“America’s relationship with Pakistan has “not served” either of the two countries," Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday. Why is the US continuing on the same path as what happened in Afghanistan ?
Can someone please explain how this helps America’s foreign interests ?
I’m guessing it doesn’t at all. What it probably does serve is the interests of the U.S. defense contractors who will be building these jets; that explains quite a lot of our defense spending.
I mean not that this is a good idea necessarily but the Indian External Affairs minister would say that, wouldn’t he?
What we hope is that maintaining relations with Pakistan will provide a measure of control and stability over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. A nuclear exchange between India & Pakistan is probably the least likely of all possible nuclear exchanges to become a world-wide nuclear war; nonetheless, preventing such an exchange from occurring would be a very good thing.
If we don’t sell them arms, China or Russia would happily do so. Besides, never burn your bridges. There are certain scenarios in which they might prove useful.
Pakistan didn’t raise too big of a stink when we went in with helicopters and Seal teams to take out Bin Laden. They backed down when we told them not to scramble jets to the area. Knowing that we knew how to easily take down their jets had to figure into that.
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
India has also been straying into Russia and China’s orbit. This could be a reminder that America will arm India’s rivals if India keeps moving away from the west.
But more likely, this is part of the package that got Pakistan to move to F-16s in the first place. Maintenance guarantees could easily be part of an advanced fighter sale, and the bill is just coming due now. If you sell fighters to countries who don’t have their own maintenance capability and then cut off maintenance, soon you won’t sell fighters to anyone.
As for why it’s in America’s interest to sell F-16s to Pakistan - because it ties Pakistan’s military to the U.S. and makes them reliant on the US for training, maintenance, replacement, etc. As with Egypt, having close cooperation with the other country’s military tends to make them more pro-western, moderates their behaviour, gives the U.S. lots of opportunity for gathering intel, and gives the U.S. bargaining power over Pakistan’s foreign policy.
Egypt’s military has been a stabilizing force against Islamist radicalism in the country, largely due to the close interaction they’ve had with western military personnel for decades.
Also, Pakistan’s close military relationship has reportedly given the U.S. the clout to make sure Pakistan’s nukes are secured. That’s a very good thing considering how unstable that country can be.
All the above. Foreign / military policy is chess, not checkers.
And especially it’s not tic-tac-toe as the disgraced traitorous former president seemed to think it was.
Never consider the significance of a move just as a move. Consider it as part of a much larger longer series of moves & countermoves setting up or supporting something really important.
The simple answer is this, from the late 1980’s to the mid 2000’s all of Pakistans F16 were overhauled at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex. As part of the agreement between the countries in the mid 2000’s, Pakistan agreed to cease that for all parts (except the engine ), and instead have it done by US instead. This was to ensue that Pakistani nuclear weapons could not be carried on F16…(ironically since then we have learnt even before that PAF never assigned the F16 a nuclear role).
Which was chicken and which was egg is an interesting question. Doubtless with some warnings and demands and counter-warnings and counter-demands flowing back & forth before decisions were made publicly.
I’m not trying to be normative here; the decisions by all the parties could have been done differently. But I don’t know that we can say which was cause and which was effect.