PALS in Pakistan Part Eight - The Rogue Threat
By: Teve Torbes
A rogue commander could clearly still use weapons that had been disassembled, as they would be the ones required to re-assemble them if they were ever used. While storing the parts at separate sites would eliminate this risk, it is unlikely that Pakistan has or will implement this control mechanism, as this would severely restrict their ability to use the weapons quickly in a crisis. With PALS installed, any local commanders would be required to have codes from the national military establishment and thus could not launch without certain and explicit authorization.
Other scenarios of stolen weapons are also more protected with PALS than without. In a disassembled state, it is possible that a terrorist group would be able to reassemble the weapon. This is highly likely, in fact, given that any group able to access Pakistan’s weapons would probably have contacts with scientists within Pakistan’s nuclear complex and would thus have access to the technical knowledge necessary to use the weapons. Weapons protected by PALS would be disarmed remotely when theft was discovered, and even qualified scientists are unlikely to be able to bypass the PAL without triggering one of the detonator charges that would render the bomb useless.
In a coup or government change scenario, disassembled weapons are also still vulnerable, as the new government would control the technicians who serviced the weapons and could easily make use of them. With PALS, any Islamic fundamentalist government would have to obtain the codes to gain access. This would give the United States a sort of “last line of defense”, where we would be able to negotiate with the outgoing government to disable the weapons or withhold the codes. At the very least, in any of these scenarios the odds of avoiding a nuclear disaster are better with the PALS than without them. The other aspect of the assembly-status argument is the idea that the required reassembly would cause India to lash out somehow in response to the reassembly.
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