Pakistan started the nuclear program because of tensions with India, which started its program five years earlier.
To date, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development program has been officially launched. Unless we count North Korea, Pakistan was the last state in history to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. Pakistan is estimated to have 100 to 120 nuclear warheads today, and their numbers continue to grow. The first successful test was conducted in Pakistan in 1998, approximately 16 years after the development of nuclear weapons.
At the time of launching the nuclear program, the Prime Minister of Pakistan was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the father of later renowned Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The development of nuclear weapons in Pakistan was strongly linked to that country’s relations with India. Namely, India started its own nuclear program back in 1967, during the time of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and already in 1974 conducted the first successful nuclear weapons test.
Pakistan is a respectable nuclear power today because it has not only nuclear heads, but also missiles that can carry those heads. More recently, Pakistan has even announced the construction of a submarine with nuclear missiles, which would allow strikes to be executed even if the enemy had previously destroyed launchers on the Pakistani mainland.
