The Carter Administration's "Damnable Dilemma": How to Respond to Pakistan's Secret Nuclear Weapons Program, 1978–1979

In 1978 and 1979 the U.S. government acquired troubling information about the progress Pakistan was achieving in its secret program to build nuclear weapons. Officials in the U.S. State Department, Defense Department, intelligence agencies, and National Security Council sought to keep Pakistan from building weapons that could spark a destabilizing competition with India. Because Pakistan had long been aligned with the United States, whereas India leaned toward the Soviet Union, Cold War considerations loomed over U.S. nonproliferation objectives. The case of Pakistan in the late 1970s illustrated the extent to which the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union could hinder U.S. nonproliferation objectives. Ultimately, U.S. officials were willing to give Pakistan greater leeway than it otherwise would have enjoyed, for fear that doing otherwise would give the Soviet Union an opportunity to help India gain regional hegemony in the Asian subcontinent.