Who Benefits From Military Aid to Pakistan

8/6/2019 Who Benefits From Military Aid to Pakistan

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW august 6, 2011 vol xlvi no 32 103

Who Benefits from US Aid to Pakistan?

S Akbar Zaidi

Given the nature and form of the aid relationship

between the usand Pakistan, this paper argues that it is

not so obvious what the objectives and purpose ofusaid

to Pakistan really are, who it actually benefits, and

whether or not, in fact, this aid goes against the interests

of both or either country, benefiting neither.usaid to

Pakistan may, in effect, have made things far worse for

all supposed beneficiaries.

S Akbar Zaidi ([email protected]) is a social scientist currently

teaching at Columbia University, New York.

What would seem like a straightforward relationship

and simple arithmetic, and should be a win-win situa-

tion for both, with the United States (US) government

providing aid to the Government of Pakistan and to its people,

appears to be a far more complicated and complex issue than one

could imagine. One would expect that both governments benet,

with the US providing aid to full its numerous objectives for dif-

ferent purposes to the Government of Pakistan and the latter too

beneting since such aid helps meet its perennial and ever-

increasing revenue shortfall problems. However, if ever there

was a muddled, deceptive and complicated relationship between

two countries on the basis of aid, it must be the one between the

US and Pakistan in recent years.

From what might have been a far simpler, straightforward and

transparent arrangement in the cold war days of the 1960s and

1970s, and even in the 1980s following the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan when Pakistan rst emerged as a front line state, the

aid relationship between the US and Pakistan since 2001 has been

fraught with the most complicated of cross-purposes and double-

speak, shrouded in mystery, with promises and expectations

diverging between both parties. It is no longer clear what the

purpose ofUS aid to Pakistan in the post-9/11 era really is. In somebroad sense, of course, one can argue that the US wants Pakistan

to assist it in its war on terror campaign and root out Al Qaida

and Taliban insurgency in the region, in Afghanistan as well as

Pakistan. At the same time, one would think that the US also has

a keen interest in ensuring a safe and stable nuclear Pakistan,

where internal stability assures a democratic future with a pro-

gressive, liberal and development-oriented government, and that

there is peace in Pakistan and with its other neighbours. One

could then argue, perhaps, that if such objectives are achieved,

the US benets from giving its taxpayers money to Pakistan.

Similarly, one would assume that the Government of Paki-

stan would also benet from aid, since this would help in mak-

ing the region in and around Pakistan safer, securer and more

stable, with militancy and terrorism being routed out, and that

developmental aid would be used by the government carefully,

providing assistance to its people. In such a scenario, both the

US and Pakistan, their governments and their people, would be

clear beneciaries of this aid from the US to Pakistan. However,

as this paper argues, given the nature and form of the aid rela-

tionship between the US and Pakistan, it is not so obvious

what the objectives and purpose ofUS aid to Pakistan really

are, who it actually benets, and if in fact, this aid goes against

the interests of both or either country, beneting neither. US aidto Pakistan may, in effect, have made things far worse for all

supposed beneciaries.


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august 6, 2011 vol xlvi no 32 EPW Economic & Political Weekly104

We begin with a brief history of aid given to Pakistan in years

following independence, but the main focus here is the nature

and consequences ofUS aid to Pakistan in recent years, parti-

cularly since 2001. After a short account of aid in the past, the

paper examines how the aid relationship between the US and

Pakistan has changed over the last decade, and focuses on the

type of aid being given, examining the presumed objectives of

that aid. It then looks at how the aid is being used by Pakistan,and examines if the US goals and Pakistani objectives are identical,

or similar, and who has beneted from this recent aid giving/

receiving relationship.

1 Fifty Years of Aid to Pakistan 1950-2002

It is not much of an exaggeration to state that for much of its

existence since independence in 1947, Pakistan has been an aid-

dependent country, even though it is not one of the poorest coun-

tries of the world. While numbers about the amount of aid

received by Pakistan from all sources are hard to come by and have

always been somewhat uncertain,1 some estimates suggest that the

gross disbursement of overseas development assistance to Pakistan

in the period 1960-02 (in 2001 prices), was $73.14 billion, including

bilateral and multilateral sources (Anwar and Michaelowa 2004: 3).

In this period, almost two-thirds of this ofcial development

assistance came from bilateral sources, with the US providing

45% of all bilateral aid given to Pakistan in this period, making it

the largest single bilateral donor, by far (ibid). What is more

critical in this regard is the fact that in the period 1990-98, US aid

to Pakistan was almost negligible, implying that in the earlier

period 1960-90, the importance of the US cannot be undermined.

For example, while US aid disbursement to Pakistan in 1989 was

$452 million, this fell considerably in the 1990s, falling to a mere$5.4 million in 1998 (ibid). In the decade of the 1990s, it was

mainly Japan which made up the shortfall in aid to Pakistan, and

because of this, in the overall 1960-02 period, Japan accounted

for as much as 21% of total bilateral aid to Pakistan (ibid).

