White Paper on the Taliban’s acquiring of nuclear weapons

Prime Minister Brown and Cabinet Secretary and Head of Home Civil Office O’Donnell

Executive Summary:

As of Monday May 11,2009, the Taliban has gained access to Shaheen II missiles in the Swat Valley region of Pakistan. Shaheen II missiles have an estimated range of 2,500 kilometers; this puts Indian cities such as New Delphi and Mumbai within range of a possible nuclear strike from the Taliban. It is the Primary Objective of the United Kingdom to secure the missiles within the Swat Valley such that the problem can be controlled without the fear of the missiles being moved across the Pakistani-Afghan border into a launch pad within 2,500 kilometers of Israel. It is then the Secondary Objective to then secure India and possibly the world from a nuclear war and then remove the Taliban of their nuclear capability.

Key Points:

Our Primary Objective has implications that could potentially harm us within our own nation. We have a 2.7% Muslim population that for the most part understands our current situation in Pakistan and believes that what the Taliban is doing is morally corrupt and against Islamic teachings. There are however, extremists within our population who lack the morals that we uphold as a whole. On July 7th, 2005, a group of radical Islamists bombed the mass transit of London as a response to our being in Iraq. Moving our troops from within Afghanistan to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan could potentially cause another attack. However, we cannot and will not base our foreign policy as a nation in order to appease the irrational and immoral beliefs of the Islamic extremists that threaten our nation. Our moving of troops to the border is not an act of aggression, but rather, a stance of protection from a possible moving of nuclear warheads.

Our Secondary Objective has proven itself more difficult because the missiles possessed by the Taliban are capable of a nuclear strike n many of the major cities within India. While the missiles burn liquid fuel, it takes a couple of hours to launch; therefore we should prefer not to wait until the last hour before disposing of the missiles. The likely success of securing the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan will limit the ability to move the missiles across borders, which will give us a large negotiating chip when dealing with the Taliban. Overall, we want to keep the Pakistani government in control throughout the situation and to refrain from a nuclear war.