Nuclear weapons debate
After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles grew, and nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing and demonstration purposes. Countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons—and that acknowledge possessing such weapons—are (chronologically): the United States, the Soviet Union (succeeded as a nuclear power by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction
Pakistan is one of nine states to possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan began development of nuclear weapons in January 1972 under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who delegated the program to the Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) Munir Ahmad Khan with a commitment to having the bomb ready by the end of 1976. Since PAEC, consisting of over twenty laboratories and projects under nuclear engineer Munir Ahmad Khan, was falling behind schedule and having considerable difficulty producing fissile material, Abdul Qadeer Khan was brought from Europe by Bhutto at the end of 1974. As pointed out by Houston Wood, Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in his article on gas centrifuges, "The most difficult step in building a nuclear weapon is the production of fissile material"; as such, this work in producing fissile material as head of the Kahuta Project was pivotal to Pakistan developing the capability to detonate a nuclear bomb by the end of 1984.