WASHINGTON, March 31: Absolving Pakistan of any involvement in the so-called A.Q. Khan network of nuclear proliferators, a thesis written for a US military college contends that Dr Khan was a “rogue actor outside of state oversight”.

“There is no proof that the Pakistani state was aware of the nuclear transfers from Pakistan to Iran, North Korea, Libya, and perhaps others,” says author Christopher O. Clary who wrote the thesis for the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. “A.Q. Khan was largely a free actor, conducting nuclear commerce without authorization of the Pakistani state.”

The author argues that the dangers to Pakistan were “too great, the benefits too small” for the state to get involved in the activities of the Khan network. “Instead, the most easily identifiable beneficiary was Dr Khan, and the individuals that work with him, as evidenced in bank accounts in Pakistan, Dubai, Switzerland, and elsewhere.”

The thesis, titled ‘The A.Q. Khan network: Causes and implications,’ claims that Dr Khan’s nuclear enterprise evolved out of a portion of the Pakistani procurement network of the 1970s and 1980s.

Examining the activities of the network, the author asks: how well can new nuclear states gauge the internal and external threats to their new arsenals?

Mr Clary argues that arguments that new nuclear states could control their nuclear assets — precisely because they were precious —- “may have been overly optimistic”.

Noting that many individuals associated with the network were citizens of Western European states, he observes: “The ability of the same individuals in Europe to operate with impunity is a costly embarrassment to Western governments.”

Mr Clary argues that the existence of such a network reveals a more general loss of control over nuclear technology.