On the Dangers of Lazy Nuclear Analogies: WSJ's War on Historical Context

It is absolutely remarkable that a publication of The Wall Street Journal's stature would lend its pages to such historical caricature and strategic sensationalism. The bar for informed commentary on nuclear policy should be higher than recycled Cold War tropes and ideological fear-mongering.

Dhume's WSJ opinion, 'Iran’s Nuclear Pursuit and the Pakistani Example,' presents a deeply reductionist and selectively historicized account of Pakistan’s nuclear journey, one that serves rhetorical alarmism rather than serious policy discourse. His attempt to draw a linear causal link between Pakistan’s nuclear status and India’s strategic vulnerability is not only analytically flawed but deeply ahistorical.

First, the characterization of Pakistan’s nuclear program as a rogue construction of 'theft, charity, and clever diplomacy' completely bypasses the structural security anxieties that drove Pakistan’s nuclear decisions. The 1974 Indian PNE test, conducted outside the NPT framework, catalyzed regional insecurity and undermined the nonproliferation regime’s credibility. Pakistan’s subsequent pursuit of a nuclear deterrent cannot be decoupled from the asymmetry of conventional power and the lack of credible security assurances from global powers. These drivers are notably absent from Dhume’s narrative, which reads more like ideological storytelling than strategic analysis.

Second, Dhume’s lazy reduction of Pakistan’s nuclear journey to the legacy of A.Q. Khan not only betrays intellectual dishonesty, but also erases two decades of institutional maturation and doctrinal sophistication. To flatten an entire national deterrent posture into a single proliferation scandal is to willfully ignore the post-2004 structural transformations that include the establishment of the National Command Authority, robust export control regimes, and consistent participation in international nonproliferation dialogues. Pakistan’s command-and-control architecture today reflects layered oversight, secure custodial protocols, and strategic discipline. These structural developments receive no acknowledgment undermining the article’s credibility as a policy-relevant piece.

Third, the use of Pakistan as a cautionary tale to justify pre-emptive action against Iran is not just historically incoherent, it is strategically reckless. Pakistan’s nuclear posture has been characterized by credible minimum deterrence and deliberate signaling aimed at avoiding escalation. In over 27 years as a declared nuclear weapons state, Pakistan has not engaged in nuclear brinkmanship or lowered its nuclear threshold. The real-world record contrasts sharply with the hypothetical fear projections Dhume promotes.

Moreover, the claim that Pakistan’s nuclear status has paralyzed India reflects a fundamental misreading of deterrence dynamics. What India calls 'death by a thousand cuts' is better understood within the stability-instability paradox, where nuclear deterrence has in fact created space for sub-conventional conflict without spiraling into total war. This isn’t a Pakistan-specific pathology, it is a known feature of all dyadic deterrent relationships, from the Cold War to the Korean Peninsula.

Finally, Dhume’s comparison of Pakistan and Iran collapses critical distinctions. Iran remains under the NPT, has not tested a nuclear device, and has been under extensive IAEA safeguards. Pakistan, by contrast, never joined the NPT and developed its program in the context of direct existential threats. Treating Iran as a mirror of Pakistan is a lazy analogy that risks legitimizing military pre-emption and normalizing a one-size-fits-all view of proliferation threats.

Using Pakistan’s nuclear story as a blunt instrument to rationalize Israeli strikes or preventive war against Iran is not only analytically unsound, it is politically dangerous. We need better histories, deeper context, and a move away from orientalist fear-mongering dressed as strategic wisdom.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/irans-nuclear-pursuit-and-the-pakistani-example-9430862c?mod=opinion_lead_pos6o