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, with which it has fought three major wars 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.