Pakistan risks China's ire over renewed bonhomie with US but nothing changes for India on ground

Pakistan is bristling, and again for all the wrong reasons. The immediate cause was the remark by President Joe Biden calling it a dangerous nuclear-armed country. Islamabad took umbrage, and summoned the US envoy, while its emissaries both formal and informal voiced their displeasure on social media. Unfortunately, even the most senior of such voices, barked entirely up the wrong tree, quoting chapter and verse from a report on safety of its nuclear assets. But the President of the United States was not talking about the safety of the arsenal, he was talking about the cohesion of the state itself. That is a real danger. The problem is that even within such a situation, Pakistan will still make a buck.

Biden knows his Pakistan

To explain, President Biden’s remarks were made at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Reception, where while discussing a range of subjects, he talked of major threats in a certain order. First, the Russian threat of use of tactical nuclear weapons, the problems of how to deal with China’s President Xi, and then “How do we handle ….maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion”. In short, he placed the problem on a level with such seriously dangerous issues as Russia and China. The point is that he saw it as a problem of cohesiveness of the country and not the safety of the weapons themselves.

With everyone in Pakistan fighting everyone else, particularly with the military fighting not only the politicians – sometimes quite literally, as in picking up Senator Azam Swati and allegedly torturing him – but also  apparently within themselves. There have been after all, serious questions of whether the military is united, at a time when several senior retired army officers are backing Imran Khan. And it now seems that so do the people. Recent by polls saw Imran single-handedly trouncing the ruling alliance in at least five out of eight constituencies of the National Assembly. It seems that the US baiter is far from being a spent force, with social media celebrating his win. There’s trouble ahead, and that’s what Biden meant by a country without cohesion.Aides meanwhile tried to walk back on his remarks, stressing that the US viewed a ‘secure and prosperous’ Pakistan as critical to its interests.

As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he co-sponsored legislation in 2008 – subsequently known as the Kerry-Lugar Bill that would have authorised $7.5 billion over five years ($1.5 billion annually) in non-military aid, and another $7.5 bn thereafter but with very unusual conditions. It conditioned military aid to certification by the Secretary of State that Pakistani ‘security forces’ (read Army) were preventing Al Qaeda and ‘associated’ terrorist groups from operating in Pakistan, ending Taliban sanctuary, and most controversially required certification that the army was not ‘materially interfering in the political or judicial processes of Pakistan’. It even called for an assessment as to civilian control over military promotions, and required all direct cash payments for security assistance made directly to civilian political leadership, which can then be held accountable. In other words, so far loosely accounted assistance of millions of dollars for ‘counter insurgency’ would no longer to be made available to the army to use – unsurprisingly – for its covert and overt actions against India.

Neither would it allow certain Corps Commanders to make their fortunes. The fury of the then COAS General Kayani and DG ISI General Pasha is encapsulated in a declassified cable, but their rage also went public which was unwise, given the generosity of aid offered, and only served to prove US fears were justified. It was Biden who often questioned why air attacks should not target Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan but was overruled most often by the fears within the State Department in particular, that an unstable Pakistan, armed with nuclear weapons, was extremely dangerous for security. Experts expanded on this theory, until it became the basis of Pakistan policy in US government departments – that at all costs Pakistan must be indulged to prevent this nightmare scenario.

Nuclear weapons provide economic relief

The truth? Pakistan nuclear weapons were in fact, as safe as possible as  former officials now argue. But at the time, it suited Islamabad to push this argument of threat, because it was that perception that brought in a flow of funds to ensure ‘stability’. Congress provided some $65 billion till 2011 in military and economic assistance that literally kept the country afloat. That was till President Trump turned off the tap, at least on military assistance. US aid however continued to flow. Its website notes that “Over the past decade, the United States…has given Pakistan nearly $7.7 billion of funding. Pakistan remains one of America’s largest recipients of foreign assistance, a sign of our long-term partnership and commitment”. That’s what most observers miss. The US was never really out of the country at all. And as the targeting of Ayman Al Zawahiri shows, neither did its intelligence cooperation slacken.

The present US wooing of Pakistan is essentially an effort to keep the Pakistan Army engaged, and in ensuring access to what is after all, a highly dangerous situation. The F-16 ‘sustainment’ deal does not, in reality, enhance Pakistan’s capability, and would probably have been commented on only mildly by Delhi. It is the visit of the Pakistani ambassador to “Azad Kashmir’, particularly its deliberately publicised nature, that has raised suspicions that this is a not only aimed at pleasing the Pakistanis, but is also designed to work as the usual ‘leverage’ to curb India’s independent foreign policy. Both are likely.

For the reality, however, look to the National Security Strategy which mentions India as a partner in the region while Pakistan is not mentioned at all. Neither was it noticed in the earlier “Interim” security guidance. That does not necessarily mean that Pakistan is of no importance at all. It is. As Biden said, it is a danger to others and itself. For India, it is a signal that the importance of fighting terrorism has slid in US priorities, even as it utilises Islamabad to arm twist India on its real concern, which is China. Delhi may feel free to publicly berate Islamabad if it so wishes, and which will produce little by way of change in US policy. What will get unwelcome attention is any move to make up with Beijing. So grin and bear it while the US makes up to Pakistan. Nothing much has really changed. And take heart in the fact that Beijing won’t like this apparently revived friendship at all.

The author is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. She tweets @kartha_tara. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.

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