Dynamics of Pakistan’s Ballistic Missile Acquisition

Abstract

Arms dynamic studies are concerned with explaining the causes and consequences of state’s decision to acquire arms. Such studies are dominated by two opposing models. First, the action-reaction model, which posits a state’s decision to acquire arms as a rational response to external threats and consequently it enables them to deter belligerent adversaries. Second, the domestic structure model, which holds that arms acquisitions are an outcome of domestic interests and consequently create instability and strain political relations. Traditionally the two models have competed for exclusivity in explaining armament phenomena. However, more recent studies argue that they are, in fact, not mutually exclusive but complementary to each other. The basic underlying assumption of these studies is, while external security threats may provide a rationale for a state to acquire arms the scale and manner by which the state arms itself will be determined by domestic forces.

The basic generalisations for the two models have been extracted from the armament dynamics of the Cold War superpowers or the major arms producing states from the Western Hemisphere or Global North. In the case of less industrialised weapons producer like Pakistan the literature takes a narrow approach, identifying its behaviour as congruent with action- reaction model and downplaying the importance of domestic-structure model. This thesis argues that not only the action-reaction process in the case of Pakistan’s ballistic missile competition vis-à-vis that of India is less understood but domestic factors have also played a crucial role in the ballistic missile acquisition. In accordance with this argument this thesis hopes to conduct a twofold analysis into the external and internal dynamics of Pakistan’s ballistic missile acquisition. The research postulates that while external threats have provided rationale for Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme, domestic factors have intervened to influence certain missile developments in the programme.