Washington has too often seen Pakistan through the hard prism of war, withdrawal, counterterrorism and crisis management, while Islamabad, for its part, has learned to expect engagement only when the region catches fire. It is precisely this tired choreography that made Monday’s symposium on Capitol Hill more consequential than the usual diplomatic theatre.

Perhaps, for the first time in the history of the US Congress, the Pakistan Caucus convened a formal symposium devoted to Pakistan-US relations–not merely as a security briefing, but as a relationship with a past to be understood, a present to be managed and, more importantly, a future to be built.

That alone deserves notice. The nearly four-hour session, chaired by Congressional Pakistan Caucus co-chairs Tom Suozzi and Jack Bergman in collaboration with the Embassy of Pakistan, brought together officials from the US State Department, think-tank voices, and specialists on security and economics, and was held under the Chatham House Rule. The title – “US and Pakistan: Past, Present, and Future” – was deliberately expansive. It implied that the old single-axis conversation on militancy and regional utility is no longer sufficient. A relationship this long, this complicated, and this strategically burdened cannot be sustained on inherited assumptions.

Congressman Tom Suozzi’s remarks captured that ambition on X as he wrote, “Today, we gathered experts from around the world to discuss the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, its history, current security and economic concerns, and how to build a better future.”

The deeper significance of the symposium lies in the fact that it took place at a moment when Pakistan is being discussed in Washington not only as a security stakeholder, but also as a diplomatic actor.

The deeper significance of the symposium lies in the fact that it took place at a moment when Pakistan is being discussed in Washington not only as a security stakeholder, but also as a diplomatic actor.

The deeper significance of the symposium lies in the fact that it took place at a moment when Pakistan is being discussed in Washington not only as a security stakeholder, but also as a diplomatic actor. Participants pointed to Islamabad’s offer to help mediate between the United States and Iran during the recent escalation in the Gulf as evidence of growing confidence in Pakistan’s regional role. That is not a small shift. For years, Pakistan has been spoken about in relation to regional instability. Now, however tentatively, it is also being presented as a possible stabilising force within it.

Pakistan’s location, of course, remains inescapable. Bordering Afghanistan, Iran and India, and positioned close to the Gulf, it lives in a neighbourhood where geography is never passive. It shapes strategic compulsions, compresses policy choices and routinely disturbs economic horizons. Yet one of the more important themes to emerge from the discussion was the insistence that Pakistan must not be viewed beyond a narrow security lens. This was not sentimental rhetoric. It was a recognition that a country of more than 250 million people, with a large diaspora in the United States, a growing educated middle class, significant natural resources and nuclear capability, cannot sensibly be reduced to the language of contingency alone.

That point was reinforced by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, who argued that Pakistan’s geostrategic location gives it significance at both regional and global levels. He also reiterated a point Islamabad has long made, but which deserves to be restated in Washington with greater seriousness: Pakistan has played a frontline role in the fight against terrorism, has made major sacrifices for regional and global peace, and remains willing to continue contributing to international peace and stability. In another era, such a claim might have been dismissed as routine diplomatic positioning. Today, however, in a region unsettled by the war scare around Iran, it sounds less like a plea and more like a reminder.

Still, if the symposium said anything worth holding onto, it was this: the old security compact is no longer enough. Even those examining the history of the bilateral relationship acknowledged that US-Pakistan ties have moved in unhappy cycles, with stretches of close cooperation followed by periods of mistrust, resentment or disappointment. Again and again, the relationship has been shaped by third-country considerations – Afghanistan yesterday, India and China today, perhaps Iran tomorrow. Again and again, it has turned transactional, driven by immediate geopolitical need rather than by institutional confidence or long-term design. That diagnosis is neither new nor controversial; what is new is the growing recognition in Washington that a relationship managed only in times of crisis is a relationship condemned to remain shallow.

The symposium’s strongest forward-looking theme was that the future of US-Pakistan ties must move from aid to trade, from dependence to investment, from episodic engagement to structured opportunity. Pakistan was discussed as a country with potential in critical minerals, renewable energy, information technology and digital services. That matters, not least because it aligns with Pakistan’s own effort to reposition itself as more than a geopolitical hinge. It is also why the tweet by the Official State Department for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs @State_CSA was so telling. The account said that under President Trump’s leadership, “a positive recalibration in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is enabling mutually beneficial economic and commercial ties, including in the critical minerals sector.” Whatever one makes of the political packaging, the policy signal is plain: Washington is at least willing to explore an economic vocabulary for the relationship that goes beyond grants, reimbursements and strategic rent.

It goes without saying that the obstacles are formidable and were candidly acknowledged. Investors remain wary because of policy unpredictability, taxation concerns, bureaucratic hurdles and weak dispute resolution. Even in sectors where American interest exists – notably minerals – sustainable progress will depend on structural reform, reduced corruption and legal certainty.

The security discussion, meanwhile, was more sober than triumphalist. Participants warned that militant groups have become more fragmented, technologically adaptive and operationally complex, with the ability to threaten not just remote border regions but urban centres as well. There was also an important recognition that military operations alone cannot deliver durable counterterrorism outcomes. Stronger civilian law enforcement and a firmer rule-of-law architecture are indispensable.

Nor can the India factor be wished away. The symposium appears to have acknowledged that India-Pakistan tensions remain one of the region’s most enduring risks, and that even where ceasefire understandings hold, a single major terrorist incident could trigger another crisis between two nuclear-armed neighbours. This is not alarmism. It is merely recognition that the subcontinent still lacks robust crisis-prevention mechanisms and remains vulnerable to escalation through miscalculation, domestic political incentive or militant provocation.

Equally revealing was the treatment of China. The discussion appears to have avoided both romance and panic. Pakistan’s military cooperation with Beijing remains strong, but the economic record has been mixed, particularly where CPEC’s outsized expectations have not consistently translated into outcomes, and where security threats to foreign personnel have complicated delivery. Yet the crucial point is that Pakistan does not seek exclusive dependence on any one partner and continues to value engagement with the United States. That is perhaps the wisest strategic instinct Islamabad can cultivate: not binary alignment, but diversified relevance.

One of the more striking inclusions in the event, and one that should not be overlooked, was the attention given between panels to bonded labour in Pakistan’s brick kiln industry. At first glance, it may appear peripheral to a symposium on bilateral relations. It is not. Any serious partnership between states that claims to be future-oriented must also be capable of addressing the conditions that deform human dignity at the base of the economy. The reference to families trapped in generational debt bondage, and to the legislative and administrative reforms needed to modernise the sector, broadened the meaning of cooperation beyond security and commerce. It introduced a moral dimension often absent from strategic dialogue: that state-to-state engagement is most credible when it does not avert its gaze from exploitation within society.

This, then, was the larger argument threaded through the symposium: that cooperation between Pakistan and the United States is necessary because of the scale, population and geopolitical significance of both countries; because counterterrorism and regional stability remain unfinished business; because China, India, Afghanistan and Iran ensure that Pakistan will remain central to regional dynamics; and because economic engagement, if seriously pursued, could finally add ballast to a relationship too long buffeted by security storms.

The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.

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