America’s decision to freeze military aid to Pakistan won’t work

IT WAS only a matter of time before Donald Trump, with his deep conviction that foreigners are taking America for a ride, discovered Pakistan. “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit,” America’s president raged in his first tweet of 2018. “They give safe havens to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan…No more!” On January 4th America announced that it would suspend most security assistance to Pakistan pending a more credible effort to expel the Taliban and other enemies of Afghanistan’s government from the Pakistani side of the two countries’ long border.

The State Department estimates the suspension will cost Pakistan $2bn in aid already budgeted. It is similar to many previous American efforts to change the behaviour of the generals who dictate Pakistan’s security policy. The administration of Barack Obama froze aid to Pakistan several times for the same reason—the generals’ refusal to crack down on the militants, chiefly, in recent years, a jihadist network founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former anti-Soviet commander who is based in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan (see map). Mr Obama suspended $800m in aid in 2011 and $300m in 2016. Congress blocked the sale of F-16 fighters to Pakistan the same...Continue reading

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