Almost 30% of all aid to Pakistan bilateral and multilateral

in the 1960-2002 period, came directly from the US. We do not

have a breakdown of the source of multilateral aid to Pakistan in

this period, but given the role, leverage and contribution of the

US in such institutions, one could easily surmise that aid from the

US has been of even greater volume and signicance. The largest

amount ofUS aid to Pakistan in this period was disbursed bet-

ween 1962-63 and 1965, peaking to almost $2 billion in 1963-64.

The lowest amount of aid given to Pakistan in the 1960-02 period,

as mentioned above, was in the 1990s, particularly between 1995

and 1998. This pattern of huge variation in US aid to Pakistan

clearly underlines the fact that far more than developmental con-

cerns have been at play in the past, and various factors, most

related to the US, some to Pakistans actions, have had a signi-

cant bearing on the US bilateral assistance to Pakistan.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the US assistance to Pakistan may have

arisen due to the latters needs for development assistance as a

newly independent resource-constrained country, but one cannot

ignore the fact that Pakistans leadership, particularly militaryleadership after the mid-1950s and more squarely after 1958, clearly

aligned itself with the US on the world ideological map during the

cold war. By joining the South East Asia Treaty Organisation

(SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) and by signing

military and other pacts of cooperation with the US in the 1950s

and 1960s, Pakistan was hoping to benet from nancial and mili-

tary assistance from the US. For the US, Pakistan became an ally

and a hedge against perceived Soviet expansionism in the region,

especially since India had become a close friend and partner to

the Soviet Union, and also against communism, more generally.Reports and studies from the 1960s suggest that the US aid to

Pakistan was critical at times, and helped play a signicant part

in numerous development projects. Support under the Public

Law 480 (PL-480), helped provide the Government of Pakistan

food support at critical junctures. The United States Agency for

International Development (USAID) was also active in Pakistan in

the 1960s and proudly displayed its logo and banner and it seems

that the US was well-received by the people of Pakistan as an ally

and a friend. By 1964, overall aid and assistance to Pakistan

was as much as around 5% of its gross domestic product (GDP)

probably the highest ever in 63 years and is said to have been criti-

cal in giving Pakistans impetus in industrialisation and develop-

ment in the early 1960s, with GDP growth rates rising to as much

as 6% or 7% per annum. In 1965, when the military government

in Pakistan started a war with India, the US decided to drastically

cut off all (or much of) aid to Pakistan, and aid resumed, albeit at

much lower levels after a few years. Most academics and scholars

comparing the pre- and post-1965 war and the impact of aid on

development are in agreement that aid played a crucial role in

the high growth rates in the 1960s (Hasan 1998).

In the 1950s and 1960s, bilateral development assistance from

the US to Pakistan was also supplemented by assistance to Paki-

stans military, in the form of armaments, training and otherresources. While military assistance was terminated in 1965 to be

resumed much later, it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in

1979 which ratcheted up the US development and military assist-

ance to Pakistan as the latter became a front line state in the war

against Soviet occupation. Large and undisclosed amounts of

money and weapons and arms were channelled through to the

mujahideen ghting against the Red Army in Afghanistan through

Pakistans military and its clandestine agencies, particularly the

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). While this aid was not meant

directly for Pakistans military, there is ample evidence that chunks of

funds meant for the Afghan Mujahideen were pocketed by mem-

bers of Pakistans military (Nawaz 2008 and Haqqani 2005).

Although Pakistans army may not have been directly involved

in the rst Afghan war, it did receive military aid from the US, as

did Pakistans military government, money which was meant

largely for the rehabilitation of Afghan refugees and for the

development of roads and communication infrastructure built to

create quick and easy access to Afghanistan, and perhaps also as

a payback for Pakistans role in the Afghan war. However, it

is important to add that unlike the positive image of US aid to

Pakistan of the 1960s, the image of the US in Pakistan in the 1980s

was far from positive, and once political Islam began to emerge

in the region and worlds map, the US in Pakistan was seen in a muchmore unfavourable light in a hostile environment. The burning of

the US embassy in Islamabad in 1979, and the subsequent covert


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and overt US role in Afghanistan helped create a less-than-

friendly image of the US and Pakistan, even though it may have

been providing large sums of assistance. The popular perception

by the Pakistani people of the US as a reliable friend changed

considerably in the 1980s, as did the US contributions for

developmental assistance.

