On 28 May 2026, Pakistan commemorates 28th anniversary of achieving the nuclear power status to join the elite global nuclear club of N-5+2 (India & Pakistan). It was on this very day that the journey of hardships, resilience, steadfastness and sacrifices spanning over almost four decades, culminated in achieving the unachievable. The day marked the installing of unshakable deterrence against the belligerence and establishing the much-desired strategic stability in the South Asian region. Deterrence against the hegemonic eastern neighbor that was multiple times bigger in conventional forces domain and whose irrational and expansionist leadership was bent upon undermining the strategic stability of the region. Pakistan’s nuclear power status made its defence invincible by imposing extremely prohibitive cost of misadventure to its enemies.
Earlier, on 11th May 1998, India exploded three nuclear devices followed by another two on 13th May 1998 under codename ‘Operation Shakti’ at its underground firing range at Pokhran in its western province Rajasthan. Remember! India had already exploded a nuclear device at Pokhran on 18 May 1974, under codename ‘Smiling Buddha’ by misusing the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), India’s premier nuclear research facility, that was established with the help of Canada at Mumbai, Maharashtra for the peaceful research purposes.
Nevertheless, soon after exploding the nuclear devices in May 1998, Indian political leadership started sabre rattling and declared the tests as ‘necessary step towards the national security’. Particularly, then Indian Prime Minister, AB Vajpayee stated that ‘India’s nuclear weapons were a deterrent against nuclear threats or coercion’, clearly pointing towards China, as by then, Pakistan had not tested its nuclear devices. Indian Home Minister Mr L K Advani went a step further by threatening Pakistan to ‘roll back its policy especially with regard to Kashmir’ and claimed that the ‘geopolitical situation had fundamentally changed’ and warned Pakistan of‘ costly consequences’. It was under such geopolitical and geostrategic circumstances that Pakistan took a decision of its history to detonate five nuclear devices on 28th May 1998 followed by another nuclear device on 30th May 1998, thus marking its ‘Quid Pro Quo Plus’ policy.
Following nuclearization of South Asia, prudence and rationality demanded no space for war because that meant Mutually Assured Destruction virtually leading to ‘Armageddon’. However, Indian leadership despite opting to ‘no first use’ policy of nuclear option, continuously remained searching for space for engaging Pakistan in a limited war on one pretext or the other. As a student of geopolitical and geostrategic studies, critical analysis reveals three primary causes for such a bolstering; (i) appeasement of domestic audience to gain political mileage; (ii) assurance to the external apologists to consolidate its role of net security provider and counter weight to China; (iii) and wrong and mis-placed assessment of India’s military ascendency in conventional domain vs Pakistan.
Ever since May 1998, India violated the UN charter and attacked nuclear Pakistan multiple times. Each time, Pakistan acted as the responsible nuclear state and exercised strategic restraint to become the ‘regional security stabilizer’. Nevertheless, in February 2019 and May 2025, following India’s use of IAF, Pakistan Air Force, by following the policy of ‘Quid Pro Quo Plus’, responded fiercely to give a bloody nose to the IAF and broke the Indian notion of military ascendency in conventional domain.
Pakistan has also utilized the nuclear technology to accrue enormous benefits for the peaceful pur-poses. The energy starved Pakistan, gains 3,530 MW of cheap and green electricity through six nuclear power plants which is planned to grow up to 40,000 MW by 2050. This is an uninterrupted energy that remains available throughout the year and contributes to the energy mix from 17% in summers to approx 30% in winters. Similarly, in the health sector, PAEC’s 20 Cancer Hospitals and 51 nuclear medicine setups account for registering over 40,000 new cancer patients and treating over one million cancer patients each year on subsidized rates all across Pakistan. Likewise, in the field of agriculture, PAEC’s four research centers have so far developed 164 high yield climate resilient crop varieties out of which 90 are in active cultivation resulting in higher per acre yield and created USD billions in imports and exports over the years. These fields have immense potential to grow exponentially however, await government’s due attention.
The conflicts in Europe, Middle East and South Asia, to a greater extent, have intensified the signifi-cance of possessing or otherwise, of the nuclear weapons especially by the Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS). On one hand, political scientists like John Mearsheimer have expressed deep concern over frustration in Ukraine and Iran coupled with growing disrespect (exceptionalism) to the nuclear non-proliferation regime might encourage use of low yield nuclear weapons while on the other hand, smaller nuclear weapon states enjoy protection of their sovereignty even against the bigger and stronger countries. On a lighter note, people of Pakistan remain grateful to the BJP’s irrational and non-provident leadership for creating circumstances which greatly facilitated Pakistan to achieve the nuclear deterrence. While in essence, each and every Pakistani citizen, irrespective of his cast, creed and religion, remains deeply indebted to the scientists, technicians, military personnel and politicians who worked selflessly to achieve the milestone. It’s time to make a pledge with oneself to rise above the differences and work with selfless dedication and devotion to make Pakistan a shining star in the comity of nations.
—The writer is a retired Air Officer from the PAF and currently serving at the DHA Suffa University (DSU), Karachi.
