Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme and the History DW Chose to Ignore

Deutsche Welle, Germany’s publicly funded international broadcaster, recently aired a documentary titled Pakistan, Nuclear Power at a Crossroads, examining the origins, safety and oversight of Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Nuclear weapons remain among the most consequential issues in international security, and critical examination of any state’s strategic capabilities is both legitimate and necessary.

The problem is not that Pakistan’s programwas examined, but how that examination was framed. The documentary shows Germany’s longstanding Islamophobia, animosity towards Pakistan, and its love for India by presenting an incomplete account of South Asia’s nuclear history. It omits crucial regional context, and applies standards of scrutiny not consistently evident in coverage of other nuclear-armed states.

The questions this documentary raises extend beyond a single broadcaster or programme.

The documentary’s most significant weakness lies less in what it says than in what it omits. It states that Pakistan “illegally developed” nuclear weapons and only “officially revealed” the programme through the May 1998 tests, without situating this within the region’s security competition.

India conducted South Asia’s first nuclear test, Smiling Buddha, in May 1974, fundamentally altering Pakistan’s strategic calculations. Successive governments in Islamabad concluded that a credible deterrent had become essential to preserving the regional balance. The pattern repeated in 1998: India tested five devices at Pokhran on 11 and 13 May, and Pakistan responded with the Chagai-I and Chagai-II tests on 28 and 30 May.

Any account of South Asia’s nuclearisation that isolates Pakistan’s decisions while treating India’s role as secondary offers an incomplete strategic narrative, whatever one’s view of proliferation itself. The characterisation of Pakistan’s programme as “illegal” is also a claim worth analysing. International law provides no recognised pathway for non-nuclear states to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty, in force since 1970, recognises only the five states that tested before January 1967. Pakistan never joined the NPT, nor did India, and Israel maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity despite widespread international assessments of an undeclared arsenal.

Against this backdrop, singling out Pakistan’s programme as “illegal” raises an analytical question: if no internationally recognised legal mechanism existed for any of these three states outside the NPT framework, why is Pakistan uniquely described in those terms? This is not a claim that Pakistan’s programme was legally sanctioned; it was not. It is an argument for applying the same standard across comparable cases like, India and Israel.

Questions about nuclear security are legitimate for every nuclear-armed state, including command-and-control systems and safeguards. Pakistan has pointed to reforms under the National Command Authority and the Strategic Plans Division, institutions central to its nuclear governance for over two decades, and international assessments have acknowledged improvements even while urging continued vigilance.

The issue, then, is not whether Pakistan should face scrutiny, but whether comparable scrutiny is applied elsewhere. Pakistani analysts have long argued that Western coverage devotes disproportionate attention to Pakistan’s nuclear safety relative to India’s expanding arsenal and evolving doctrine, or to Israel’s undeclared capability.

Alongside its expanding arsenal and evolving doctrine, India’s nuclear establishment has experienced notable safety and security incidents, including the 1993 Narora fire, the 2009 Kaiga contamination case and repeated cases involving radioactive material outside regulated facilities. These developments themselves raise important strategic questions that deserve sustained international scrutiny.

The documentary highlights the longstanding debate about how Western media portrays allies and adversaries.
The documentary’s airing coincides with a critical period for German diplomacy. In June 2026, Germany failed to win a non-permanent UN Security Council seat, losing the Western European and Others Group contest to Austria and Portugal.

This outcome surprised many given Germany’s diplomatic standing. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul subsequently suggested that Berlin’s strong support for Israel may have influenced voting patterns, a notable acknowledgement that Germany’s Middle East policy had become a factor in how its diplomacy is perceived internationally.

The defeat followed sustained criticism from parts of the Global South over Germany’s stance on the Gaza conflict, and came roughly a year after Chancellor Friedrich Merz described Israel as doing the West’s “dirty work” through its strikes on Iran, remarks that drew criticism both internationally and from within his own governing coalition.

The debate generated by this documentary ultimately extends beyond a single broadcast. It touches on how international media cover the Global South, how strategic narratives are constructed, and whose historical experience receives equal weight. Pakistan’s nuclear programme deserves scrutiny, but so do those of India and Israel.