Harsh V. Pant
Last month, the Barack Obama administration announced that it had approved the sale of up to eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan in a deal valued at $699.4 million. Immediately it led to a strong pushback in the American Congress. The chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, Bob Corker, raised serious concerns stating, "[T]hey (Pakistan) continue to support the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and give safe haven to al Qaeda." John McCain, the chairman of the United States of America Senate's influential armed services committee, called for a hearing in the Senate's foreign relations committee to further question the timing of the US's sale of fighter jets to Pakistan and suggested that he "would rather have seen it kicked over into the next administration". His colleague from Kentucky, the senator, Rand Paul, separately called for a resolution that would block US arms sales to Pakistan. In the end, however, the US Senate rejected by a vote of 71-24 Senator Rand Paul's attempt to bring to the floor a resolution to block the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
The Obama administration had strongly defended its decision. David McKeeby, a spokesman for the US state department - the agency responsible for conducting the deal - said, "Pakistan's current F-16s have proven critical to the success of these operations to date. These operations reduce the ability of militants to use Pakistani territory as a safe haven for terrorism and a base of support for the insurgency in Afghanistan." The secretary of state, John Kerry, himself has been at the forefront of this defence, suggesting that the Pakistani military "has been deeply engaged in the fight against terrorism". India's reaction was strong. It disagreed with the US stand that this sale would help in the fight against terrorism and instead has argued that it would be used against India. The US ambassador to India was summoned to underscore India's displeasure. New Delhi is seriously concerned about the changing balance of air power in the region as Pakistan today has four squadrons of F-16 fighters, all built with the US assistance. The anti-US sentiment of the Indian elites once again came to the fore with suggestions in sections of the media that the US cannot be trusted.
New Delhi has some genuine concerns about US military assistance to Pakistan. Such support has traditionally strengthened the military at the expense of the civilian government in Islamabad with which India has been trying to have a stable peace dialogue. Pakistan is yet to show that it is taking credible action against groups like the Haqqani network and the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Groups targeting India and Afghanistan continue to be seen as essential in Pakistan's foreign policy matrix. And historically, Washington has more often than not been wrong about its ability to shape Pakistan's domestic and foreign policy positively with its military assistance. Just since 2002, the US has provided $30 billion worth of aid and assistance to Pakistan. Yet the US remains hugely unpopular in Pakistan and its Afghanistan policy of relying on Pakistan has been a failure.
Clearly, the US has its own priorities in so far as its relations with Pakistan are concerned, especially in using Pakistan's leverage in the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban. Obama's Afghanistan policy has faced a lot criticism for its seeming haste in announcing the troop withdrawal from South Asia. And as the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated in the last year, he has had to make compromises in the number of troops that the US will continue to position in Afghanistan. Now, he has one last chance to seek a resolution in Afghanistan, and Pakistan is viewed as critical in managing the political transition in Afghanistan. Although the Taliban are not prepared to come to the negotiating table even now, there are hopes that Pakistan will be able to wield the necessary pressure to make them see reason. But Washington would do well to take into account Indian interests. Where the George W. Bush administration managed to effectively de-hyphenate India and Pakistan, the Obama administration has not been that sensitive to the Indian viewpoint on regional issues. As it sends new fighters to Pakistan, Washington needs to be more emphatic in demanding that Pakistan cease exporting terror from its soil.
India should also be more confident of its ability to shape the future trajectory of Indo-US ties. After all, Lockheed Martin, the builder of F-16, has recently offered to move its production line to India from the US to support the Narendra Modi government's 'Make in India' programme. Today India is a global player in the true sense of the term while Pakistan is just about managing to survive as a cohesive unit. Indian elites, too, need to de-hyphenate New Delhi from Islamabad in their own minds. Any overture that Washington makes towards Pakistan is immediately pounced upon as a sign of American duplicity. The reality is that America's ties with India are truly strategic while its relationship with Pakistan is at best transactional, whatever the gloss the two sides might want to put on it. India and the US are today talking of jointly working on aircraft carriers, discussing joint patrolling of the South China Sea and are nearing completion on an agreement to share military logistics.
As New Delhi and Washington chart an ambitious trajectory in their bilateral ties, they need to find a more effective way of dealing with Pakistan. The Pakistan factor cannot be allowed to derail the positive momentum in this very important bilateral relationship, one that will be key to shaping the larger Indo-Pacific balance of the power in the coming years.
The author is Professor of International Relations, Department of Defence Studies, King's College, London
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