The Pressler Amendment passed by the US Senate in 1985

severely limited the US assistance to Pakistan on account of thelatters covert nuclear programme. As we show above, the US

development assistance fell from $452 million in 1989, to 1% of

that in 1998 on account of sanctions imposed by the US. Even

USAID, which had a long history of working in Pakistan, had to

close its mission in 1990. The US suspended all

economic aid and military sales to Pakistan in Au-

gust 1990 as part of sanctions imposed in accord-

ance with the US laws for pursuing a clandestine

nuclear weapons programme in violation of the

international non-proliferation regime. The US

military and economic assistance to Pakistan in

the 1990s was heavily coloured by the shadows of

the Afghan war and subsequently, by sanctions

imposed on Pakistan. It was only after 2001 that

a very different US aid relationship to Pakistan,

in nature, form and dynamics, has emerged.

2 Complicated Issues of US Aid after 9/11

The rst difference from the previous patterns of

the US aid to Pakistan is that there is apparently

far greater public information about the nature

and amount of aid given to Pakistan, as Table 1

shows, which allows us to make better-informedjudgments.2 Moreover, for once, we also have

clear demarcations between security related (or

military) aid and aid granted in the form of

economic assistance.

As Table 1 reveals, from 2002 to 2010 (and not

including commitments such as the Enhanced

Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009), the US

has given Pakistan almost $19 billion, or over $2

billion on an average each year, with the amount

rising over the last three years, with twice as much

disbursed/allocated in 2010 ($3.6 billion) com-

pared to 2007. Over the period 2002-08, only 10%

of this money was explicitly for Pakistani devel-

opment and as much as 75% of the money was

explicitly for military purposes (Ibrahim 2009: 6).

This is a particularly important distribution of

resources, a point raised and discussed later

although, as the table points out, in more recent

years, the share of economic-related aid has risen

but is still less than half.

3 The Purpose of Aid

One would expect that for the US the main pur-pose of providing large amounts of military aid to

Pakistan following 9/11 was to assist in numerous

ways in the war against terrorism focusing on a war against Al Qaida,

the Taliban, and all forms of terrorism and militancy in the region,

in federally administered tribal areas (FATA) and Waziristan in

Pakistan directly, and in Afghanistan, indirectly. The US considers

Pakistan to be an essential ally in the war on terror since 2001,

and as part of its broader strategy it has asked Pakistans military

to undertake counterterrorism operations in order to meet its

objectives. The coalition support fund (CSF) which was createdfor this purpose was designed to support only the costs of ghting

terrorism over and above regular military costs incurred by Paki-

stan. Nearly two-thirds 60% of the money that the United States

gave Pakistan was part of the CSF (Ibrahim 2009). The Bush

Table 1: Direct Overt US Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, Financial Year 2002-11(Rounded to the nearest millions of dollars)

Programme or Account FY 2002 FY 2006 FY 2006 FY 2007 FY 2008 FY 2009 FY 2010 Programme FY 2011

FY2004 (est) or Account (req)

Total

1206 28 14 56 114 f 212 f

CN 8 24 49 54 47 43f 225 f

CSFa 3,121c 964 862 731 1,019 685g 756g 8,138g g

FC 75 25 100 FMF 375 299 297 297 298 300 288i 2,154 296

IMET 3 2 2 2 2 2 5 18 4

INCLE 154 32 38 24 22 88 170i 528 140

NADR 16 8 9 10 10 13 21 87 25

PCF/PCCF 400 700 1,100 1,200

Total security-related 3,669 1,313 1,260 1,127 1,536 1,674h 1,983 12,562 1,665

CSH/GHCS 56 21 28 22 30 33 30 220 67

DA 94 29 38 95 30 286

ESF 1,003d 298 337 394e 347 1,114 1,292 i 4,785 1,322

Food Aidb 46 32 55 50 55 142 380

HRDF 3 2 1 11 17

IDA 70 50 50 103 89 362

MRA 22 6 10 4 60 42 144

Total Economic-Related 1,224 388 539 576 507 1,365h 1,595 6,038 1,389

Grand Total 4,893 1,701 1,799 1,703 2,043 3,039h 3,578i 18,756 3,054

Prepared for the Congressional Research Service by K Alan Kronstadt, Specialist in South Asian Affairs, 2 February 2010.Abbreviations:1206: Section 1206 of the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for FY2006 (PL 109-163, global train and equip)CN: Counternarcotics Funds (Pentagon budget)CSF: Coalition Support Funds (Pentagon budget)CSH: Child Survival and Health (Global Health and Child Survival, or GHCS, from FY2010)DA: Development AssistanceESF: Economic Support FundsFC: Sect ion 1206 of the NDAA for FY20 08 (P.L. 110-181, Pakistan Frontie r Corp train and equip)FMF: Foreign Military FinancingHRDF: Human Rights and Democracy FundsIDA: International Disaster Assistance (Pakistani earthquake and internally displaced persons relief)IMET: Internat ional Militar y Education and TrainingINCLE: International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (includes border security)MRA: Migration and Refugee Assistance

NADR: Non-proliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related (the majority allocated for Pakistan is foranti-terrorism assistance)

PCF/PCCF: Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund/Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (transferred to State Departmentoversight in FY2010)

a. CSF is Pentagon funding to reimburse Pakistan for its support of US military operations. It is not officially designated asforeign assistance.

