Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb: Ambitions, Politics, and Rivalries

by Mansoor Ahmed Narrated by Tom Perkins

Overview

Pakistan's pathway to developing nuclear weapons remains shrouded in mystery and surrounded by misconceptions. While it is no secret why Pakistan became a nuclear power, how Pakistan became a nuclear state has been obscured by mythmaking.



In Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb, Mansoor Ahmed offers a revisionist history of Pakistan's nuclear program and the bureaucratic politics that shaped its development from its inception in 1956 until the 1998 nuclear tests. Drawing on elite interviews and previously untapped primary sources, Ahmed offers a fresh assessment of the actual and perceived roles and contributions of the scientists and engineers who led the nuclear program. He shows how personal ambitions and politics within Pakistan's strategic enclave generated inter-laboratory competition in the nuclear establishment, which determined nuclear choices for the country for more than two decades. It also produced unexpected consequences such as illicit proliferation to other countries largely outside of the Pakistani state's control.



As Pakistan's nuclear deterrent program continues to grow, Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb provides fresh insights into how this nuclear power has evolved in the past and where it stands today.

Editorial Reviews

Journal of Contemporary Studies

Ahmed argues that while security drivers do explain why Pakistan went nuclear, they do not help us describe the pathways it traversed to do the needful. The author has used a good mix of primary and secondary sources to make his work a gripping read. His focus on untangling the politics within Pakistan's nuclear enterprise has added to the scholarly mix of the hitherto understudied aspects of the country's biggest success story. One big lesson from this book for nuclear watchers is that individuals play a far greater role in shaping trajectories of nuclear states, and Pakistan is no exception.World

Binding Hook

Ahmed's book should replace or complement the classic books on Pakistan's nuclear program. It serves as a reminder of how much of the world's nuclear story remains locked away in inaccessible memories and archives and how much of it may be obscured by intentional mythmaking.

Cold War History

Mansoor Ahmed’s book, while purposefully pertaining to the realm of security and strategic studies, is a valuable contribution to the historical knowledge of Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

Midwest Book Review

A timely and well-informed contribution to Pakistan military history and nuclear capability development.

Choice

In this excellent book, Ahmed challenges conventional wisdom about the evolution of Pakistan's nuclear program, arguing that the country's "nuclear elite" was already pursuing dual-use latent nuclear weapon capabilities in the 1960s, long before India's 1974 nuclear test. Using primary and secondary sources, numerous interviews, and previously unseen documents, Ahmed describes in painstaking detail the intricate bureaucratic politics and changing coalitions shaping Pakistan's path to developing nuclear weapons capability before the May 1998 nuclear tests.

International Affairs

The book is an important contribution to the academic literature on Pakistan’s nuclear history. It disproves the widespread myths surrounding Pakistan’s highly secretive nuclear project that have made it difficult to separate facts from fiction. Leveraging a range of previously unseen primary sources, Ahmed puts various conflicting historical events into welcome perspective.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175341363
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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