing nuclear programme. The programme was developed through a combination of domestic scientific research, clandestine procurement networks associated with Abdul Qadeer Khan, as well as external political and financial support.
During its early development, the government sought political and financial backing from several Muslim-majority countries and Arab states in the MENA region. Scholars identify Saudi Arabia as providing prolonged financial assistance that helped sustain the programme during periods of economic pressure and international sanctions, while Libya under then dictator Muammar Qaddafi is described as having provided both financial and material support during the programme's formative period.
Pakistan's nuclear weapons doctrine, full spectrum deterrence, officially rejects no first use, promising to use "any weapon in its arsenal" to protect its national interests in the event of an attack. Pakistan's primary strategic concern is potential conflict with India, which also possesses nuclear weapons.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1992486. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1998, 1972 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.