b. PL480 Title I (loans), PL480 Title II (grants), and Secti on 416(b) of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as amende d (surplusagricultural commodity donations). Food aid totals do not include freight costs and total allocations are unavailableuntil the fiscal years end.

c. Includes $220 million for FY2002 Peacekeeping Operations reported by the State Department.d. Congress authorised Pakistan to use the FY2003 and FY2004 ESF allocations to cancel a total of about $1.5 billion in

concessional debt to the US government.e. Includes $110 million in Pentagon funds transferred to the State Department for project s in Pakistans tribal areas

(P.L. 110-28).f. This funding is requirements-based; there are no pre-allocation data.g. Congress appropriated $1.2 billion for FY2009 and $1.57 billion for FY2010, and the administration requested $2

billion for FY2011, in additional CSF for all US coalition partners. Pakistan has in the past received more than three-quarters of such funds. FY2009- FY2011 may thus include billions of dollars in additional CSF payments to Pakistan.

h. Include s a bridg e ESF appropriati on of $150 million (PL 110-252), $15 million of which was later transferred to INCLE.Also includes FY2009 supplemental appropriations of $539 million for ESF, $66 million for INCLE, $40 million for MRA,

and $2 million for NADR.i. The FY2010 estimate includes supplemental appropriations of $259 million for ESF, $40 million for INCLE, and $50

million for FMF funds for Pakistan, as well as ongoing disaster relief in the food aid and IDA accounts.Sources: US Departments of State, Defence and Agriculture; USAID.


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administration requested Congress to appropriate billions of dol-

lars to reimburse Pakistan and other nations for their operational

and logistical support of the US-led counterterrorism operations.

According to the previous secretary of defence Robert Gates, CSF

payments have been used to support approximately nearly 100

Pakistani army operations and help to keep some 1,00,000 Paki-

stani troops in the eld in north-west Pakistan by paying for food,

clothing and housing. They also compensate Islamabad for coali-tion usage of Pakistani airelds and seaports (Kronstadt 2009).

It seems then that the military aid the US is giving Pakistan in

the form of the CSF which has until recently been the largest

component ofUS aid in the last decade is such that the Pakistani

military helps the military objectives of the US campaigns in

the region, particularly along the borders of Pakistan. More

recently, since 2009 a new category of security-related aid

the Pakistan counter-insurgency Fund (PCF)/Pakistan counter-

insurgency capability fund (PCCF) has also been granted to

Pakistan, with the same or similar objectives as the CSF, with

perhaps more focus on ghting insurgency within Pakistan, such

as the Pakistan militarys Swat campaigns in 2009.

As Table 1 shows, until 2009 economic-related aid to Pakistan has

been negligible, and the primary purpose of aid to Pakistan has

been those issues highlighted above, not economic support, or

the building of schools and hospitals, or development, broadly

dened. Until 2008, the US military assistance to Pakistan since

2001 was $7.89 billion, the large majority of which was CSF

money intended as reimbursements for Pakistani assistance in

the war on terror (Centre for American Progress 2008). Thirty

per cent of the total aid in this period was allocated for economic

and development assistance, including food aid. However, in the

region where most of the counterterrorism and counter-insurgencyactivity were taking place in Pakistan, in FATA as much as $5.8

billion ofUS aid provided to Pakistan was spent, of which 96% of

those funds were directed towards military operations, and only

1% towards development (ibid).

4 Has the Purpose of Aid Been Achieved?

The US has given Pakistan and its military aid, primarily to conduct

military manoeuvres which support the military strategy of the

US in the region. Whether the Pakistani military saw and still

sees the same game plan is a different issue and is discussed later.

Nevertheless, one must ask the question, if at all it can be gauged,

measured and answered, whether the purpose of this aid has ac-

tually been achieved?

It is clearly difcult, if not quite impossible, to answer such a

question where military action has been ongoing for the last decade

or so, and is still continuing. Even if one could answer such broad

questions, such as, has Al Qaida in the region been routed, and

are the Taliban defeated, it would be almost impossible to assess

to what extent the Pakistani military played a role in this objec-

tive, and whether the purpose of giving military aid to Pakistan

had been achieved, even if partially. Moreover, while it seems that

there have been some victories against insurgency in Afghanistan,

it is equally evident that the war has not been completely won, andthat counter-insurgency and counterterrorism are still equally

urgent and necessary as they may have been some years ago.

After six years of engagement in the region, the US department

of defence conducted a review into US military aid to Pakistan in

December 2007, and felt that while the US was spending signi-

cantly, it was not seeing any results (Ibrahim 2009: 8). This

resulted in the department of defence changing the focus of mili-

tary funding to Pakistan by assisting the Pakistani military with

building a counter-insurgency force, and training Pakistani forces

in FATA. The CSFs are supposed to be reimbursements to the Pakistanmilitary, only in the cost incurred in ghting terrorism, over and

above its normal military costs. Ofcially, that is intended to cover

food, fuel, clothing, ammunition, billeting and medical expenses.

