On December 18, the United States Department of State announced that the US had sanctioned four Pakistani entities, including the National Development Complex responsible for developing Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme. The other three entities are private firms “which have worked to supply equipment and missile‐applicable items to Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme.”
“In light of the continuing proliferation threat of Pakistan’s long-range missile development, the United States is designating four entities for sanctions pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.”
The next day, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) responded by terming the announcement “unfortunate and biased.” The ministry also stated that “The latest installment of sanctions defies the objective of peace and security by aiming to accentuate military asymmetries,” a clear reference to US support for India’s nuclear, missile, and space programmes.
With reference to nonproliferation, which was the thrust of the State Department’s announcement, MoFA pointed out that “Such double standards and discriminatory practices not only undermine the credibility of non-proliferation regimes but also endanger regional and international peace and security.”
The same day as MoFA put out its statement, lame duck US President Joe Biden’s Deputy National Security Advisor, Jonathan Finer, spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the Administration’s WMD Policies and made negative public remarks about Pakistan’s missile programme.
Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes have historically been sanctioned by the US. The latest instalment, to use MoFA’s term, is the fourth round of sanctions against Pakistan within a year
The crux of Finer’s remarks, available on the Carnegie website, is that “Pakistan has developed increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors.” According to him, if these trends continue, “Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States.”
He went on to say that Pakistan’s conduct had raised “real questions” about the aims of its ballistic missile programme and “Candidly, it’s hard for us [the US] to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States.”
Let’s try and unpack Finer’s remarks that move from the premise of Pakistan testing big-diameter rocket motors to reach the conclusion that such testing is definitively for developing an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capability and then jump to the prediction that such long-range missile capability is meant to attack the US.
But first a word about sanctions. Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes have historically been sanctioned by the US. The latest instalment, to use MoFA’s term, is the fourth round of sanctions against Pakistan within a year. The earlier three rounds also targeted certain Chinese entities in Oct 2023, April 2024 and September 2024, respectively.
But the sanctions date back to 1985 with the Pressler Amendment which barred any US aid to Pakistan unless the US President could certify that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device. The amendment was Pakistan-specific and at the time was meant to bypass the Glenn-Symington Amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 which required Congressional scrutiny.
In 1989, Pakistan tested Hatf-1 and Hatf-2 ballistic missiles, and Pakistan and China also signed a “ten-year cooperation agreement in defence science, technology and industry, including joint procurement, research, and development, production and technology transfer.” The next year, in 1990, US President George H Bush withheld the certification under Pressler about Pakistan’s nuclear programme, resulting in the US suspending all military aid to Islamabad. By 1991, the United States had sanctioned two Chinese entities and Pakistan’s Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission for missile proliferation activities.
The list of US sanctions is long and details can be picked up from the US State Department. The point here is that this development is not new and, frankly, not unexpected either. The other point that needs to be flagged is the transactional nature of US-Pakistan relations which are responsible for the crests and troughs in this relationship. Allied with this is the fact that states operate on the basis of interests and Pakistan’s and the US’s interests align and diverge in multiple ways, depending on the immediate context.
But let’s get back to the immediate and compare the US approach to India. The comparison is not meant as a lamentation but simply to make two points: one, that India now has a strategic partnership with the US because of latter’s peer competition with China. In an ideal world, the US would want India to act single-mindedly as a counterweight to China. Whether and to what extent India can or would like to do that is a separate discussion. Two, the US approach because of the China factor is pushing it into taking positions that, far from serving the interests of non-proliferation, are exacerbating current asymmetries, as noted in the MoFA statement.
India makes a 2.8 m diameter solid motor for the Polar and Geostationary Space Launch Vehicle (PSLV/GLSV). China recently tested a 3.5 m diameter solid rocket motor. That's much bigger than an ICBM needs to be.
On February 20, 1962, President John F Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral to tour the Mercury Control Center after the MA-6 flight. The flight was the first American spaceflight to orbit the earth with a human onboard. The Atlas family of Space Launch Vehicles (SLV) was developed from the Atlas Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. President Kennedy was once asked the difference between the Atlas SLV and an Atlas ICBM. He punned: “Attitude.”
