Shaheen 3 Can Reach Deep Inside India & Israel and Boost Pakistan's Space Program

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan has successfully tested Shaheen III ballistic missile with 1700 mile range. The intermediate range missile can hit deep inside India and Israel. Its multi-stage solid-fuel technology can also be used to launch satellites into space. It has been jointly developed by the National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) and the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO). It's the latest example of dual-use technology.

Pakistan Shaheen 3 Missile Range Source: Washington Post

The missile was successfully test-fired into the Arabian Sea on Monday, March 9, 2015, according to the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) which oversees Pakistan’s nuclear program. Announcing the result, General Zubair Mahmood Hayat, the head of SPD, congratulated NESCOM (National Engineering and Scientific Commission) scientists and engineers for “achieving yet another milestone of historic significance.”

Shaheen-III is the latest in the series of the indigenously produced Shaheen-I and Shaheen-II, which had shorter ranges. “The test launch was aimed at validating various design and technical parameters of the weapon system at maximum range,” the Pakistani military said in a statement. Pakistani military leaders are trying to maintain a “credible deterrence” as arch-rival India continues to invest heavily in military hardware.

Since the technology used in satellite launch vehicles (SLV) is virtually identical to that used in a ballistic missile, Shaheen 3, the latest enhancement to Shaheen series of missiles, is expected to boost Pakistan's space program as well.  Several nations, including India and Israel recently, have used same rocket motors for  both ballistic missiles and satellite launch vehicles (SLVs).  Israel's Shavit SLV and India's SLV-3 are examples of it.

The success of Shaheen 3 multi-stage solid-fueled ballistic missile is a confirmation of Pakistan's determination to ensure its security AND to pursue its space ambitions at the same time. I congratulate Pakistani engineers and scientists at NESCOM and SUPARCO on their hard work, continuing deep commitment and the latest achievement.

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Eating Grass: Pakistan's Nuclear Program

[Riaz Haq]

How to Survive the New Nuclear Age: National Security in a World of Proliferating Risks and Eroding Constraints

by Vipin narang and pranay vaddi (Indian-American analysts)

Yet another threat comes from Pakistan. Although Pakistan claims its nuclear program is strictly focused on deterring India, which enjoys conventional military superiority, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Pakistani military is developing an ICBM that could reach the continental United States. In acquiring such a capability, Pakistan might be seeking to deter the United States from either trying to eliminate its arsenal in a preventive attack or intervening on India’s behalf in a future Indian-Pakistani conflict. Regardless, as U.S. officials have noted, if Pakistan acquires an ICBM, Washington will have no choice but to treat the country as a nuclear adversary—no other country with ICBMs that can target the United States is considered a friend. In short, mounting nuclear dangers now lurk in every region of vital interest to the United States.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-survive-new-nuclea...

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In 2009, when U.S. President Barack Obama came into office, nuclear weapons looked increasingly superfluous. As the Cold War faded into history, Moscow and Washington, the world’s two nuclear superpowers, had long been working together to reduce their arsenals. At the same time, after years of protracted conventional wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the broader “war on terror,” the U.S. defense establishment was far more preoccupied with counterterrorism and counterinsurgency than with nuclear strategy and great-power rivalry. The notion that any other country would attempt to reach nuclear parity with Russia and the United States seemed far-fetched, and American leaders were all too happy to delay an expensive refurbishment of the aging U.S. arsenal. So strong was the consensus that nuclear arms were a relic of a previous era that four top former national security officials—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and William Perry, not one of them a dove—publicly called for “ending” nuclear weapons “as a threat to the world.”

A decade and a half later, things could not be more different. The United States now faces a Category 5 hurricane of nuclear threats. After decades of maintaining only a minimal nuclear capability, China is on pace to nearly quintuple its 2019 stockpile of some 300 nuclear warheads by 2035, in a quest to attain an arsenal equivalent in strength to Russia’s and the United States’. Far from being a partner in arms reductions, Russia is using the threat of nuclear weapons as a shield for its aggression in Ukraine. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to expand its arsenal, which now includes missiles capable of hitting the continental United States. Iran is closer than ever to producing a nuclear weapon. And in May, the world witnessed India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed powers, strike each other’s heartlands with conventional weapons in the aftermath of a terror attack, a confrontation that—already unprecedented—could have escalated to a nuclear standoff.

[Riaz Haq]

How to Survive the New Nuclear Age: National Security in a World of Proliferating Risks and Eroding Constraints

by Vipin narang and pranay vaddi (Indian-American analysts)


https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-survive-new-nuclea...

