US, Aug. 19 -- Pakistan's Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir's inflammatory nuclear rhetoric delivered to Pakistani expatriates in Tampa, Florida, represents far more than another round of subcontinental saber-rattling. From an American perspective, Munir has made thinly veiled nuclear threats that should give Washington policymakers pause regarding the potentially perilous course of their South Asian ally.

His statements expose a military leadership that has rejected rational deterrence for dangerous nuclear blackmail, putting not only regional stability but global security at existential risk.

Munir's Tampa speech represents a troubling break with Pakistan's previously stated nuclear threshold, to the end of rational nuclear doctrine...