The US has been assuming that Pakistan will use the funds for

counterterrorism. But until early 2009, the US had given Pakistan the

funds without attempting to set particular outcomes against terrorism

which it expects (ibid: 10; emphasis added). Moreover, between

2002 and 2007, Pakistan was approved for more than $9.7 billion

worth of weapon sales and the US has traditionally assumed that

the military equipment will be used for counterterrorism (ibid).3

In addition, the chains of accountability of nancial ows to

Pakistan from the US for military assistance, were said to be very

complicated with ve different processes at work (ibid: 13).

The US department of defence and Pakistani ofcials have

both acknowledged,

that they had never agreed on the strategic goals that should drive

how the money was to be spent or how to measure success. This

culture of lack of oversight and comprehensive goals meant that the

United States was offering Pakistani institutions and ofcials a clear

incentive of misuse ofUS funds (ibid: 18).

Moreover, the US had inadequate procedures for checking

how Pakistan spent the funds, and the guidelines issued to the

US embassy staff in Islamabad did not require the staff to verifythat the military in fact spent the money in the way described

(ibid). Once the US gave the funds to the Pakistan government

and to its military, it was no longer entitled to nd out that they

were spent as agreed (ibid: 21) and that the Pakistan military

did not use most of these funds to ght terror, buying much

conventional military equipment, leading one analyst to state

that it is clear that Pakistan is not using the majority of the US

money to ght terrorism or advance the US foreign policy aims

for which it was allocated (ibid: 21). Azeem Ibrahim also cites

nine specic examples of corruption in the Pakistani army

related to military aid from the US, and argues that estimates by

some western military ofcials put the portion of illegitimately

spent funds at 70% (ibid: 22). Ibrahim has argued that Pakistani

counterterrorism, the purpose of the US military aid to Pakistan,

had failed until 2009. He argues that

the hope was that after 11 September 2001, Pakistan would clear ter-

rorists from within its own borders, prevent them from using areas in

north-west Pakistan as a safe haven, and help to bring the Al Qaida

leaders to justice. Despite over $12 billion towards these aims, none

have been achieved (ibid: 24).

5 Economic and Humanitarian Aid and Assistance

While military aid has been far substantial than economic aidpost-9/11, economic and developmental aid was around 11% of

all aid after 9/11 until 2007. These funds were designated for


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primary education, literacy programmes, basic health, food aid

and support for democracy, governance and election support,

almost all of the funds going through and disbursed throughUSAID.

Some cash transfers were also made available to the Pakistani

government, but it was not obliged to account for how this type

of aid is spent in the donor country, and the US government has

traditionally given these funds to the Pakistani government with-

out strings attached, since the Pakistani government is notobliged to reveal how it is spent (ibid: 14).

Not only has the US economic aid to Pakistan been heavily

overshadowed by military and security-related aid to Pakistan,

but until recently, has been lower than aid provided by other

multilateral and bilateral donors. While the US economic assist-

ance to Pakistan since 2001 to around 2008-09 has focused on

broad social sector interventions as highlighted above, it is only

recently that the US has begun to implement a longer-term strategy

focusing on Pakistans frontier regions for the tribal areas sus-

tainable development. However, for numerous obvious reasons,

any development strategy in the frontier areas has, and will

continue, to face insurmountable problems, especially regarding

implementation, oversight, and the like. The frontier regions are

not the most hospitable terrain at the best of times, and with a

live war taking place in the region, most developmental efforts

will be compromised. However, there is an even greater conict

in the image of the US in Pakistan, when it comes to US aid to

assist Pakistans people.

Soon after Pakistans devastating oods in the late summer of

2010, some aid from western and donor countries was made

available on humanitarian grounds. The US emerged as one of

the largest donors providing in excess of $400 million. Moreover,

perhaps for the very rst time in many decades, the US received ahighly positive image makeover in Pakistan. Private television

newsreels showed the US military troops ying helicopter sorties

within Pakistan saving lives of Pakistanis stranded in parts of the

ood-affected areas, and providing them with life-saving sup-

plies, such as medicines and water and food. However, this posi-

tive image and photo-opportunity lasted all but a few days, when

the same television channels were showing the footage of the

destruction and death caused within Pakistan as a consequence of

US drone attacks on the frontier regions. Any humanitarian and

economic assistance to Pakistans people will always be seen in

contrast to the consequences of military-related aid and actions.

