Nuclear Blackmail – Pakistan and North Korea Are Adept Practitioners of This Art

North Korea may be dramatic and Pakistan quiet, but both nations use nuclear weapons as diplomatic tools, suggests Nayan Chanda, founding editor of YaleGlobal Online, for the Times of India. “While North Korea has repeatedly defied the United Nations and tested its weapons to dramatically attract international attention, Pakistan has used its nuclear arsenal more quietly, as an indirect instrument of coercion while using home-grown terrorist groups to attack its supposed nemesis, India,” Chanda explains. “Pakistan, a long-standing US partner, no longer seeks to showcase its nuclear weapons. The mere fact of having a nuclear umbrella has given Pakistan new freedom in its existentialist mission to wrest Kashmir from India.” Options available to neighboring states are few. Chanda describes a 1999 incident during which then US President Bill Clinton confronted Pakistan’s prime minister about a nuclear threat. Such threats are reckless and do little to earn global respect. – YaleGlobal