FIFTY years ago, in May 1974, India detonated its first nuclear device, calling it Operation Smiling Buddha. While the world remained largely silent, Pakistan’s foreign minister declared Pakistan would “never submit to nuclear blackmail” or “accept Indian hegemony over the subcontinent”. Earlier, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had expressed the resolve that if India ever built a nuclear weapon, Pakistan would ‘eat grass’, but build one of its own. Given India’s role in dismembering the country in 1971, the Pakistani leadership found it imperative to restore the power equilibrium by nuclear capability to deter further Indian aggression.
In 1998, South Asia became overtly nuclearised. On May 11, 1998, India tested its nuclear devices. Given the significant conventional asymmetry, Pakistan followed suit on May 28 as it could not remain vulnerable. Its nuclear tests restored the strategic balance and re-established nuclear deterrence, which essentially means deterring an adversary from conventional or nuclear aggression due to concerns that there would be retaliation that could eventually lead to mutual assured destruction.