Why the U.S.-Pakistani Alliance Isn't Worth the Trouble
February 11, 2013
Summary:
Instead of continuing their endless battling, the United States and Pakistan should acknowledge that their interests simply do not converge enough to make them strong partners. Giving up the fiction of an alliance would free up Washington to explore new ways of achieving its goals in South Asia. And it would allow Islamabad to finally pursue its regional ambitions -- which would either succeed once and for all or, more likely, teach Pakistani officials the limitations of their country’s power.
From birth, Pakistan was saddled with a huge army it could not pay for and plenty of monsters to destroy.
In the 1980s, Washington not only funneled arms and money to the mujahideen across the border but also quadrupled its aid to Pakistan.
If the alliance ended, Pakistan could find out whether its regional policy objective of competing with India was attainable without U.S. support.
