The November 2024 Presidential Elections in the United States can take a dual course for Pakistan. It could either usher in a new era of active engagement or reinforce Pakistan’s current position as a secondary ally.
Historically, Pakistan has played a pivotal role, providing the United States with strategic access- the infamous strategic depth- to neighboring Afghanistan. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has ensued a considerable shift and a consequent rift in its relationship with Pakistan, ushering in a foreign policy of “estrangement”. The U.S. departure from Afghanistan has diminished strategic necessity for close ties with Pakistan. This cooling of relations is further evidenced by the minimal direct political consultations during the tenures of both, Republican and Democrat Presidents.
The scope of engagement has notably narrowed, highlighted by the current administration’s only direct communication with Pakistan in March 2024, which focused solely on proposing a “Green Alliance”, with only the State department maintaining a direct communication channel.Currently, amidst significant internal turmoil, Pakistan is poised to continue its role as a rentier state. However, due to shifting global and regional geopolitical dynamics, the U.S. is unlikely to grant Pakistan exceptional privileges in this role.
A Rentier State can be defined as a country whose economy heavily relies on the revenue generated from renting indigenous resources to external clients. This economic structure allows the state to distribute welfare benefits broadly during periods of boom. However, during fiscal crises, this dependency on resource rents necessitates a renegotiation of the relationships between the state and its society.
Pakistan has followed a somewhat similar trajectory where the economy has experienced boom mostly in phases of serving as a proxy for the U.S., renting its territory, land and geographical position to the U.S. It was a relationship of mutual benefit where the U.S. supplemented Pakistan with foreign aid in order to gain access to its strategic geopolitical positioning with respect to Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s diminishing relevance to U.S. interest domains, both in terms of historical geopolitical strategies and contemporary geo-economic considerations, has caused bilateral relations to enter a phase of estrangement. A somewhat miraculous transformative change in either of these domains is more likely to revitalize the bilateral relations than pinning hopes on shift in U.S. foreign policy, even if a Republican administration were to replace the current Democratic administration in the 2024 Presidential elections.
The strategic relationship between India and the U.S. is a significant factor influencing Pakistan’s position. The shift in U.S. terminology from “South Asia” to the Indo-Pacific under the previous administration highlights this closer alignment. India is a key U.S. ally in counterbalancing China’s rise. As the U.S. is already engaged in the Middle East, India plays a crucial role in monitoring China’s actions. This context of Great Power Rivalry necessitates strong partnerships among major powers. Both the U.S. and India view China as a potential disruptor. India’s longstanding border disputes and its goal of reuniting all territories it considers its own (like Ladakh) reflect its concerns. If China were to occupy Ladakh, it would damage India’s reputation and standing.
For the U.S., China is the sole emerging power capable of challenging the U.S.-led global norms-based order to and potentially replacing American unipolarity with a bipolar system. China holds the resources, the plan, population and the economic prowess necessary to challenge U.S. in the global arena, especially by the portrayal of itself as the leader of the third world that seeks to build a community with a shared future for mankind. To counter China, both presidential candidates have adopted measures to limit its influence: one through protectionist policies and the other by continuing and increasing trade tariffs.
The trinity of Pakistan’s relations with India, China and the U.S. gets convoluted here. Pakistan has enduring economic and strategic ties with China since its independence, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being the paramount one. If successfully implemented, Pakistan may experience improvements in areas such as energy, agriculture, infrastructure, and job opportunities through the 3,218-kilometer CPEC trade route. This posits a dilemma for Pakistan where the only potential incentive that it can provide U.S. is to aid against China; however, the complex tandem in which Pakistan’s development exists in with respect to China, it unthinkable for Pakistan to do so.
Secondly, Pakistan has shared contentious relations with India that have ranged from frequent border skirmishes to full scale military confrontations. U.S. is mindful of this animosity and prudent about the fact that the revival of a US-Pak relationship will make India cynical of US intentions even in countering the common threat: China. One can provide U.S. partnership in cutting edge technologies and a neo-strategic depth against China; whereas, the other lacks a compelling incentive. U.S. is highly unlikely to jeopardize its Great Power Partnership over a state that cannot dispense any geopolitical, geo-economic or strategic advantage to the U.S.
Pakistan has been myopic in its foreign policy choices with U.S. Regretfully, Pakistan’s relations with the U.S., historically, have only been limited to Afghanistan where this relationship has been voided of any other domain of interest. In terms of sheer volume, the largest spikes in U.S. military aid to Pakistan occurred during the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the Bush administration, both from the Republican Party, in the early 2000s. Strategic military engagements marked both these phases, the Soviet-Afghan War and the War on Terror respectively, where Pakistan had no actual grievance but only a geographical strategic importance in Afghanistan, limiting its status to that of a rentier state.
Currently, Pakistan has struggled to establish both a common ally and a common adversary with the United States. Their mutual antagonism towards each other’s strategic partners is boundless. Historically, the Republican governments have been more proactively involved in relations with Pakistan than the Democrat governments. But the records posit that the most considerable engagement on part of the Democratic Party’s government was also for a military operation i.e, counter-terrorism against Al-Qaeda.
Thus, Pakistan has no traditional or modern bait to lure either of the two main contenders. This makes a U.S. policy shift highly improbable even if a change of government were to take place in Washington in November 2024 Presidential elections. The only way forward is to either wait for the tides to turn where U.S. itself would willingly rent Pakistan or to develop and construct an incentive attractive enough to break the lately formed ice in the U.S.-Pak relations. U.S. Presidential elections serve as the prime example of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” for its foreign policy for Pakistan.
**The opinions in this article are the author’s own and may not represent the views of The Diplomatic Insight. The organization does not endorse or assume responsibility for the content.