These multiplying threats have not just brought nuclear strategy back to the center of U.S. defense concerns; they have also introduced new problems. Never before has the United States had to deter and protect its allies from multiple nuclear-armed great-power rivals at the same time. Like Russia, both China and North Korea may integrate nuclear weapons into offensive planning, seeking a nuclear shield to enable conventional aggression against nonnuclear neighbors. Moreover, there is a growing possibility that two or more nuclear powers—for example, China and Russia, or North Korea and Russia—might try to synchronize military aggression against their neighbors, stretching the U.S. nuclear deterrent beyond its means. Finally, the rapid erosion of nuclear guardrails, the diplomatic architecture that has for decades limited proliferation and brought security to dozens of countries under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, has pushed some Asian and European allies to consider acquiring their own nuclear weapons. All this has happened in an era in which the United States’ antiquated nuclear arsenal has fallen into disrepair, with ongoing modernization efforts mired in delays and rampant cost overruns.

This coming nuclear hurricane poses far-reaching challenges. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Washington will need to develop more, different, and better nuclear capabilities and begin to deploy them in new ways. Given the scale of the problem, nuclear concerns can no longer be treated as a niche issue managed by a small community of experts. Officials at the highest levels of government will need to incorporate them into core defense policy in each of the major theaters of vital interest to the United States: Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East. At the same time, Congress will need to back an accelerated effort to overhaul the U.S. arsenal with significant funding and give the project urgent priority, to be able to address not just today’s changing threat environment but tomorrow’s as well. Above all, for the United States to effectively handle a highly volatile and quickly changing nuclear order, nuclear affairs must once again become a central part of American grand strategy.


CHINA’S BIG PLAY
The most momentous shift in the global nuclear weapons landscape is China’s determination to become a nuclear powerhouse. As recently as 2019, the small Chinese arsenal scarcely factored into U.S. nuclear strategy. After first testing nuclear weapons in 1964, Beijing sought nuclear capabilities almost exclusively for defensive purposes and to be able to deter the United States (or the Soviet Union) from nuclear attack and “blackmail.” To achieve these limited goals, Beijing maintained a handful of unfueled intercontinental ballistic missiles and stored the warheads separately—an arrangement that required hours, perhaps days, to prepare the ICBMs for launch. This posture enabled a retaliation-only strategy, accompanied by a “no first use” pledge to the world. As a result, U.S. strategists, both during the Cold War and after, were able to set China’s nuclear forces aside as a “lesser included case” and concentrate on deterring the Soviet Union and its successor, Russia.

Sometime during the last decade, however, Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered a breathtaking expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal.

[Riaz Haq]

Is Pakistan developing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile? - Modern Diplomacy

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/07/26/is-pakistan-developing-an-int...

By Fakhar Alam


Any missile that could reach the American mainland from Pakistan must have a range of more than 12000 km. Even that hypothetical missile would be less than half of what is needed to reach the US mainland. It would be irrational and a waste of resources for Pakistan to develop any missile with a range that has no political purpose for the country.

This range limitation of Pakistan is also rooted in its rocket motor technology. Technically, rocket motors act as the heart of a missile system. The larger the diameter of a rocket motor, the greater the distance a missile covers. So far, Pakistan has developed a rocket motor with a diameter of 1.4 meters, and the Shaheen III missile uses this rocket motor. For a missile to cover a distance of more than 12000 km (the distance from Pakistan to the US), this diameter of a rocket motor is far less.

Minimally, Pakistan would need to develop rocket motors with a diameter between 2 and 2.3 meters so its missile can reach the American mainland. Interestingly, there is no publicly available data published by any source that claims that Pakistan has developed rocket motors that have a diameter of more than 1.4 meters. However, in the future, if Pakistan tests a rocket motor having a diameter more than 1.4 meters, it will be either for its space program or for enhancing terminal maneuvering, boosting acceleration, improving the ballistic trajectory, and having additional space for advanced guidance systems of its current missile systems.

Contrary to this, according to international sources, India has not just successfully tested rocket motors that have a diameter of 2.8 meters. But it is also developing a four-stage intercontinental range missile, projected to have a striking range between 12000 and 16000 km, making the American mainland well within its reach.

In international politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies; rather, national interest remains the foremost consideration for every country. What if, in the future, US-India relations diverge due to conflicting national interests? What will America do about the Indian missiles having the American mainland within reach? Why did Vipin Narang, despite his loyalty to American strategic thinking, never openly raise this issue in any of his writings? During the Cold War and the war against terror, America never perceived Pakistan’s capabilities as a direct threat, but with changing geopolitical dynamics, America has started perceiving a direct threat from Pakistan’s alleged capabilities. Simultaneously, what if, in the future, due to some geopolitical shifts, America starts perceiving itself as threatened by India’s capabilities? What will America do then?

For Pakistan, an ICBM carries no strategic utility within the framework of its existing strategic force posture. The development of an ICBM would be incongruent with both the operational logic and doctrinal principles that underpin Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence strategy, which remains fundamentally India-centric and only regionally focused. Integrating an ICBM into its force structure would require a fundamental revision of Pakistan’s national security strategy and a comprehensive reorientation of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine. Particularly, Pakistan would need to expand its deterrence objectives far beyond the current declared scope. Politically and economically, Pakistan cannot afford this reorientation, at least in the foreseeable future.