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.
