30-04-2025
Pakistan Nuclear Weapons: How Far Can Missiles Travel?
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Pakistan became nuclear capable just prior to the turn of the century but possesses about the same number of weapons, if not more, than neighbor India.
Why It Matters
Pakistan and India are embroiled in a new entanglement feared to lead to warfare following the April 22 terrorist attack in the India-controlled part of Kashmir, perpetrated by Islamist terrorists linked to Pakistan, that led to 26 deaths.
Pakistani officials said Wednesday that they had "credible intelligence" that India intends to carry out military action against it in the "next 24-36 hours on the pretext of baseless and concocted allegations of involvement in the Pahalgam incident," according to Reuters.
What To Know
Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998. Unlike India, the nation has no "first use policy" that vows not to be the first to fire such weapons unless provoked.
In 1999, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency projected that Pakistan would have 60 to 80 warheads by 2020. Estimates within the past five years have put Pakistan's official nuclear arsenal, consisting of air, sea and land weapons, at about 170.
Pakistani army soldiers stand on a vehicle carrying a long-range ballistic missile Shaheen during the Pakistan Day parade in Islamabad on March 23, 2022.
Pakistani army soldiers stand on a vehicle carrying a long-range ballistic missile Shaheen during the Pakistan Day parade in Islamabad on March 23, 2022.
GHULAM RASOOL/AFP via Getty Images
But nuclear experts more recently acknowledged that the 170-warhead stockpile could realistically grow to around 200 by this year due to the country's growth rate.
Pakistan's Mirage III and Mirage V fighter bombers, located at two bases, are nuclear-capable. The Mirage V wields nuclear gravity bombs as part of a small arsenal, according to the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists.
Mirage III can launch Ra'ad air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM) as well as the add-on Ra'ad-II. The Ra'ad "can deliver nuclear and conventional warheads with great accuracy," according to a 2011 press release issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations, a media and public relations wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces.
It can travel 350 kilometers and "complement[s] Pakistan's deterrence capability" by achieving "strategic standoff capability on land and at sea."
The Ra'ad II, tested in February 2020, has even more range and can reportedly reach targets of 600 kilometers.
Pakistan, which has been sanctioned by countries like the United States in the past, boosted its nuclear arsenal over many years due to threats from India. Both countries gained independence from Great Britain in 1947 yet have repeatedly clashed over claims of Kashmir.
John Erath, senior policy director at the nonprofit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told Newsweek that India has a "huge advantage" in a air warfare with Pakistan due to the proximity of Pakistan's population centers being within reach of Indian aircraft and ballistic missiles.
"India and Pakistan have been regional rivals since they got their independence, so the the idea of border clashes and tension that could lead to military action is never not there," Erath said. "It goes and it comes a little bit as to the seriousness. The last time we saw things like what are going on now was in 2019, when there were shots fired over the border and there was an Indian strike on a Pakistani facility that they said was training terrorists.
"I would take that as something of a model and expect that if the Indians feel that they have to take some kind of action in response to this massacre, they would do something like that—strike a Pakistani facility or what they believe is a training facility or one of these militant groups."
But it would be conventional, Erath added, saying "therein lies the danger" should a missile be fired with a conventional payload and Pakistani officials come under the assumption that the payload is nuclear and requires a response.
In a speech on December 19, 2024, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer speech, sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Arms Control Association, said that Pakistan's missile activity is an "emerging threat to the United States."
He claimed Pakistan is pursuing "increasingly sophisticated missile technology," such as long-range ballistic missiles and large rocket motors that could eventually "strike targets well beyond South Asia, including the United States."
A statement issued in response to Finer's comments by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry did not confirm nor deny the development of more long-range missiles.
Erath said that both India and Pakistan have been carefully planning out wartime strategies over the course of 60 years should attacks become extreme.
"Pakistan is definitely in an inferior position," he said. "They have a smaller country, a smaller military, fewer resources, but they know what they're up against and they they have ideas about how to stop it, including as a last resort the use of nuclear weapons.
"If one side or the other were to make a major military incursion, as we see in Ukraine, that sort of thing is very difficult to do. It requires tremendous logistics, tremendous resources and tremendous expense, and neither side really want to take that on unless they feel that they have no other option.
"The best that both sides and the rest of the world can do now is to urge restraint and look for what the off-ramp is going to be."
What People Are Saying
India Prime Minister Nemandra Modi said on X that India will "identify, track and punish every terrorist, their handlers and their backers. ... We will pursue them to the ends of the earth."
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce stated: "The United States stands with India, strongly condemns all acts of terrorism. We pray for the lives of those lost and for the recovery of the injured and call for the perpetrators of this heinous act to be brought to justice."
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said: "Growing relations between our countries over the last decade are part of what led America to designate India a Major Defense Partner — the first of that class."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun: "We strongly condemn the attack. China firmly opposes all forms of terrorism. We mourn for the lives lost and express sincere sympathies to the bereaved families and the injured."
What Happens Next
Nuclear provocations will be the major goal for diplomacy from the perspective of the United States, whose leaders have offered full-throated support to India due to decades of allyship. The situation's outcome will not just impact South Asia but could also reshape global security, particularly with China's growing influence in the region.
