In the past the US strategic community and the deep state had viewed Pakistan from the lens of Cold War driven common geopolitical interests the congruence of which was mostly evanescent. Consequently, after each geopolitical project’s culmination the ties snapped rather unceremoniously and remained in limbo till the discovery of another project. Some of these projects included the Cold war, US-China thaw, anti-Soviet Afghan war, and the war against terror. What is the nature the project this time around, however, is the pearl of the high price being chased by the political and strategic Cassandras.
The answer may lie in an interesting debate between the leading political thinkers and strategic minds of this century like Mearsheimer and Jeffery Sachs who hold differing views about US role in an anarchic yet interdependent world. While Mearsheimer believes that as the regional hegemon of the western hemisphere, the US is viewing the rise of another hegemon in Asia i.e. China with trepidation, Jeffrey Sachs rejects the fear of a Chinese threat by arguing that it is not the Chinese rise but the US attempts to stonewall that rise that portend the destruction of the global peace.
Mearsheimer’s prescription of geopolitical alliances to balance the rise of China apparently had found resonance in the US under Biden administration, resulting in Asia-Pacific alliances like Quad, Squad, Aukus and IPEF. As a curlicue to above the US shift of geopolitical focus away from South Asia to Asia-Pacific resulted in importance of India as a regional surrogate to contain the rise of China in Asia. This approach hardened Indian stance vis a vis its neighbours like Pakistan and invested it with a hubris vis a vis global powers. The hauteur, when combined with a religiously inspired extremist strain of Indian nationalism, led to grandiose notions of self-importance masqueraded as strategic autonomy. That infamous autonomy led India to defy the US, annoy China and bully neighbours.
Pakistan meanwhile, abandoned by the US, had to fend for itself while parrying the aggressive stratagems of a hostile India and was compelled to seek economic as well as military assistance from China. Pakistan’s sincere attempts to change its national security priorities by focusing on economics, human security and connectivity, leveraging its geographical as well as geopolitical strengths, were stonewalled by a perpetually hostile neighbour that converted covert warfare into a fine art by instigating terrorist violence by its proxies like TTP and BLA. Pakistan’s sincere peace overtures and regional connectivity offers were haughtily spurned by India in a quest to isolate Pakistan.
South Asia watchers in the US, like Dan Markey, had sounded alarm at isolating Pakistan entirely and had kept recommending an engagement based on a narrow set of interests, while others like Adam Weinstein kept pointing out the US proclivity to overlook Pakistan’s contribution in the geopolitical projects like Afghanistan initiated by the US. It appears as though the US strategic community veers mostly towards Eliot Cohen’s model of narrow political transactions as opposed to the grand strategy proponents like George Kennan when it comes to Pak-US relations. Kennan himself had warned against the use of bumper sticker strategy epithets like “containment”, since the world has evolved into a much more complex entity after Cold War.
The US under President Trump is viewing the world from a different prism than the multilateralism and globalisation focus of his predecessors and is privileging economic advantage, job growth and increase in global wealth through fair trade and technology development practices. The end of wars and preference for bilateralism and minilateralism appears to the new US foreign policy thrust. Pakistan and the US under President Trump have found a common cause to end wars and to promote peace. Pakistan has shunned wars and, being a victim of proxy terror wars itself, has munificently acknowledged the US President’s effective role in preventing the escalation of the conflict between the two nuclear powers i.e. India and Pakistan, in sharp contrast to the Indian obduracy in refusing to acknowledge that role.
The recent thaw in Pak-US ties bodes well for the regional stability in South Asia, as the US can act as a regional stabiliser due to its influence with both India and Pakistan. The US investments in mines, minerals, energy, IT, agriculture and hydel projects promise economic as well as geopolitical dividends in a region where the precipitate US withdrawal had left a vacuum to be filled by its global competitors. US investments in Pakistan’s East-West Economic Corridor linking India, Pakistan and Central Asia promise rich economic rewards plus a win-win symbiosis of Chinese and American economic interests in the region.
Pakistan and Central Asia can reap the benefits of energy connectivity through projects like TAPI, CASA 1000 and Uzbekistan-Afghanistan and Pakistan corridor. It is time Pakistan and the US cooperated in developing a Pak-USA Education and IT Corridor by enhancing the educational and technology linkages. Besides exploring the possibility of US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the US may consider the possibility of Pakistan’s inclusion in the Indo- Pacific Economic Forum (IPEF). American venture capital firms also need to be encouraged by removing the structural incompatibilities between Pakistan and USA’s tech firms.
With over 80 US firms doing business in Pakistan and availability of 26 products in which Pakistan has competitive advantage over the US, Pakistan should make the most of this window of opportunity afforded due to relatively better tariff deal offered to Pakistan compared to other regional competitors. The positive engagement with the US should be premised upon counterterrorism cooperation, traditional defence collaboration, economic cooperation and peace-building especially in Middle East, leveraging Pakistan’s clout in OIC/GCC and US President’s pro-peace global vision.