U.S.-Pakistan Relations: Thinking about the Long Term

It’s Time for a New Smart Power Approach

To chart the deterioration of ties between Washington and Islamabad over the last two years, as well as the conundrums gnawing at Obama administration officials, consider the following: Despite Pakistan’s official designation as a “major non-NATO ally,” its egregious double game in Afghanistan is increasingly fueling talk in U.S. policy circles (here, here, here and here) about the necessity of “containing” it and even launching unilateral military raidsinto its tribal areas.*

Dampening the impulse for a tougher line, however, is the fear that the Pakistani state is in ever-present danger of collapse and vulnerable to a jihadi takeover.  A raft of new books, with such titles as Pakistan on the Brink and The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad , underscore the widely held view that the country is coming apart at the seams.  According David Sanger’s new book, Confront and Conceal, President Obama worries about Pakistan’s disintegration and the resulting dispersion of its nuclear stockpile.  Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta reiterated this concern the other week.

Moment is Ripe for Some Creative Thinking on South Asia

The United States should launch a Marshall Plan-like initiative to reinforce economic cooperation between India and Pakistan

The breakdown in U.S.-Pakistan relations over the past year has put in stark relief the two core strategic conundrums Washington has vis-à-vis Islamabad, as well as the integral role India plays in both of them.  The first is to encourage a more constructive Pakistani approach as the political endgame approaches in Afghanistan, which Islamabad regards as a theater for its endemic rivalry with New Delhi.  The second is to steer a nuclear-armed but deeply dysfunctional Pakistan away from failed state status, a harrowing prospect that many believe is all too plausible unless Islamabad is convinced that its prospering neighbor to the East actually represents an economic opportunity rather than an existential threat.

The Obama administration entered office believing that Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan was a function of addressing its acute security anxieties regarding India.  Two weeks before the November 2008 election, Barack Obama declared that resolving the perennially-inflamed dispute over the Kashmir region was one of the “critical tasks” for U.S. foreign policy and worthy of “serious diplomatic resources.”  It was a valid observation but the manner in which Washington pursued it guaranteed a quick failure.  Moves to appoint a turbo-charged envoy (in the person of Richard Holbrooke) with the mandate of mediating the Kashmir issue– similar to U.S. efforts to broker the Middle East peace talks – met with Pakistani approval but proved too much for the sovereignty-conscious Indians to accept.

For the past three years, Washington has struggled to find a way to bring the two sides together and focus them on their common interests.  Fortunately, after a hiatus caused by the 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, the peace dialogue between India and Pakistan has now moved into full gear. The Obama administration would do well to reinforce this promising effort, which if it bears fruit would have a very positive impact on U.S. security interests in the region.