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.
UK-Pak Chamber for exploring untapped trade potentialHowever, 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........