US-Pakistan relations can be de­fined in the best possible way as a marriage of convenience. Since the inception of Pakistan, the country has faced a full spec­trum of strategic, political, and economic challenges, mainly because of the un­even partition of India and the hostile attitude of the newly born Indian state. Furthermore, that was the era of the Cold War, where our ear­ly leadership sought to set an alliance with the US to meet the security and economic challenges of the country.

PM Liaquat Ali Khan visited UAS on 3rd May 1950 and set the tone for the future of US-Pakistan relations. Mov­ing forward, Pakistan became a natu­ral partner of the US while inking the Mutual Defense Treaty (1954), SEATO (1954) and CENTO (1955) that yield­ed to modernizing defense capabili­ties of Pakistan’s army to deter Indi­an threat, though these pacts aimed at thwarting Soviet aggression. Mean­while, economic, agricultural and large infrastructural sectors- dams, roads and bridges- were booming due to American investment in Pakistan.

However, this early romance end­ed during the Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 - where the US betrayed its ally at a critical juncture. Relations remained frosty during the 1970s. Nevertheless, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979) became the prin­cipal reason for improving US-Paki­stan relations during the 1980s. Once the US had completed its strategic goal of destroying the evil empire of the So­viet Union, cooperation between US-Pakistan became limited and once again Pakistan........

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