Stichting Laka

Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
The A.Q.Khan network: Causes and Implications (2005)

Auteur	Christopher O.Clary
	4-02-7-10-03.pdf
Datum	december 2005
Classificatie	4.02.7.10/03 (PAKISTAN - KHAN & NETWERK)
Voorkant

ABSTRACT 

The A. Q. Khan nuclear supplier network constitutes the most severe loss of control 
over nuclear technology ever. For the first time in history all of the keys to a 
nuclear weapon—the supplier networks, the material, the enrichment technology, and 
the warhead designs—were outside of state oversight and control. This thesis 
demonstrates that Khan’s nuclear enterprise evolved out of a portion of the Pakistani 
procurement network of the1970s and 1980s. It presents new information on how the 
Pakistani state organized, managed, and oversaw its nuclear weapons laboratories. 
This thesis provides extensive documentation of command and control challenges
faced by Pakistan and argues that Khan was largely a rogue actor outside of state 
oversight. The A. Q. Khan affair refutes more optimistic theories about the effects 
of nuclear proliferation. This case study indicates that states have a difficult time 
balancing an abstract notion of safety against pressing needs for organizational 
speed and flexibility. This thesis enumerates enabling institutional factors in 
Pakistan, which allowed Khan’s enterprise to continue and flourish, and which 
might also be generalizable to other states of proliferation concern.