Critical Triangle continues...

US-Pakistan ties have characteristically always been linked to a third party and have never stood the test of independent, bilateral strength.

From the US point of view, Pakistan’s worth has always been determined for its utility in containing the USSR, engaging China or combating global terrorism. Much of this has to do with the fact that Pakistan itself has focused its attention on third parties, initially India, and ultimately Afghanistan, and consequently has never created the bilateral equities to sustain a standalone relationship. As a result, the whole relationship has revolved around Pakistan’s security obsession, which distorts the contemplation of this as a normal bilateral relationship.

The core of this distorted triangle was laid in the 1950s. Since then events can be described as variations on a theme.

Even problems that seems overriding today—nuclear proliferation, terrorism, Afghanistan—stem from this distortion and flow directly from the brief misguided alliance based on the 1950s understanding of the northern-tier strategy. Lastly, a persistent pattern is established with regard to US aid.

Pakistan has for one reason or another always viewed US aid as a green light for its revisionist tendencies. The US for its part persists in viewing such aid as a dampener of violence in the subcontinent despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Though Dean Rusk realised this as early as 1963—“fear, distrust and hatred of India” mean “we cannot rely on Pakistan to act rationally and in what we think would be in its own interests”—the polarisation that these commitments brought about prove impossible to reverse. If anything the US entanglement in the Af Pak region is a reminder that foreign policy is seldom based on common sense; the illusion of continuity and stability will frequently trump common sense.

To be continued...