On May 14, 2025, Balochistan declared independence from Pakistan against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan. Professor Jay Sarkar examines whether this could spur Pakistan on to renew nuclear weapons testing in the region, where Islamabad had tested six nuclear weapons in May 1998. What could be the causes and implications for such an action by Pakistan?

Blog by Professor Jay Sarkar, University of Glasgow

On May 14, 2025, Balochistan, which is Pakistan’s largest province, declared independence. Baloch leaders called upon the Indian government and the United Nations to recognize its political sovereignty. Balochistan’s aspirations for sovereignty are not new. That this most recent declaration of Baloch independence arrived at a time when India and Pakistan were engaged in airstrikes, following a terrorist attack in Indian Kashmir, made the Baloch issue publicly entangled in the adversarial geopolitics involving the two South Asian neighbours. While some hawkish commentators drew an analogy with the 1971 East Pakistan crisis that had led to Pakistani genocide of Bengali-speaking civilians and the liberation of what became Bangladesh, the Balochistan issue raises fears of a different kind of spectre.

The province hosts Pakistan’s nuclear weapons testing site in the Chagai district, where the military had conducted six nuclear weapons tests in May 1998. The last of these were on May 30, 1998— almost three decades ago. Together with India’s five nuclear weapons tests that same month, South Asia became widely characterized as the most dangerous place on earth and a nuclear flashpoint.

Over the past couple of years, the norm against nuclear weapons testing have been declining. This is evidenced by Russia’s de-ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 2023, China’s modernization of the Lop Nor nuclear test site, and calls in Project 2025— a guidance document from the Heritage Foundation for US policy— for renewed US nuclear weapons testing. The global nuclear order is radically transforming such that conducting nuclear weapons tests by countries that already are known to possess nuclear weapons might not necessarily engender a backlash about norm violation.

Against this backdrop, could Pakistan conduct another nuclear weapon test in the Chagai? So far, the Pakistan government has maintained public silence on the independence declaration by Baloch leaders while continuing its violent persecution of activists and civilians.

A nuclear weapon test in 2025 by Pakistan would not be an actual use of nuclear weapons against India but could signal to its adversary that Pakistan’s intent to use the weapon, as necessary. It is indeed Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine to use nuclear weapons during a conflict, and it has tactical nuclear weapons on mobile vehicles along its border with India. So, from a doctrinal perspective, it would not be a shift for Pakistan to test a nuclear weapon that it has a stated policy to use in a conflict.

In the current national context, the signalling of a nuclear weapon test would also be for Baloch separatists— a frightening reminder of the Pakistani bomb on their own territory. Radiation-caused illnesses have been detected in the Baloch population from the 1998 tests, who have received little remediation from the Pakistan state. Since 1945, former colonial powers had tested their nuclear weapons in formal or informal colonial spaces where lives of the people were deemed expendable (think Kazakhstan for the Soviet Union, Algeria and Tahiti for the French, Bikini atolls, New Mexico, Nevada for the United States and United Kingdom, the Pacific for several of the above). Balochistan represents the continuation of similar policy of placing infrastructure projects in areas where the population is deemed ‘other’ from the political centre.

To be sure, a Pakistani nuclear weapon test in Balochistan would be perceived by the international community as an irresponsible signalling, since it could quickly escalate an already intractable conflict with India. Also, Pakistan’s economic aid from the World Bank might be negatively affected, hurting Islamabad’s immediate and long-term development goals. Moreover, it could spur on Iran, which both borders Balochistan and possesses significant latent capabilities for nuclear weapons. An Iranian nuclear weapon test would undoubtedly worsen the geopolitical situation in the Middle East.

This week, Baloch activists are planning protests against Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear tests on the tests’ anniversary, as they have done for years. Nevertheless, the possibility for renewed nuclear weapons testing remains high in South Asia. If a Pakistani nuclear test does take place, the Vienna-based Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization and International Atomic Energy Agency could detect it, but cannot forestall it.  

Author

Jayita Sarkar is Professor of Global History of Inequalities at the University of Glasgow’s School of Social & Political Sciences and author of the award-winning book, Ploughshares and Swords (Cornell, 2022). She is currently finishing her next book, Atomic Capitalism (Princeton).

She is a British Academy Global Innovation Fellow for 2024-25 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

Professor Jay Sarkar is an Affiliated Researcher of the University of Glasgow Centre for Public Policy.

Image by Dr Muhammad Amer on Unsplash

First published: 28 May 2025

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