Quote Originally Posted by omarali50 View Post
And then, in 2003 or thereabout, finds out that its not exactly cooperating wholeheartedly. My thought is that the nukes take some options off the table..e.g. the option cutting off aid and applying direct pressure...maybe nobody would have done that anyway, but even if someone thinks of doing it, don't the nukes inhibit that though immediately?
I don't think nukes take cutting aid off the table at all. After all, we've cut off aid before when they had nukes. The aid only started back up because of Afghanistan and once that is over I bet they will get cut off again. The idea that Pakistan is somehow using its nukes to extort aid from us just seems ludicrous to me.

That's not to say the nukes mean nothing. Yes, Pakistani stability is more important - yes nukes mean we aren't going to do a lot of things like attack them, but those are things we weren't going to do anyway.

Nukes simply aren't a central consideration to what we do about Afghanistan. Our position wouldn't be any better if Pakistan wasn't a nuclear power.