WASHINGTON: A senior White House official on Thursday said nuclear-armed Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that eventually could allow it to strike targets well beyond South Asia, making it an “emerging threat” to the United States.
Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer’s surprise revelation underscored how far the once-close ties between Washington and Islamabad have deteriorated since the 2021 US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It also raised questions about whether Pakistan has shifted the objectives of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs long intended to counter those of India, the victor in three major wars they have fought since 1947.
Speaking to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Finer said Pakistan has pursued “increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment, that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors.”
If those trends continue, Finer said, “Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States.”
The number of nuclear-armed states with missiles that can reach the US homeland “is very small and they tend to be adversarial,” he continued, naming Russia, North Korea and China.
“So, candidly, it’s hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States,” Finer said.
His speech came a day after Washington announced a new round of sanctions related to Pakistan’s ballistic missile development program, including for the first time against the state-run defense agency that oversees the program.
The Pakistani embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Islamabad casts its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs as deterrents against Indian aggression and intended to maintain regional stability.
Two senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the US concerns with Pakistan’s missile program have been long-standing and stemmed from the sizes of the rocket engines being developed.
The threat posed to the United States is up to a decade away, said one official.
Finer’s comments, the officials said, were intended to press Pakistani officials to address why they are developing more powerful rocket engines, something they have refused to do.
“They don’t acknowledge our concerns. They tell us we are biased,” said the second US official, adding that Pakistani officials have wrongly implied that US sanctions on their missile program are intended “to handicap their ability to defend against India.”
Finer included himself among senior US officials who he said repeatedly have raised concerns about the missile program with top Pakistani officials to no avail.
Washington and Islamabad, he noted, had been “long-time partners” on development, counter-terrorism and security.
“That makes us question even more why Pakistan will be motivated to develop a capability that could be used against us.”
Pakistan has been critical of warm ties US President Joe Biden has forged with its long-time foe India, and maintains close ties with China. Some Chinese entities have been slapped with US sanctions for supplying Islamabad’s ballistic missile program.
It conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1998 — more than 20 years after India’s first test blast — and has built an extensive arsenal of ballistic missiles capable of lofting nuclear warheads.
The Bulletin of the American Scientists research organization estimates that Pakistan has a stockpile of about 170 warheads.
US-Pakistani relations have undergone major ups and downs, including close Cold War ties that saw them support Afghan rebels against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Pakistan also was a key partner in the US fight against Al-Qaeda following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and has been a major non-NATO ally since 2004.
But ties also have been hurt by coups staged by the Pakistani military, its support for the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule and its nuclear weapons program.
Several experts said Finer’s speech came as a major surprise.
“For a senior US official to publicly link concerns about proliferation in Pakistan to a future direct threat to the US homeland — this is a mighty dramatic development,” said Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center think tank.

WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a Republican-led funding bill aimed at averting a government shutdown, with federal agencies due to run out of cash on Friday night and cease operations starting this weekend.
The contentious legislation would have kept the government open through mid-March and suspended the country’s borrowing limit for President-elect Donald Trump’s first two years in office.
But dozens of debt hawks in the Republican ranks — unhappy about allowing the national debt to rise unchecked for half of Trump’s term — rebelled against their own leadership to sink the package.
It marked a defeat for the Republican leader, who with tech billionaire Elon Musk — his incoming “efficiency czar” — had thrown his weight behind the plan.
And with party leaders announcing no further votes in the House on Thursday, the race to keep the lights on and prevent 875,000 non-essential workers being sent home over Christmas without pay is set to go down to the wire.
“We will regroup and we will come up with another solution, so stay tuned,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson — who led the negotiations — told reporters.
The bill was supposed to fix a mammoth bipartisan package that Trump and Musk sabotaged on Wednesday amid conservatives’ complaints about unrelated items in the text ballooning its overall cost.
The retooled version was considered under a fast-track method that required two-thirds support but Democrats refused to help Republicans overcome their rank-and-file rebels and it failed to win even a straightforward majority.
“The... proposal is not serious, it’s laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said ahead of the vote. The White House described it as a “giveaway for billionaires.”
Republicans will likely try again Friday with a more pared-down bill, although the party leadership offered no clear path forward, telling reporters they would have to meet to discuss a Plan C.
Funding the government is always fraught and lawmakers are under pressure this time around because they failed to agree on full-year budgets for 2025 despite months of negotiations.
Party leaders had landed on a stopgap bill — known as a “continuing resolution” (CR) — to keep operations functioning through mid-March.
Major Trump donor and ally Musk spent much of Wednesday bombarding his 208 million followers on X with posts trashing the deal, and amplifying complaints from debt hawks in the House who balked at numerous expensive add-ons shoehorned into the package.
Twelve hours later, Trump, who appeared to be playing catch-up, began threatening the reelection prospects of Republicans thinking of supporting it and demanding out of the blue that the bill increase or even scrap the country’s debt limit.
Government functions are due to begin winding up at midnight going into Saturday, with non-essential workers at risk of being furloughed without pay while essential staff toil through the holidays without a paycheck.
Johnson has been facing criticism from all sides for his handling of the negotiations and his speaker’s gavel looks likely to be under threat when he stands for reelection in January.
The Louisiana congressman appeared to have misjudged his own members’ tolerance for the original CR’s spiraling costs, and for allowing himself to have been blindsided by Musk and Trump.
Democrats, who control the Senate, have little political incentive to help Republicans and Jeffries has insisted they will only vote for the bipartisan package, meaning Trump’s party will have to go it alone on any further efforts.
This is something the fractious, divided party — which can afford to lose only a handful of members in any House vote — has not managed in any major bill in this Congress.
While voicing frustration over spending levels, Trump’s main objection to the original CR was that Congress was leaving him to handle a debt-limit increase — invariably a contentious, time-consuming fight — rather than including it in the text.
President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the veteran Democrat “supports the bipartisan agreement to keep the government open... not this giveaway for billionaires that Republicans are proposing at the 11th hour.”