Why the US keeps strong ties with Pakistan despite India’s objections

Derek Grossman is a senior defense analyst at the think tank RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, California, and an adjunct professor in the practice of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California. He formerly served as an intelligence adviser at the Pentagon.

Last month’s India-Pakistan military clashes following the Pahalgam terrorist attack on April 22 have raised many difficult questions, primarily related to which nation could plausibly claim victory and whether the ceasefire might hold in the coming days and weeks.

But there is one question that long precedes Pahalgam and that today has newfound relevance among Indians: Why does the U.S. continue to maintain strategic ties to Pakistan when doing so angers India?

After all, Washington wants a stronger strategic partnership with New Delhi to counter China, and India has labelled Pakistan a “terrorist state.” Thus, isn’t American policy on Pakistan self-defeating? Maybe, but India should also understand that the U.S. is trying to consider a broader security landscape in which Pakistan plays an important role.

For one thing, Washington seeks Islamabad’s continued support in the counterterrorism space, particularly since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and start of the global “war on terror.” Although New Delhi has rightfully highlighted and complained about Pakistan’s use of terrorist proxies against India, namely Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, the fact remains that Islamabad itself has also been a victim of terrorist attacks, prompting Pakistan at times to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. to eliminate terrorists and militants that both nations find reprehensible. In 2004, Washington designated Pakistan a major non-NATO ally to encourage even more counterterrorism collaboration.

To be sure, this approach has taken some significant hits. In May 2011, the U.S. conducted a special forces raid on a mysterious compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that turned up the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. To this day, Islamabad denies having had any awareness of his presence in the country, but Washington remains skeptical. And later that same year, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, referred to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as the “veritable arm” of the Haqqani network, which had just attacked the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Afghanistan.

The combination of these events, and others, has markedly dampened U.S.-Pakistan relations, but the least affected aspect of the partnership has been on counterterrorism. Earlier this year, for example, President Donald Trump publicly thanked Islamabad for arresting an Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) terrorist leader, Mohammad Sharifullah, who allegedly orchestrated the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the U.S. military withdrawal in August 2021 that killed 13 service members and dozens of Afghan civilians.

An Indian flag is pictured in the pocket of a police officer’s uniform as he attends a rally in support of the nation’s armed forces on May 13.   © Reuters

Although the U.S. was angered by Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998 that responded to India’s earlier tests, another key aspect of U.S.-Pakistan ties has been characterized by Washington routinely seeking to ensure the security of Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program. Washington is trying to do this both from the perspective of verifying Pakistan’s exclusive command and control of its nuclear arsenal as well as helping to mitigate potential threats to the non-proliferation regime (even though it isn’t a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT).

This part of the partnership is mostly kept private, but occasionally spills out into the public. In 2022, for instance, then-U.S. President Joe Biden called Pakistan “one of the most dangerous countries in the world” that had “nuclear weapons without cohesion.” Biden’s remarks prompted Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to note, “Over the past decades, Pakistan has proven to be a most responsible nuclear state, wherein its nuclear program is managed through a technically sound and foolproof command and control system.”

Yet concerns in Washington persist, and a new but related concern has recently emerged. Before leaving office, the Biden administration disclosed that U.S. intelligence indicates that Pakistan has been secretly developing a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the U.S. homeland, and which could be tipped with a nuclear warhead. It is therefore difficult to imagine Washington interacting less with Islamabad to deal with this threat and its nuclear program more broadly.

The U.S. also clearly has its eye on preventing an India-Pakistan war in the future, which could, if not properly managed, breach the nuclear threshold. One good way to achieve this objective is to maintain an open line of communication with Islamabad. Recent events underscore the point.

After India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 in retaliation for Pahalgam, and it became clear that New Delhi and Islamabad were rapidly moving up the military escalation ladder, Washington kicked its mediation efforts into high gear. U.S. Secretary of State and Acting National Security Adviser Marco Rubio conducted intensive negotiations with both Indian and Pakistani counterparts to broker the current ceasefire, demonstrating that such influence is only possible through engagement.

By contrast, although China also discussed the crisis with India and Pakistan and stressed deescalation, Beijing was unable to deliver the same result, probably in large part due to its heavy favoritism of Pakistan — its “all-weather” strategic partner and “iron brother” — over India.

If the U.S. took a similar stance in its support for India, then it would be far more difficult to achieve diplomatic breakthroughs in the future. Washington might also inadvertently cede ground to other powers — like China, Russia or even Iran, which stepped up significantly during the recent crisis — to do so instead, further eroding American diplomacy and influence.

In truth, some of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is simply borne out of bureaucratic momentum dating back to the Cold War when Islamabad was a staunch security ally in countering and eliminating Soviet and Chinese-inspired communist movements worldwide. In 1954, the U.S. added Pakistan to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), and similarly, in 1955, Islamabad became a founding member of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), also known as the Baghdad Pact, alongside other Middle Eastern countries. Even after these organizations dissolved, U.S.-Pakistan collaboration remained robust. In the 1980s, for example, the Reagan administration sold F-16s to Islamabad to strengthen its conventional capabilities.

In recent years, the U.S. has oscillated widely on whether to support Pakistan militarily. The first Trump administration in 2018 froze nearly all security assistance because it argued Islamabad wasn’t doing enough on terrorism, but then the Biden administration reversed that decision and upgraded Islamabad’s F-16s.

By doing this, the Biden team undoubtedly sought to bolster Pakistan’s ability to conduct air-to-ground operations against terrorist groups. However, the fact that F-16s already existed in Pakistan, and Washington already had longstanding and deep ties to Islamabad, made it an easier decision than if Pakistan had no such systems in the first place.

Finally, one common misconception is that Washington’s ties to Pakistan are somehow about countering Chinese influence there. In reality, this ship has long sailed. Islamabad and Beijing have been close for decades, and the trend has only intensified in recent years, especially as Pakistan benefits from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is the flagship suite of investment and infrastructure projects under Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

During the Biden administration, Pakistan expressed an interest in resetting U.S. ties by elevating their economic engagement, and there were also whispers of Pakistani discontent with Chinese military support, but Washington, for whatever reason, demurred. There has been no movement on this by the current administration, either.

On the whole, the U.S. has several key interests in Pakistan that should keep the strategic partnership going. But the obvious lack of trust has also resulted in fits and starts, and this dynamic is likely to continue given Islamabad’s bad behavior in several domains, particularly on nuclear weapons and terrorism.

Perhaps the most significant and disruptive factor yet is the historically strong and further strengthening U.S.-India strategic partnership. Indeed, New Delhi can take some solace in Washington’s comparative de-prioritization of Islamabad, but it should also avoid drawing the hasty conclusion that Washington will one day smarten up and abandon Pakistan because the facts simply do not support such a claim.

The article appeared in the asia.nikkei