ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Less than three years after Pakistan detonated its first nuclear device, a new Republican administration has taken over in Washington.
Under normal circumstances, a Third World developing country may not feel compelled to obsess about who is taking over at the White House. But Pakistan, as one of the world's newest nuclear powers, finds itself interested in the new administration's policy choices, mainly because those choices may determine its own future.
Since 1998, when Pakistan conducted its first nuclear tests in response to nuclear tests by India, Islamabad has been under pressure from the United States to accept new global nuclear safeguards.