A Jilted Lover Wooed Again: America and Pakistan
Pakistanis often describe their relationship with the United States as a betrayal by a partner who only calls when it needs something. The history explains why the anger runs so deep.
Listen to Pakistanis talk about the United States and the language is often personal: abandonment, betrayal, a partner who only shows affection when it needs something. It is the language of a spurned lover more than a detached observer. The metaphor has stuck because it fits the history so closely.
Courtship and abandonment
The pattern began early. Pakistan joined US-led Cold War alliances in the 1950s and received substantial military aid. Yet when it went to war with India in 1965 and 1971, Washington did not come to its rescue in the way Pakistanis expected.
The most important chapter came in the 1980s. Pakistan was the indispensable partner in the US-backed campaign against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, channelling weapons and money to the mujahideen. Once the Soviets withdrew in 1989, American interest faded fast. In 1990 Washington invoked the Pressler Amendment over Pakistan's nuclear programme and cut off most aid, including F-16 fighters that Pakistan had already paid for. To many Pakistanis it felt like being dropped the moment the job was done.
Wooed again
After the September 11 attacks, the courtship resumed. Pakistan became a frontline ally in the war in Afghanistan, and billions of dollars in military and economic assistance followed. In 2009 the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act pledged $7.5 billion in civilian aid over five years. It was an explicit attempt to build a relationship with Pakistanis themselves, not only with their generals. US diplomats, including the State Department's public diplomacy team, embarked on listening tours and outreach.
The outreach ran into a wall of scepticism. Pakistanis objected to conditions attached to the aid, to US drone strikes in the tribal areas, and to a sense that the relationship was still transactional.
2011 and after
Relations hit their lowest point in 2011. That year saw the Raymond Davis affair in Lahore, the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, and a NATO air strike that killed Pakistani soldiers at Salala on the Afghan border. Each event confirmed the worst suspicions on both sides.
When the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, many in Pakistan saw the familiar pattern repeat. Washington's attention moved elsewhere, and Pakistan drew closer to China.
Lessons for the next suitor
The US-Pakistan story shows a basic problem in alliances built on short-term need. Aid and attention that rise and fall with American priorities breed resentment that outlasts any single programme. Anger in Pakistan is often an expression of disappointed expectations. Rebuilding trust would require something the relationship has rarely had: consistency over decades rather than crises.