6 The Consequences of Aid

Given the nature and form ofUS aid to Pakistan military, covert,

unaccounted, unsupervised, etc, it becomes difcult to disentangle

the direct consequences many deleterious and benets of

aid given to the country when an often undened and obscure

war on terror or counter-insurgency and counterterrorism

campaign being waged in different guises for a decade. Hence,

many Pakistanis have argued that on account of the US war on

terror against Al Qaida and the Taliban and their supporters, in

Afghanistan and Pakistan, the latter has been drawn into the US

war, and has had to suffer grave consequences. They cite gureswhich state that as the US role has increased in the region, and as

the Pakistani military has been further drawn in, it has been

Pakistanis who have suffered. They cite gures which show that

in 2003, there were 189 deaths from terrorist-related violence in

Pakistan, which rose to 3,559 in 2007, and higher still since;

recent announcements suggest that 30,000 Pakistanis have lost

their lives in this war. Many Pakistanis would argue that on ac-

count of Pakistan being drawn into this war, the war has been

brought in to Pakistani cities and towns, and was also responsible

for the death of a former prime minister seeking re-election.Clearly, it is impossible to entangle the consequences of the war,

and look at counterfactuals, but there is a great deal of weight in

these arguments, and the US is blamed by Pakistanis for not con-

taining terrorism in Afghanistan and exporting it to mainland

Pakistan. Such impressions do not make for a friendly relationship

or a positive image, something that aid is usually expected to do.

Other opinions suggest that there has been the rise of mili-

tancy and insurgency and the rise of fundamentalism in Pakistan,

and that most Pakistanis do not support such extreme tendencies.

This view holds that with the US support and perhaps using the

US pressure as an excuse, Pakistan and its military can play a

leading role in rooting out terrorism in Pakistan. The drone attacks

in Pakistans northern frontier are a case in point. While Pakistani

leaders publicly condemn such strikes for political mileage, there

is evidence and suggestions that they not only turn a blind eye to

such attacks, but favour them, allowing the US to do their (the

Pakistani governments) bidding. They play good cop, bad cop

depending on who their audience is.

Since there is such a large divide in perceptions of what the

consequences of the war on terror have been for Pakistan and

there is so much clouded in mystery and secrecy, it becomes

difcult to comment upon whether the goals and objectives of

the US and the Pakistans military are the same. At times it seemsthat each is using the other and there is clear deceit and mistrust

in this relationship. As we have argued above, there are allega-

tions that there has been considerable corruption in Pakistani

institutions, and that some of the funds meant for military activities

related to the war on terror have been diverted by the Pakistani

military for more conventional weapons. Nor is this all.

A large number of documents, some leaked, others obtained by

journalists, suggest that there is a great deal of deceit in the US-

Pakistan military relationship, and that the Pakistani military is,

in fact, undermining the US campaign and that the Pakistani mil-

itary has its own agenda. Recent reports in the US press have

revealed that the Pakistani military is playing both sides, and

the ISI has been protecting Taliban leaders within Pakistan.

Nicholas Kristoff writes that the United States has provided $18

billion to Pakistan in aid since 9/11, yet Pakistans government

shelters the Afghan Taliban as it kills American soldiers and

drains the American Treasury.4 A former US ambassador to

Afghanistan argued that the United States should demand that

Pakistan shut down all sanctuaries and military support pro-

grammes for insurgents or else we will carry out operations

against those insurgent havens, with or without Pakistani con-

sent (Khalizad 2010). One can only imagine the consequences of

such a serious step.Recent revelations by WikiLeaks only reafrm what has been

known in private circles, that there are deep clashes over


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strategic goals on issues like Pakistans support for the Afghan

Taliban and tolerance of Al Qaida, and that there is frustration

at American inability to persuade the Pakistan army and intelli-

gence agency to stop supporting the Afghan Taliban and other mili-

tants, something that is conveyed to Pakistani ofcials by the US

diplomats (Perlez et al 2010).

Yet another consequence ofUS aid to Pakistan in the last decade

has been that it perhaps inadvertently strengthens the hand ofthe military in comparison to Pakistans edgling, emerging,

democracy. While even Pakistani academics and scholars, and

not just US state department ofcials, recognise that the Pakistani

army is the most powerful and strongest institution in the coun-

try, there is concern that US aid to the military (even if this

is primarily meant to benet the US), only strengthens Pakistans

military establishment which, as we argue, has beneted in

terms of hardware and nancial resources over the last decade,

receiving a disproportionate amount of the assistance.

7 Nature of Recent US Aid to Pakistan

Since 2008 or 2009, there has been a rethinking in the nature,

pattern, form and amount of the US assistance to Pakistan. The

rst major step has been the promulgation of the Enhanced Partner-

ship with Pakistan Act of 2009, which commits $7.5 billion in

non-military aid to Pakistan over a ve-year period, spending

mainly on social programmes in education, healthcare, infra-

structure development, poverty alleviation, and the like. How-

ever, not only is it not clear when and how the Act will actually

start delivering aid to Pakistan, the fact that there was a great

deal of disagreement amongst the Pakistani elite (especially the

Pakistani military), shows that one could expect further debate

and disagreement once it becomes fully operational. Moreover, ifFATA is an area which is expected to receive special economic and

developmental assistance in the form of reconstruction opportu-

nity zones and the like, one can be sure that many of the issues

which emerged earlier in the decade will re-emerge.

