When it crafted a giant civilian aid plan for Pakistan last year, the US proclaimed a turning point in a troubled relationship, with US money henceforth to serve the cause of democracy.
On Friday, in the wake of the latest tensions between the war partners, US President Barack Obama’s administration announced it would seek another US$2 billion in aid for Pakistan — this time, destined for the military.
The Obama administration has repeatedly pledged support for civilian rule in Pakistan, which was restored in 2008, and said on Friday it would bar assistance from several military units accused of human rights abuses.
However, the latest aid package shows that the US is also keen to meet the wish-lists of the army, which has long been a major player in Pakistan and provides vital logistical support for forces in Afghanistan.
Teresita Schaffer, a former US diplomat who has served in Islamabad, said the US faced a balancing act between working with the military and supporting civilian institutions.
“The US routinely has trouble figuring out exactly where that line belongs and how to stay on the right side of things,” said Schaffer, director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Partly that’s because the military in Pakistan is a can-do institution, much more so than the civilians,” she said.
“This is partly theatrics, but we as a people are magnetically drawn to an institution and a leader who says, ‘Yeah, I can help you with what you really want to get done,’” she said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the military package during the two nations’ latest Strategic Dialogue, where Pakistan’s public face was Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
However, as in previous talks, Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, also turned up in Washington and held meetings behind closed doors.
Kayani was unusually public last year in his criticism of Washington’s five-year, US$7.5 billion civilian aid package, calling it undue foreign interference.
The bill’s authors — US senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar and US Representative Howard Berman — described the aid as a way to improve US relations with ordinary Pakistanis and dent the allure of Islamic extremists in the nuclear power.
More recently, Kayani was said to have criticized civilian leaders over their response to major floods. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stayed in Europe when the disaster struck, saying he was more needed on the diplomatic stage than at home.
Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, said he did not see a shift so much in Washington’s relations with the Pakistani military as with its perceptions of the civilians.
“I think the civilian government has missed a number of opportunities to show it is in charge and can take decisions rapidly and firmly, and the floods were a very good example of that,” Nawaz said.
The US Congress needs to approve the US$2 billion military package, which would be spread over five years.
While the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act won wide backing last year, some US lawmakers have since voiced impatience at what they perceive as ingratitude from Pakistan. Other lawmakers have accused Pakistan of being too cozy with Afghanistan’s Taliban, some of whom roam freely in lawless border areas, and faulted Islamabad’s strategic focus on rival India.
Still, some analysts predicted that Congress would ultimately approve the military aid, which replaces an earlier five-year package that expired.
Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former US policymaker on South Asia, said that a more critical test for military assistance to Pakistan may come next year.
Under the Kerry-Lugar--Berman Act, the administration must certify next year that Pakistan is taking action against Islamic extremists on its soil for aid to continue, although the president has the power to waive any cut-off.
“We are entering a somewhat new phase in US military assistance to Pakistan when for the first time we’re actually seeing the aid conditioned on Pakistan meeting benchmarks,” Curtis said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not