UNDER the wor.’s prevailing political and strategic scenario dominated by the Russia-Ukraine war, the US seems to be in the mode of weakening Russia through a prolonged war, thus undertaking two cold wars at the same time, one against Russia and the other one already continuing for containing China, as is evident from its Indo-Pacific strategy of which India had been termed as a lynchpin and had been quickly declared as a major defence partner of the US.
In this scenario, whereas the US wants maximum countries to support its strategy to support Ukraine against Russia, the third world countries are under pressure to support the US strategy, where Pakistan is also under stress, especially in view of the IMF loans it requires to sustain and revive its economy.
To withstand the US pressure, the Pakistani decision-makers need to understand that strategically Pakistan is a very important country to the US, mainly for keeping peace in South Asia and for facilitating USA’s political and investment/trade relations with Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) by passing through Pakistan.
Hence, the US would not like to totally become isolated in this region by getting into tense relationship with Pakistan.
It is now more important for the US to engage Pakistan, as it has involved itself in a long lasting cold war with Russia and in this context the US would like to keep good working relations with China and Pakistan.
More so, the US would like to keep good relations with Pakistan, as India has disappointed it, being its major defence partner, as India adopted a stance of neutrality in the case of Russia-Ukraine war, as despite the US pressures, it did not vote in favour of the US/West’s anti-Russia resolutions presented at the UN/UNSC forums.
Hence, in view of this complex situation, the US would never ask the IMF to stop providing loans to Pakistan.
Therefore, the Pakistani decision makers should not unnecessarily come under US pressure to agree to its demands of supporting it against Russia, and it should maintain its policy of not joining any grouping and developing friendship with all major world powers, including the US.
However, as some policy makers of Pakistan in the new government seem to be nervous under the US pressures/warnings regarding former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Russia, and they appear to be ready to join the US camp, they should not do so without getting some major geopolitical, strategic, and economic advantages for Pakistan from the US like negotiating and getting signed a minimum 10-year long agreement of strategic/defence partnership with the US, which should include the following.
The US should sign a nuclear deal with Pakistan like India. The US should consider the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle as an indigenous one, should not dub it as terrorism and should also not blame Pakistan for supporting it as India wishes.
The US should support Pakistan’s stance that India should immediately undo its 5 August 2019 steps taken to end the special status/autonomy of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and dividing the state into two union territories, in violation of the UNSC resolutions and that the dispute should be resolved based on the UNSC resolutions.
The agreement should also include: the US should resume Pakistan’s military assistance, including the payment of its pending amount of coalition support fund (CSF) equal to almost $9 billion, when Pakistan fought the war against terrorism as the US non-NATO ally, as the amount has already been spent during anti-terrorist operations around Afghanistan; the US should agree to give F-16 aircraft to Pakistan, which were earlier refused, and the US should agree to provide Pakistan’s economic assistance by paying at least $ two billion monthly to make easier for it to pay back its foreign loans and stabilize its economy.
The agreement should also state that by joining the US camp, Pakistan will not be asked to limit its strategic partnership with China, constrain the development of the CPEC and support the US Indo-Pacific policy meant for containing China, on similar lines as the US has almost given waiver to India, being a major partner of the US, that it may not support the US in containing Russia, but India should continue to remain the USA’s major defence partner mainly to contain China.
If the US does not agree to sign such an agreement, then Pakistan should maintain its policy of not joining any camp, as why it should do it without a major agreement with the US, by becoming subservient to India, being an equal nuclear power and by forgetting about Jammu and Kashmir.
If Pakistan does not join the US camp, because of the lack of an agreement with it, and suppose that the US constrains the IMF from providing loan to Pakistan, then Pakistan government should use its own resources and adopt a strict monetary/economic policy to save Pakistan from defaulting on foreign loans.
These measures can include, the government should shun corruption and promise for honestly utilizing the tax money, and ask the Pakistan’s 88 million rich families and rich expatriates to voluntarily contribute to collect $ 20 billion immediately, to be deposited in an account under Pakistan Supreme Court’s control, to be used only for paying foreign loan instalments.
The Supreme Court may like to take strict measures to discourage corruption and money laundering in the country by quickly punishing the culprits.
The other measures meant to boost Pakistan’s economic growth, foreign exchange reserves and look after the poor masses should include: adopting strict austerity measures; reducing the import of luxury items, increasing exports, especially of textile goods and IT items/skills and other services; and enhancing agriculture and industrial production with the help of CPEC based support of China to reduce prices.
The other measures should include: heavily taxing the 132 million rich and middle class families; strict monitoring of the tax collection system and stopping tax evasion; and increasing the prices of oil, gas and electricity as per international prices only for 132 million rich and middle class people and exempting the 88 million poor families.
In this regard, let us prove ourselves as a bold, honest and dedicated nation to make Pakistan free of foreign loans/related pressure and make it a real sovereign country.
—The writer is also a former Research Fellow of IPRI and Senior Research Fellow of SVI Islamabad.