Along with this civilian aid, a $2 billion military aid package

was announced in October 2010, which is meant for Pakistan to

buy American made arms, ammunitions and accessories from

2012 to 2016. The US ofcials hoped that the announcement will

reassure Pakistan of Washingtons long-term commitments to

its military needs and help bolster its anti-insurgent efforts

(NYT 2010).

The $1.5 billion ve-year annual commitment of the Enhanced

Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 does make a departure

from the earlier (presumably unwritten) strategy which guided

the US-Pakistan relations since 2001. For example, the Act lists

numerous clauses which augur well for greater control and

accountability of the military. There are clauses which state that

Pakistans military or intelligence agencies have to stop support-

ing extremist and terrorist groups and that terrorist bases be dis-

mantled. The Act prohibits the use of funds to upgrade or pur-

chase F-16 aircraft, as has happened in the past and there is a

requirement to close camps and end support to banned Pakistani

organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa.Pakistan is expected to play an important role in stopping

nuclear proliferation; and, importantly, according to the Act, the

US assistance will be provided only to a government which has

been elected freely, a clause which is meant to work against the

attempts to undertake a military coup.

While these clauses need to be welcomed, they raise a particu-

larly problematic question: Why does a civilian, i e, non-military,

assistance package require so many military conditions from a

civilian government, which is weaker than the military and often

unable to resist demands from the military? If, as most analystson Pakistan agree, the military and some of its agencies are a law

unto themselves, how will imposing conditions on a civilian

government ensure that these conditions are adhered to by the

military and its agencies?

8 Conclusions

The discussion and evidence lead to numerous conclusions, some

shrouded in mystery and secrecy, others revealing duplicity, ambi-

guity and efforts at cross purposes. First, it is not at all clear to all

parties what the objectives and purpose ofUS aid to Pakistan are.

The US believes that this assistance to Pakistans military will

encourage the army to help in the war on terror in the border

regions of Pakistan. There is no real evidence that the Pakistani

army is on the same page as the US administration in this regard,

and whether the Pakistani government and military feel as

strongly about Al Qaida and the Afghan Taliban as does the US

administration. If anything, it seems that there is considerable

difference of opinion and deception involved in whatever the

rules of the game might be.

Second, no matter whose war this is the USs a global war on

terror, or Pakistans no one can deny that the repercussions on

Pakistani citizens have been quite catastrophic, resulting in many

thousand dead and injured. It is difcult to speculate what wouldhave happened if a particular initiative or policy was taken or not

taken; nevertheless, the impact on Pakistan has been severe.

Third, in the past decade, it seems that there has been consider-

able oversight perhaps even deliberate in the aid relationship

with Pakistan, and protocols and procedures have been ignored

and not respected. Also, it seems that some amount of aid given

by the US for specic purposes has been used by the Pakistani

military for very different purposes.

Fourth, since military aid has been twice or three times as

large as economic aid, the US might have strengthened the hand

of the military in Pakistans political economy, sidestepping the

elected civilian government at the expense of strengthening and

supporting democratic movements and institutions, having

greater trust in the ability of the Pakistani military than in the

civilian democratic government.

Fifth, direct US economic aid does not have a critical impact on

Pakistans economy because it is too small, focused on particular

areas and regions, and is tied up in issues related to procedures,

protocols and contractors. Economic and nancial support from

the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other multi-

lateral agencies has been far more critical to economic stability in

Pakistan. However, one must add the important corollary in this

regard, that the US is Pakistans most important trading partnerby far, and has critical leverage over the economy. Pakistan

receives 20% of its foreign remittances from the US (around $1.8


7/7

SPECIAL ARTICLE


billion in 2009-10), 35% of foreign investment to Pakistan comes

from the US (around $1 billion), and 18% of Pakistans exports go

to the US ($3.6 billion).

Sixth, it is not at all clear, who benets from the US aid to

Pakistan. There seems to be ambiguity about purpose, and

hence benet is difcult to clarify. While the Pakistani mili-

tary has helped the US in its campaign or has allowed the US

to conduct interventions such as drone attacks it is not clearwhether this is adequate to win the war on terror or not. One

gets the feeling that this may not be the case. Moreover, it

becomes difcult to know what benets the Pakistani army gets

from the US military aid meant for the war on terror. One

advantage seems to be that the military aid clearly earmarked

for the war on terror has been treated as being fungible by the

Pakistani military probably in full knowledge of the US

administration to allow the Pakistani military to replenish

its wider arsenal. It is difcult to argue that military aid to

Pakistan has made the country safer in any way, and the results

for the US may not be the same for Pakistan.

