by Uzair M. Younus in Dawn: The US presidential election is just days away, and many within Pakistan are keeping a close eye on the race for obvious reasons. The elections have also led to an increased debate, both within Pakistan and the American-Pakistani diaspora, about what each candidate would mean for Pakistan, especially the future of former prime minister Imran Khan, who is currently in jail.
Much of this debate, however, has failed to properly take into account the structural drivers of US policy towards Pakistan, and the limited level of interest Washington has when it comes to Pakistan and its political economy.
From Washington’s perspective, the US exit from Afghanistan and Washington’s deepening relationship with India have reduced the relative importance of Pakistan. Pakistan’s own deepening relationship with China has also led many national security actors in Washington — across both parties — to believe that it is futile to pursue a strategy that seeks to prevent Pakistan from falling into China’s geopolitical orbit.
While this is not a unanimous view, it is a perspective shared across party lines. This helps explain why, for example, Washington recently placed sanctions on companies supplying Pakistan’s ballistic missile programme.
Strategic distance
The transition in the bilateral relationship began in the Obama administration, but accelerated during the Trump presidency. The 2017 National Security Strategy offers evidence of this shift, as the document primarily focused on the fact that Washington was facing “threats from transnational terrorists and militants operating from within Pakistan.” In addition, the strategy highlighted that Pakistan needed to “intensify its counterterrorism efforts” and demonstrate that “it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets.”
The Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy did not even mention Pakistan and the broader thrust of the document reveals that Washington has in many ways moved on from the country.
The State Department has, meanwhile, outlined a narrow set of core objectives when it comes to diplomatic engagement with Islamabad, with the first goal being focused on countering terrorism and violent extremism, and the second priority being the advancement of regional stability, with a specific focus on the fact that “Pakistan’s military capabilities do not pose a threat to the US or our allies and partners.”
This broad bipartisan consensus on priority topics means that the primary interlocutor for Washington remains the Pakistani military, given the fact that it plays an outsized role in terms of counter-terror policy as well as overall nuclear strategy, including Pakistan’s missile development programme.
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