Ricky Kreitner
In court papers released last month, the United States government openly alleges for the first time that Pakistan is seeking to develop thermonuclear weapons, and has attempted to purchase the materials necessary for their production on the black market, Global Security Newswire reports.
Pakistan is already a nuclear-armed country, though it operates outside the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty framework. It is estimated to have a stockpile of approximately 100 weapons—the fastest growing stockpile in the world—though those are all uranium-based.
The new revelations represent the first official confirmation that Pakistan is seeking to build a thermonuclear, or hydrogen-based, weapon, which is about 1,000 times more powerful than a uranium weapon.
Only the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—France, Russia, China, the United States, and the United Kingdom—are known to possess hydrogen bombs.
Because Pakistan has not signed the non-proliferation treaty, it is mostly banned from the legal international nuclear trade, and has notoriously dabbled in the black market before.
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