Critical Triangle: US-Pakistan-Afghanistan continues.....

Most Pakistanis who go abroad to study, go to the US and not to Saudi or Chinese universities, and are far more solicitous of US peer approval than Chinese or Saudi.

The US, therefore, is of paramount importance to Pakistan bilaterally. But given the influence the US has on other actors in Pakistan’s neighbourhood, to influence their course of actions to produce desirable outcomes, compared with Pakistan’s own relative weakness on this score, the centrality of the US is multiplied. For example in 2001-2002 during the so-called “twin peaks” crisis between India and Pakistan, it was active US diplomacy that helped calm tensions, by influencing India towards restraint.

While the relationship has not been without its own ups and (mostly) downs, no country can be said to exercise more influence on Pakistan and the way it interacts with the world. It was for this exact reason that in the 1980s it was said that Pakistan was a state of three A’s, “Allah, Army and America.” However, this is an exaggeration and, as will be seen, America’s ability to influence Pakistan’s environment has been limited.

This chapter examines US-Pakistan relations and specifically their impact on Afghanistan. However a triangular analysis that is best to study such a relationship is made difficult by two factors. First is the paucity of Afghan archives and sources on the subject. The second is the fact that rather than being a normal bilateral relationship, Pakistan-US ties have always been defined by a third country—India. Consequently this narrative will focus on a historical account of the push and pull factors and events that shaped Pakistan–US ties, while gauging the impact on Afghanistan. Some periods of history, notably the Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan administrations, have been given greater prominence in the following narrative, for the simple reason, that they considered Pakistan higher up on the priority list than others.

To be continued.......