Is Pakistan pushing a South Asian arms race?

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal now totals more than 100 deployed weapons, a doubling of its stockpile over the past several years, reports the Washington Post, citing estimates by nongovernment analysts.

And guess what: It could be the US effort to stop proliferation and convince everybody to put down their nukes at the root of the problem.

As WashPo's Karen DeYoung writes: "In politically fragile Pakistan, the administration is caught between fears of proliferation or possible terrorist attempts to seize nuclear materials and Pakistani suspicions that the United States aims to control or limit its weapons program and favors India."

According to the story, Pakistan is also refusing to sign Obama's "fissile materials cutoff treaty" because while Islamabad has more nuclear weapons, India is believed to have larger existing stockpiles of such fissile material for future weapons, and the 2008 U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement exacerbates that advantage.