2002 ended much like it began, with talk of war, possibly war involving nuclear weapons, hanging over the Subcontinent like a thick, blinding fog. Addressing an air force veterans rally in Karachi on 30 December, President General Pervez Musharraf said that at the height of the standoff with India last June, he sent signals to New Delhi that "if Indian troops moved a single step across the international border or the Line of Control, they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan".
Musharraf's statement, which appeared to imply that he had threatened nuclear war against India, quickly provoked denunciations from New Delhi and clarifications and counter-denunciations from Islamabad. On 3 January, Musharraf insisted that he had been misquoted, stated that "no one in his right state of mind can talk of nuclear war", and clarified that his reference to non-conventional warfare meant guerilla combat in the event an Indian invasion of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. NC Vij, India's army chief, declined to analyse the semantics of Musharraf's statement, though Defence Minister George Fernandes replied that "nuclear blackmail" would not succeed and that if Pakistan launched a nuclear strike, "we would suffer a little but there will be no Pakistan left later". In Islamabad on 7 January, Pakistani Information Minister Shiekh Rashid Ahmed termed Fernandes' rebuttal the "ravings of a crazy man" and said that if Pakistan is attacked, "we have the will to give a crushing reply", yet another ambiguous statement appearing to suggest a willingness to use nuclear weapons in the event of a conventional attack.
This exchange of nuclear-charged words is only the latest episode in a years-long and ongoing death-grip-dance of South Asian brinkmanship, in general, and Pakistani ambiguity regarding its nuclear weapons usage policy, in particular. Speaking at the same forum as Fernandes, the US Ambassador to India, Richard Haass, called the India-Pakistan relationship "distinctly abnormal" and recalled that the US and Soviet Union kept essential channels of communication open even during the Cold War's most tense moments. And for all of the faults of India's nuclear stance – the first being that it was India that went nuclear first, egging Pakistan to follow suit – at least New Delhi has committed itself to a no-first-use policy and placed its weapons under a civilian-led command structure, things Pakistan has not done. In February 2000, Pakistan announced that its Nuclear Command Authority would be chaired by the Head of Government – then Musharraf, now Prime Minister Jamali – but analysts argue that Jamali is unlikely to exercise authority independent of Musharraf, thus merely veiling the military's control of the weapons. In Pakistan, all roads lead to General Musharraf.
Pakistan started a crash uranium enrichment program in 1976, two years after India first conducted its Pokhran tests under Indira Gandhi. In 1985, the two countries agreed not to attack each other's nuclear installations. Pakistan declared a moratorium on the production of highly enriched uranium in 1991, although then-Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan claimed in a 1992 interview with The Washington Post that his country had enough fissile material to produce at least one bomb. India truly let the dogs of nuclear conflagration loose when Atal Behari Vajpayee gave the go-ahead for Pokhran II, and, despite the voices of a few peaceniks, Pakistan immediately reciprocated. South Asia has not been the same since, with two declared nuclear powers constantly at the brink of all-out war, what with the 73-day Kargil War in mid-1999, Musharraf's October 1999, the December 2001 militant attack on the Indian Parliament and the extended standoff on the border with forces at ready.