Seventh, there seems to be a large shift since 2009 in the

nature ofUS assistance to Pakistan, with far greater resources

allocated to civilian aid rather than military aid. However,

the aid may not have been released as yet, and may not have

been very visible on the ground in Pakistan. Some conditions

imposed in the nature of aid to Pakistan apply some checks and

balances on the type of use of resources. Only when operational

will one know of the efcacy of such measures. However, what

seems odd is that a civilian aid package has numerous military

conditions, and given the Pakistani governments weak control

over and fear about the military, one is not sure how these

conditions will be enforced. Moreover, the Pakistan govern-

ment will always be able to play the moral hazard card even

when conditions are infringed, and it is probable that as long as

some of the US interests are being served, aid will ow despite

these conditions.

Leaked documents and cables from Islamabad have also con-

rmed what was public knowledge, that there is a great deal of

interference and involvement in Pakistani politics byUS ofcials,and the revelations have been shocking, about how much lever-

age the Americans were being given by the countrys civilian and

military leadership to micro-manage domestic politics (Syed

2010). Another report uses stronger language with regard to Paki-

stans leadership: WikiLeaks precisely proves what was earlier

said, i e, Pakistan has been practically reduced from a sovereign

state to an American colony as the president, prime minister, top po-

litical leaders and even army chief all have been shown pleasing or

taking into condence the US ambassador the de facto viceroy of

Pakistan to continue ruling the roost with the blessings of

Washington (Abbasi 2010). Such commentary and accounts give

a fair idea of the popular and public perception in which the

relationship between the US and Pakistan exists.

What seems to be clear is that it is the US administration, espe-

cially its military strategy, which needs the Pakistani military

and the civilian government in Pakistan to undertake certain tasks

for the US campaign in the region,far more than the Pakistanis

need the US. In fact, one could even argue that Pakistan does not

need the US aid and assistance at all. Nevertheless, what seems

equally clear is that the US administration has far greater clout

and inuence over the Pakistani military and civilian govern-

ment than its position warrants.

Notes

1 For data prior to 2002, different sources give con-rior to 2002, different sources give con-icting data and it is difcult to say how much ofthe data is accurate. Moreover, data for non-developmental aid is also hard to come by. After9/11 and 2002, data for US aid for Pakistan is morereadily veriable.

2 While information available in the public sphereis far better than in the past, we still do not knowfor sure ifall aid data is made available. My guessis that this is probably not the case .

3 It is not clear if this $9.7 billion in ve years was partof the military aid, or as seems probable, addi-tional funds made available to Pakistans military.If this was the case, the publicly available infor-mation about US aid is severely under-reported.

4 Kristof (2010). Numerous investigative reportsand articles in the New York Times suggest thatthis is so. See, also Dowd (2010).

References

Abbasi, Ansar (2010): After the WikiLeaks Deluge,The News, Karachi, 2 December.

Anwar, Mumtaz and Kathrina Michaelowa (2004):The Political Economy of US Aid to Pakistan,HWWA Discussion Paper 302, Hamburg Instituteof International Economics.

Centre for American Progress (2008): US Aid toPakistan by the Numbers, Centre for AmericanProgress, Washington DC, August.

Dowd, Maureen (2010): The Great Game Imposter,New York Times, 24 November.

Haqqani, Hussain (2005): Pakistan: Between Mosqueand Military (Lahore: Vanguard).

Hasan, Parvez (1998): Pakistans Economy at the

Crossroads: Past Policies and Present Imperatives(Karachi: Oxford University Press).

Ibrahim, Azeem (2009): US Aid to Pakistan USTaxpayers Have Funded Pakistani Corruption,Belfer Centre Discussion Paper, 2009-06, Inter-national Security Programme, Harvard KennedySchool, July.

Khalizad, Zalmay (2010): Get Tough on Pakistan,New York Times, 20 October.

Kristof, Nicholas D (2010): A Girl, a School and Hope,New York Times, 11 November.

Kronstadt, K Alan (2009): Pakistan-US Relations,

Congressional Research Service 7-5700, CRSReport for Congress, Washington.

Nawaz, Shuja (2008): Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within (Karachi: OxfordUniversity Press).

NYT(2010): Pakistan: Clinton Unveils Details of $2 Bil-lion Miltary Aid Package,New York Times, 23 October.

Perlez, Jane, David E Sanger and Eric Schmitt (2010):Wary Dance with Pakistan in Nuclear World,

New York Times, 1 December.

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THE VERDICT ON AYODHYADecember 11, 2010

Dissecting the Ayodhya Judgment Anupam Gupta

Secularism and the Indian Judiciary P A Sebastian

Idols in Law Gautam Patel

Issues of Faith Kumkum Roy

Was There a Temple under the Babri Masjid?

Reading the Archaeological Evidence Supriya Varma, Jaya Menon

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Documents

Who Benefits From Military Aid to Pakistan