A new approach to Pak-US relations

A transactional relationship

The Department of Political Science and International Relations organized a panel discussion on the “US Presidential Elections 2024 and its implications for Pakistan” at the University of Management and Technology (UMT), Lahore, on September 27. The panel discussion featured Pakistan’s Former Ambassador to the United States Sardar Masood Khan, Senior Journalist-cum-Political analyst Suhail Warraich, Senior Journalist Fahad Hussain, Professor of Practice at DPSIR Lt Gen Javed Hassan (Retd), and two Pakistani American Businessmen including Shahid Ahmed Khan and Tahir Javed as panelists.

On the occasion, panelists shared their insights over the chequered history of Pak-US relations, available prospects with Pakistan for redefining its relations with the USA in the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, growing Pak-China relationship in the backdrop of the Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), rising US-China rivalry in pursuit of global power and strategic partnership developing between India and the USA to counter China’s rise in the region. In the panel discussion, many panelists were of the view that the results of the current presidential elections in the USA would not bring a drastic change in the US policy towards Asia; however, Pakistan needed to be proactive in developing a multifaceted relationship with the USA for the attainment of its interests amidst changing regional and global political landscape.

During the panel discussion, panelists shared their reflections on the trajectory of Pak-US relations developed over around 77 years. Much can be said about all those reflections but one reflection shared by Senior Journalist-cum-Political analyst Suhail Warraich stayed with me and pushed me into introspection over what he said in the context of Pak-US relations. I wish I had asked him in person in a Q and A session over the point of his which put me in introspective mode but because of the shortage of time I could not ask.

I am zooming in on one point in his speech. He said that the world in which we are living does not believe in morality, rather it’s driven by “You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.” In simple words, this world is driven by transactional relationships in which states pursue their interests. If a state finds that the relationship it’s developing with other states can help achieve its interests, it goes ahead. However, if a state finds that the relationship it is becoming a part of, can pose a threat to its interests, it stays away from that relationship. At the end of the day, it’s the convergence or divergence of interests that brings states together or keeps them apart respectively.

In the domain of International Relations, this perception that states are always driven by their interests in their relationship with other states is advocated by the Realist School of thought. Though this is a selective understanding of state’s behavior as many other theoretical streams in International Relations give us an inclusive understanding of states’ behaviour, yet for the time being let’s stick to the particular perception of world politics advocated by Realists and apply it to Pak-US relations to make sense whether both countries, when they transacted with each other in different times, attained what they were looking for in the transactional relationship with each other.

Pitching his perspective on Pak-US relations in the tone of Realists during the panel discussion, Warraich said that Pak-US relations across history have remained transactional. This means both countries went into a relationship with each other in pursuit of their interests and when those interests converged, we saw Pakistan and the USA working closely with each other and when those interests diverged, they started moving away. His emphasis was on this point that fluctuations we have seen in Pak-US relations should not surprise us because this is the reality of the world in which interests prevail over everything.

The best way to develop a strategy is by engaging policy-making with academia so that a nuanced view can be taken of what happened in the past and a way of action can be developed so that mistakes of the past are not repeated. This message seriously needs to get across to the ones occupying power corridors of foreign policy making in Pakistan.

Thinking about what he said, there is no denying the fact that Pak-US relations can provide perfect empirical evidence for what Realists are preaching in their theoretical framework about world politics, as the relationship has remained transactional. However, the point I  want to highlight is whether our foreign policy is aware of the truths prevalent in world politics. The truth I am talking about here is the Realists’ truth. The truth I am referring to is the truth that this world is not driven by morality rather it’s driven by interests-laden transactional relationships. I wonder if our foreign policy, especially in the case of Pak-US relations, is clear about the culture of transactional relationships prevalent in world politics. I wonder if in our foreign policy we have experts sitting to make a strategy for developing a good transactional relationship.

Let me explain what I mean. I think that the relationship that Pakistan has developed with the USA over 77 years has no doubt remained transactional but this transactional relationship has remained driven by the interests of the USA more than the interests of Pakistan. A case in point is our close transactional relationship with the USA in the 1970s where we saw Pakistan and the USA coming closer together for the interest of the USA in the region, which was to kick out the USSR from Afghanistan. In the short term, the collaboration worked and the USSR was kicked out successfully, but Pakistan is still paying the price for that transactional relationship in the shape of violent extremism and terrorism as the roots of these threats can be traced back to the 1980s when Pakistan became the front-line state to fight a proxy war on behalf of the USA in Afghanistan by supporting a conservative version of religion in religious seminaries, which helped provide manpower for the fight in Afghanistan, through financial support coming from the Middle Eastern countries at the behest of the USA. Many times across history, this thing can be found in the transactional relationship between Pakistan and the USA that the relationship has been driven by the interests of the USA more than that of Pakistan.

In the present context where we see elections going to happen in the USA and a new presidential setup is on the cards, we can’t expect that the new presidential setup will bring a drastic change in the strategic interests of the USA in Asia, as that was highlighted by the panelists in the panel discussion as well; however, I think that Pakistan needs to introspect over trajectory of its relationship with the USA in the past and should proactively develop a strategy for how it can secure its interests in the transactional relationship it is going to develop with the USA amidst the changing regional and global political landscape.

The best way to develop a strategy is by engaging policy-making with academia so that a nuanced view can be taken of what happened in the past and a way of action can be developed so that mistakes of the past are not repeated. This message seriously needs to get across to the ones occupying power corridors of foreign policy making in Pakistan.

Inamullah Marwat
Inamullah Marwat
Inamullah Marwat is a lecturer at the Department of Political Science & International Relations at the University of Management & Technology (UMT), Lahore. He can be reached at [email protected]

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