Pakistan-US Ties in Future.

Pakistan US ties.

The US and Pakistan have renewed their strategic dialogue after a pause of three years. However with their being little difference in how each side views the other’s policies and the region, it is like an old wine in a new bottle.

The argument being made is that Pakistan lives in a volatile neighbor-hood, there is a need for economic growth and challenges are traced back to the 1980, when  the US and Pakistan together trained and armed the religious fighters and then the US left Pakistan to deal with the problems in the 1990s.

As has happened often in the last decade every time there is strategic dialogue the main argument put forth from Islamabad and Rawalpindi is the need to convert the transactional nature of the US Pakistan relationship into a strategic one, to build trust between not just the two countries but also their institutions. For decades, the bedrock of the US- Pakistan relationship was the close ties between the security establishments on both sides but these have eroded and will take years to rebuild.

At every strategic dialogue meeting between the US and Pakistan the main point being made is that the US needs to pay greater attention to Pakistan’s security concerns. Examples of the US abandoning Pakistan in 1990, and not being sensitive to Pakistan’s concerns after 9/11 are brought up. However what is really being stated is that Pakistan would like to be treated as the mostly allied allay like it used to be in the 1950s and that close US ties with India especially the civilian nuclear deal of 2006, are seen as a betrayal by Pakistan.

When Pakistan first approached the US for aid, way back I n 1947, the main argument put forth was that Pakistan’s geostrategic location made it an indispensable ally. The Cold War and the US’s desire for allies in the region helped Pakistan become the anchor of US policy. This helped the provision of economic and military aid to Pakistan from the 1950’s onwards.

For Pakistan the US was the ally who would provide aid that would help Pakistan gain parity with India and ensure its safety and integrity against any Indian attack. But any action by the US to build ties with or provide aid to India was seen as disrupting the so-called regional balance. Whenever  Pakistan’s leaders felt that the US was coming close to India , they would complain of the US’s betrayal. Over the decades, Pakistan’s civilian leaders have bought into the parity argument and hence even during civilian rule, what Pakistan seeks from the US alliance has not changed.

But for the US however Pakistan was just one part of its larger containment strategy and the US thought not allied with India, never saw India as the enemy.

The last decades has also led to changes in how the US views the region. Until recently the US only had one ally in the region, Pakistan. In order to assuage its only ally in the region the US followed a policy of hyphenating India and Pakistan a sort of parity.

Pakistan’s foreign policy has been a perennial search for that elusive ally that would provide it with resources and also stand up to India. The US has remained Pakistan’s primary choice as the country that would help achieve the goal. Even though the US has been increasingly reluctant to do so at regular intervals Pakistan’s leaders express the desire of how they would like their relationship to go back to what it was during the Cold War not  only in terms of the aid provided but more so in terms of regional balance.