For decades, Pakistan has wrapped its nuclear program in the mythology of national pride, strategic deterrence, and military guardianship. The narrative is simple and endlessly repeated by Rawalpindi: the Army alone stands as the custodian of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and therefore, the state’s ultimate protector. But behind this self-constructed image lies a far more troubling record—one marked by incompetence, complicity, and catastrophic lapses that continue to threaten not only South Asia, but the global security landscape.

The case of Abdul Qadeer Khan, hailed domestically as the “father of the bomb,” remains the most glaring window into this dangerous dysfunction. It demonstrated, beyond ambiguity, that Pakistan’s nuclear establishment is neither secure, nor professional, nor insulated from corruption and ideological extremism. And the responsibility for this rests squarely with the Pakistan Army.

The revelations made by former CIA operations officer James Lawler in ‘The Economic Times’ have only reinforced what proliferation experts have argued for years: the Pakistani military failed in its fundamental duty to safeguard its nuclear centrifuge technology. According to Lawler, who helped lead the CIA’s covert penetration of Khan’s network, American intelligence presented President General Pervez Musharraf with “absolutely incontrovertible evidence” that AQ Khan was exporting Pakistan’s nuclear secrets to Libya and possibly other states.

That a single scientist could run a global trafficking operation—complete with procurement agents, front companies, shipping routes, and clandestine buyers—should have been impossible within a well-regulated security structure. Instead, it thrived for decades, right under the military’s nose.

If Pakistan’s nuclear program were truly under tight........

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