PALS in Pakistan Part Three - Why Transfer PALS to Pakistan?
Pakistan is not unique among nuclear powers in its lack of
permissive action link technology. Both China and India also
lack PALS. Pakistan does, however, pose a unique risk of loss of
control over its nuclear arsenal. While any country that
possesses nuclear weapons would gain security benefits from
installing the technology, Pakistan's current lack of an
established command and control regime makes it an urgent case
for a U.S. transfer of technology. Pakistan faces several
challenges in creating an effective command and control system
for its nuclear weapons. It has basic geographic problems that
interfere with efforts to control its nuclear weapons in an
emergency. It is a relatively narrow country, with few locations
that weapons can be hidden at and its proximity to India largely
reduces the amount of time available for a second-strike
decision to be made (Man). These geographic problems limit
Pakistan's command and control efforts as they force the central
government to loosen its control over weapons in the event of a
crisis. They also radically inhibit early warning systems, as
the amount of warning time Pakistan would have in the event of
an Indian nuclear attack would be a few minutes at the maximum
(Man). Without the benefit of any prior experience with nuclear
weapons, Pakistan has had great difficulty in establishing a
clear set of controls to prevent the unauthorized use of nuclear
weapons. As discussed earlier, the only real rule that has been
established is the "3-man" requirement. This sort of consensus
would be relatively easy to achieve in a military organization
trained to obey commands from superior officers. Without a
stronger system of organizational safeguards, a technical
solution may be Pakistan's only effective option of increasing
the safety of their arsenal.