The point is simple. A large-diameter solid rocket motor can become the basis for a space programme as well as an ICBM. China, France, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States developed SLVs from ICBM rocket motors. India did the opposite, adapting an SLV as a ballistic missile. In the 1980s, India’s SLV-3 became the Agni medium-range ballistic missile.
Point two: India habitually describes its nuclear and missile programmes as civilian until it can’t deny their military character. It described its 1974 test, Smiling Buddha, as a peaceful nuclear explosion, even as it was working on weaponising its nuclear capability. Agni was dubbed “technology demonstrator,” even as it was working its SLV for military application. Now Agni V has a claimed range of more than 5000 kms and is supposed to hit targets in China, which, presumably is perfectly fine by the United States.
Not all experts in the US are on the India bandwagon, though. Many in the US have been queasy about Indo-US space and technology cooperation which an assessment by the Arms Control Association in the noughties described as a “glide path to ICBM trouble.” Ironically, on December 17, a day before Finer was to jump at absurd conclusions about Pakistan’s programme, the White House put out a factsheet titled “The United States and India Advance Growing Space Partnership.”
Following President Biden and Prime Minister Modi’s June 2023 commitment to work together to “reach new frontiers across all sectors of space cooperation” and India’s signing of the Artemis Accords, our two nations reached an inflection point on collaboration across civil, security, and commercial space sectors.
This is despite the fact that India has used his Polar SLV and Geostationary SLV for building and honing its missile capabilities.
But the best assessment of Finer’s comments came in a Twitter thread by Dr Jeffery Lewis @ArmsControlWonk, a leading US expert. Here’s what he said:
DNSA Jon Finer at @CarnegieEndow said Pakistan is developing a large-diameter solid rocket motor for an ICBM that, in the Q&A, he characterises as “fundamentally focused on us,” adding “that is an inescapable conclusion.” That last conclusion I find rather easy to escape.
I am sure Pakistan is developing large diameter solid rocket motors (>1.4 m, the diameter of the Shaheen III), but it is a HUGE LEAP to suggest that the only reason for doing this is to develop an ICBM capable to [sic] targeting the United States.
Space launchers can be really big. India makes a 2.8 m diameter solid motor for the Polar and Geostationary Space Launch Vehicle (PSLV/GLSV). China recently tested a 3.5 m diameter solid rocket motor. That's much bigger than an ICBM needs to be.
Given modern commercial and military requirements, space technologies are equally crucial for communication, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
Another problem is that Pakistan might want an ICBM class motor to use as an intermediate range ballistic missile like the SS-20. Russia just used the first two stages of the Yars ICBM (1.86 m) to deliver conventional warheads against Ukraine just 1,000 km away.
Countries develop big motors for all sorts of reasons. There are strategic reasons like “I need an ICBM” or “I want to put a satellite in orbit,” as well as other sorts of political reasons like “I want to work on cool technology” or “India has one, it's not fair.”
So, bottom line: I am sure Pakistan seeks large-diameter solid rocket motors. I am sure China is helping. But I don't think we should simply assume that Pakistan is building a large-diameter motor solely to target the US absent additional information.
Back in 1999, writing for The Friday Times, I had argued that deterrence must have a global outreach. Given modern commercial and military requirements, space technologies are equally crucial for communication, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Finer didn’t play off his own bat. He was expressing the Biden administration's policy vis-a-vis Pakistan. Its public expression at this point could also be to lock the coming administration into this policy.
There’s a big corpus of literature on why sanctions don’t work, especially when they are devised to thwart a weaker state from pursuing its vital security interests. Iran and North Korea are good examples. Pakistan needs to develop comprehensive deterrence as also space capabilities. India has already demonstrated its anti-satellite capability. There’s no way that Pakistan would allow strategies of coercion to kick into play.
For Finer to posit Pakistan’s testing of big-diameter rocket engines as an adversarial act is not about Pakistan’s intentions but the US’s inimical approach. Such approach, were it to become a staple of the US policy towards Pakistan, could end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The answer to the theoretical question of How would Pakistan deter an adversarial US? would be By acquiring global deterrence outreach.
This, essentially, is the problem with creating inimical scenarios where none (should) exist. Unfortunately, the US’s policies in various regions have recurrently been grounded in precisely this approach. Just look at the mess around the world and you would agree.