Of Pakistan's tactical nukes....

Pakistan is developing non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons to check the asymmetry with India in conventional capabilities, noted nuclear expert Hans M Kristensen of Federation of American Scientists said.
Kristensen and his partner Robert Norris have just published a report identifying Pakistan and China as among the five nuclear powers which either have, or are developing nonstrategic nuclear weapons.
The other three countries identified are Russia, US and France. “On Pakistan, the picture is clearer in the sense that it is developing the Nasr that it claims has nuclear capability,’’ Kristensen said. “As for the role of a nuclear Nasr, it appears intended for use against invading Indian troop formations that Pakistan doesn’t have the conventional capabilities to defeat,’’ he added. About the short-range ballistic Nasr though, Kristensen said despite Pakistan’s claims that it was already nuclear-capable, he was yet to witness any assessment by the US intelligence community to prove this. With Pakistan already building its fourth reactor at Khushab military facility, a plutonium producing unit, there have been speculations for over a year now that Pakistan is manufacturing low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons. These weapons, according to Indian experts, are meant to be used along the border in case of any skirmish with the Indian Army.
Kristensen and Norris described Pakistan’s “new weapon’’ in the report as a 60-km ballistic missile launched from a mobile twin-canister launcher. “Following its first test launch in April 2011, the Pakistani military news organization, Inter Services Public Relations, described the Nasr as carrying a nuclear warhead ‘of appropriate yield with high accuracy’, with ‘shoot and scoot attributes’ that was developed as a quick response system to ‘add deterrence value’ to Pakistan’s strategic weapons development programme ‘at shorter ranges’ in order ‘to deter evolving threats’,’’ they said in the report.
The Indian security establishment was shocked last year after news broke out, as confirmed by satellite images, that Pakistan had already completed much work on the fourth reactor at Khushab.
“It will add to their stockpile of low-yield weapons which, they believe, will help them dominate any low-intensity conflict with India,’’ said S D Pradhan, former chief of joint intelligence committee, adding that Pakistan was following the Chinese in acquiring such weapons.