Pakistan nuclear weapons, 2025

Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight-Boyle 

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This issue’s column reviews the status of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and finds that the country currently has a stockpile of approximately 170 warheads, a number that could potentially grow to around 200 by the late 2020s at the current growth rate. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, associate director Matt Korda, and senior research associates Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight-Boyle.

This article is freely available in PDF format in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ digital magazine (published by Taylor & Francis) at this link. To cite this article, please use the following citation, adapted to the appropriate citation style: Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight-Boyle, 2025. Pakistan nuclear weapons, 2025. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 81(5), 386-408. https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2025.2543685

Pakistan continues to slowly modernize its nuclear arsenal with improved and new delivery systems, and a growing fissile material production industry. Analysis of commercial satellite images of construction at Pakistani army garrisons and air force bases shows what appear to be newer launchers and facilities that might be related to Pakistan’s nuclear forces, although authoritative information about Pakistan’s nuclear units is scarce.

We estimate that Pakistan has produced a nuclear weapons stockpile of approximately 170 warheads, which is unchanged since our last estimate in 2023 (see Table 1). The US Defense Intelligence Agency projected in 1999 that Pakistan would have 60 to 80 warheads by 2020 (US Defense Intelligence Agency (1999, 38), but several new weapon systems have been fielded and developed since then, which leads us to a higher estimate. Our estimate comes with considerable uncertainty because neither Pakistan nor other countries publish much information about the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.