Bloomberg quotes South Asia Center Nonresident Fellow Iskander Rehman on China’s sale of eight submarines to Pakistan:
While Pakistan’s efforts are still “embryonic,” its naval commanders want to follow Israel’s example of equipping conventional submarines with nuclear-tipped missiles, Iskander Rehman of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based policy research group, said in a March 9 report. Nuclear weapons at sea pose a greater risk than stationary land-based arsenals because they are submerged and harder to detect.
“We are now entering a new era whereby naval interactions will occur under a perpetual nuclear shadow,” Rehman said by phone. “My main concern is less the risk of nuclear terrorism, but rather the dangers tied to naval friction within a newly nuclearized maritime domain.”