Abstract
This article attempts to find out why it became imperative for Pakistan to
acquire nuclear weapons despite external and internal pressures. It examines
the significance of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon tests in May 1998 in the
backdrop of India’s initiative. It identifies the factors that helped the
proponents of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon tests, which this writer calls
Pakistan’s security epistemic community (SEC), to succeed against the
external and internal opponents of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence and
outweigh their case for Pakistan maintaining a non-nuclear stance.
