Saudi Arabia–Pakistan Nuclear Pact Leverages Decades of Chinese Nuclear Proliferation
Udumbara
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On Sept. 17 in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement that now extends Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal to the defense of Saudi Arabia.
During a Sept. 18 television interview, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif stated: “Let me make one point clear about Pakistan’s nuclear capability: that capability was established long ago when we conducted tests. Since then, we have forces trained for the battlefield … What we have, and the capabilities we possess, will be made available to [Saudi Arabia] according to this agreement.”
Pakistan, like rival India, does not disclose its nuclear arsenal data. The Washington, D.C.-based Arms Control Association estimates that Pakistan has about 170 nuclear weapons of all types, while India has about 172.
Pakistan’s nuclear delivery systems include the 1,400-mile range solid-fuel Ababeel, which can carry three or more multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) nuclear warheads, which, in 2019, Indian government sources disclosed to this analyst, was enabled by China.
Other Pakistani nuclear-armed missiles include the solid-fueled 1,700-mile-range Shaheen-III, the 560-mile-range Babur land-attack cruise missile, the solid-fuel 560-mile-range Shaheen-1, and the 43-mile-range solid-fuel tactical nuclear weapon, armed with the Nasr.
All of these missiles are transported on Chinese-made transporter erector launchers, and the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) has long been suspected of being the primary source of technology for the solid-fuel ballistic missiles and cruise missiles made by Pakistan.
But when fired from Pakistan, its current ballistic and cruise missiles can cover most of India, but cannot reach nuclear-armed Israel, and they cannot reach targets in the United States and Europe—Israel’s main supporters and major potential nuclear-armed adversaries for this alliance, as China would never be a target for Pakistan’s China-enabled nuclear missiles.
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It is most curious that Saudi Arabia would opt for a China-enabled nuclear alliance with Pakistan following the June 22 U.S. “Midnight Hammer” bombing mission—supported by more than 100 U.S. Air Force tactical aircraft flying from Saudi air force bases to destroy Iran’s immanent nuclear capability, while Israel’s Sept. 9 bombing of the Hamas leadership’s residential compound in Qatar does not qualify as a threat to justify this alliance.
In fact, the Saudi Arabia–Pakistan defense agreement has been in the works for a long time; on Sept. 18, Reuters reported on a Saudi official’s disclosure that this pact had been under discussion for years.
This likely explains why, well before the pact was revealed, Pakistan decided to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
In a Dec. 19, 2024, speech, the Biden administration’s former deputy national security adviser, John Finer, disclosed that Pakistan was seeking to develop an ICBM.
He noted that Pakistan has developed larger missile engines and that “Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States.”
But to hit either Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles, Pakistan requires an ICBM with a range of about 8,000 miles, well within the range capability of North Korea’s 9,300-mile range Hwasong-18 solid-fueled and mobile ICBM.
Pakistan and North Korea have a history of cooperation in developing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. Because the Hwasong-18 very likely uses Chinese ICBM technology, it also uses a Chinese-designed transporter erector launcher. Pakistan has the options of obtaining Chinese ICBM technology directly from China or indirectly via North Korea.
But that’s not all; a credible ICBM capability requires a “second strike” capability to compensate for an enemy’s first strike against the primary nuclear forces, which then sets up Pakistan for the import of either a Chinese-made nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) or conventional-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSB), or one made by North Korea—which has launched one SSB in September 2023 and is now building its first SSBN.
The Sept. 17 Saudi Arabia–Pakistan nuclear pact is simply the latest product of decades of Chinese nuclear and missile technology proliferation, starting with a 1976 agreement by then-Chinese leader Mao Zedong with then-Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to begin transferring nuclear technology to Pakistan, which, by 1982, saw the transfer of bomb designs and highly enriched uranium to make a bomb.
In 1993, Bhutto’s daughter, then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, reportedly agreed to give nuclear weapons technology to North Korea in exchange for long-range liquid fuel missile technology. It is rumored that one of Pakistan’s six underground nuclear weapon tests in May 1998 was a North Korean bomb.
In the summer of 2011, China began transferring to North Korea the CASIC-made 16-wheel transporter erector launcher (TEL), which then carried a mock-up liquid fuel ICBM in a North Korean military parade on April 15, 2012.
All subsequent North Korean liquid-fueled and solid-fueled ICBMs are carried by a version of the same CASIC-made TEL or a larger variant; the estimated 9,300-mile range solid fuel Hwasong-19 is the world’s largest solid fuel ICBM carried on a 22-wheel CASIC-derived TEL—strongly suggesting China also enabled North Korea’s ICBMs.
The new Saudi Arabia–Pakistan nuclear pact could achieve what China aimed for in its many years of helping and shielding Iran’s nuclear missile program to birth a nuclear missile state: to make China the arbiter of Middle East power politics by forcing Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to seek direct or indirect Chinese nuclear protection; to turn Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Egypt away from the power sphere of the United States; and to eventually build a nuclear-armed Iranian–Arabian coalition against Israel.
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It is astounding that at the United Nations on Sept. 24, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated: “Iran welcomes the defensive pact between the two brotherly Muslim countries—the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Islamic Republic of Pakistan—as a beginning for a comprehensive regional security system, with the cooperation of the Muslim states of West Asia, in the political security and defense domain.”
To be sure, Washington has spent enormous diplomatic resources trying to sanction and stop the Chinese regime’s nuclear and missile proliferation, as it has also sought to prevent Pakistan and India from becoming nuclear missile states and has led decades of sanctions diplomacy against North Korea’s nuclear buildup.
But that longstanding effort has failed. The Chinese regime has turned Pakistan and North Korea into nuclear missile states, and China is likely behind Pakistan’s drive to build an ICBM, which Beijing could, in the near term, complement with nuclear missile-armed submarines.
Should Beijing succeed in bolstering Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities, it will be emboldened to push Pakistan to arm Saudi Arabia’s Chinese-made DF-21 missiles with nuclear warheads, as it may also encourage Pakistan and/or North Korea to share nuclear weapons with other Arab states, or even to go as far as to arm China-dependent dictatorships such as Venezuela and Cuba.
It is not too late to do what should have been done in 2011—make clear to Beijing that its nuclear proliferation will result in political and economic-commercial isolation from the United States and its allies.
As it should have started doing in 2011, the United States must now make and redeploy theater nuclear weapons to the Indo-Pacific theater and build new platforms to increase U.S. nuclear deterrent capabilities in Northeast Asia, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Arabian Sea–Indian Ocean.
Why not initiate a crash program to increase the large missile tubes on the U.S. Navy’s Virginia Block 5 nuclear attack submarine from 4 to 16—as this would increase its capacity to carry 2,300-mile range Conventional Prompt Strike missiles from 12 to 48—and a crash program to arm them with small nuclear warheads?
In addition, the United States should begin discussions with India regarding the sharing of the “Golden Dome” national missile defense technologies to defeat both Pakistan’s and China’s nuclear missiles targeting India.
Communist China is the reason why Saudi Arabia and Pakistan can form a nuclear alliance, and now, after decades of failed diplomacy, the United States has little choice but to build and deploy theater nuclear weapons and offer strategic missile defenses to contain and deter China’s current and future nuclear proxies in the Middle East and elsewhere.
