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Originally Posted by zelda05
Pakistan having nuclear capabilities seems reasonable. Considering the fact, their enemy (India) have nuclear technology. Beside, Pakistan had suffered economically when the sanctions were imposed on them.
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Well, nuclear weapons are all about creating a "balance of terror", i can destroy you, you can destroy me, so we do nothing, this was obviously the case in the USA/USSR confrontation.
India did not acquire nuclear weapons because of Pakistan though, but because of China. India and China have been historical enemies for centuries. To this day, even though India and China share one of the longest border in the world, they do not recognize a single km of it and have many border disputes (including Chinese and Indian border guards shooting regularly at each other). Indians still have the Mongol invasion of India in mind, and they see a possible attack from China as a totally credible threat (and the invasion of Tibet by China has shown that this is not an imaginary threat), so when China got nuclear weapons, India had to get them too to reestablish a "balance of terror" in the region.
India do not see Pakistan as an enemy exactly, after all Pakistanis are just muslim Indians, it's more like a familly quarrel. It's actually China that provided Pakistan with nuclear weapons, precisely to shift the "balance of terror" in their favor. The goal of the Chinese was to create a second nuclear threat for India so the "balance of terror" would be broken and India would be in a weakened position, and it worked perfectly. Now India is alone and has to worry about 2 nuclear threats which makes the situation much more unstable than it used to be when India and China were in a deadlock.
Now in the Middle East it should also be a question of balance, Israel has nuclear weapons and is totally backed by the US, Middle Eastern countries know that Israel and the US can destroy them, but of course they can't destroy Israel or the US.
If Iran had nuclear weapons, it would create some balance between Israel and the rest of the region since each side would know that the other can destroy them.