Pakistan's Nuclear Tests

On May 28, 1998, Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices at the Chagai Hills test site in Balochistan, just 17 days after India had conducted its own nuclear tests (Pokhran-II). A sixth test followed on May 30. Pakistan became the seventh nation to test nuclear weapons and the first Muslim-majority nuclear-armed state. The program, led by metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan (who had obtained centrifuge designs while working in the Netherlands), had been covertly developed since the 1970s — accelerated by Pakistan's 1971 defeat and India's first nuclear test in 1974. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared the tests necessary for national survival. The international community imposed sanctions, but within Pakistan, A.Q. Khan became a national hero. The tests fundamentally changed South Asian security: two hostile nuclear-armed neighbors, with an unresolved territorial dispute over Kashmir, now possessed the power to destroy each other — and potentially trigger a broader catastrophe.