Pakistan and its allies

Pakistan’s foreign policy has perennially sought that elusive alliance that would solve its key problems: building its economic and military potential and supporting it in its intractable conflict with India.

This premise has driven its alliance with USA. However, Pakistan has never been certain of American support and consequently has sought other allies with which Pakistan’s leaders ( military of course) feel an affinity—be it ideological or strategic—to diversify its sources of support. China has been a source of military assistance (has extended financial assistance with CPEC program), while Saudi Arabia is an ideological and economic collaborator. Between them, the two countries are seen as Pakistan’s friends of last resort.

In case of American retrenchment, Pakistan is likely to turn ever more to Saudi Arabia and China, even if this means providing military guarantees to Saudi Arabia and acting as China’s surrogate against India.

While neither Saudi Arabia nor China was able to prevent Pakistan’s breakup in 1971, the almost mythical faith in their friendship remains intact and will play a key role in framing Pakistan’s policies in the future.

Pakistan and USA

The two countries signed a mutual defense assistance agreement in 1954 and a bilateral executive agreement in 1959. Pakistan also entered into the U.S.-led military alliances known as Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), in 1954 and the U.K.-led alliance known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), in 1955.

For the vast majority of their bilateral history, Pakistan and the United States have differed on the nature of the threat that motivated their partnership: for Pakistan it was always India, for the United States it was initially Communism and later global terrorism.

The American reaction to the 1962 Sino-Indian war and the 1965 India-Pakistan war was seen by Pakistan as a betrayal by a close ally.

More recently, in 2005, when Pakistan was hit by an earthquake, and again in 2010, when massive floods engulfed central Pakistan, the United States was again the first to come in with aid but the Saudis gave far more. Pakistan’s leaders have always shied away from praising American support in the form of multilateral inputs, choosing instead to highlight only the bilateral assistance of the so-called dependable allies: Saudi Arabia and China.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has been presented to the Pakistani public as the ideal ideological ally of Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country that would stand by Pakistan in any conflict with India. Saudi Arabia’s assistance to Pakistan has never quite matched the Pakistani expectations despite the effusive rhetoric that Pakistan has long conferred to the kingdom. Like China, Saudi Arabia has periodically provided Pakistan with loans and short-term emergency aid.

Pakistan imports most of its oil from the Gulf and in periods when Pakistan has not been able to pay for this oil the Saudi Arabian government has given them oil at concessional rates or even waived the payment for a few years. For three years after the 1998 nuclear tests Pakistan did not have to pay for the oil that it was provided by Saudi Arabia (Kamal 2008). Pakistan’s economic dependence on the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, continued through the 1980s and into the twenty-first century (Add to this remittances from Pakistanis working in the Gulf).

The 1970s also saw the start of a worrying trend in Saudi-Pakistani relations: Saudi Arabia’s growing role in Pakistan’s domestic politics. Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf state the United Arab Emirates have often supported one or another political party in Pakistan, provided economic aid, or deferred loan payments or oil payments when their preferred party was in power and offered asylum to political leaders. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was hosted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after being toppled in a military coup in 1999.

Since the 1970s, Pakistan has sporadically offered military manpower to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies in return for financing Pakistani purchases of military equipment. The most recent instance is the induction of Pakistani volunteers into the military and police in Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia has sought to prop up the Sunni regime against Shia protesters since 2011. Such deployments confer to Pakistan the mantle of protector of the Muslim holy lands.

The Saudi-Pakistan defense cooperation originated with a 1976 bilateral agreement that provided for an exchange of defense technical knowledge. By the mid-1980s, approximately 50,000 Pakistani military personnel were serving abroad, with the largest commitment (about 20,000 persons) to Saudi Arabia. Pakistani pilots routinely participated in air defense operations in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Arab countries prefer foreign fighters from non-Arab countries as it ensures that the foreigners will not be involved in domestic politics. During the Iran-Iraq conflict, in return for $1 billion in aid, Pakistan stationed around 10,000 Pakistani troops in Saudi Arabia.

In early 2014 there was a discussion between the two governments about Pakistan providing trained military personnel to man Saudi Arabia’s security forces and also talks about creating a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) military force to counter Iran.

Given Pakistan’s lack of funds and the opacity of the financing arrangements for its nuclear program, it is widely believed that Saudi Arabia provided some of the funding that enabled Pakistan to become the world’s first Muslim country to build and test nuclear weapons.

Pakistan has also welcomed donations from wealthy individuals and charities from Saudi Arabia to found and support Wahabbi madrassas and universities in Pakistan. Such institutions have proliferated since the mid- 1970s and became major recruiting centers for jihadis in the 1980s.

China

Pakistani officials and even media accounts portray China as the ideal strategic ally: a country that is strong enough to provide Pakistan economic and military support whenever the Americans stopped or reduced aid but also one that has an antagonistic relationship with India. Pakistan was China’s bridge to the Muslim world in more ways than one. China has a large Muslim minority in its western region and having a friendly Muslim neighbor next door was seen as strategically and diplomatically useful. Friendship with Pakistan helped China build trade and diplomatic ties with the Muslim Middle East and Southeast Asia. Pakistan was the via media for China’s ties with Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf countries, with economic (energy) and defense (military and nuclear) components.

Right from the start, Chinese investment in the military arena focused on ensuring a captive market for selling its equipment, gaining access to Western technology and equipment from Pakistan, and in later years sharing nuclear and missile technology with Pakistan.

The Pakistani military prefers more sophisticated American weapons, preferably provided on concessional terms. But the American habit of rationing spare parts in case Pakistan enters wars that the United States does not like, as well as the imposition of periodic American sanctions, have caused Pakistan to seek a more reliable source of armaments. Since the 1960s, China has been that source. By 1982 Chinese weapons systems formed the backbone of the Pakistani military arsenal, composing 75 percent of the tank force and 65 percent of the air force (Vertzberger 1983). Between 2008 and 2012, Pakistan was the main purchaser of Chinese weapons, buying 55 percent of Chinese weapons exports (Lipin 2013).

In June 1978, China and Pakistan opened the all-weather Karakoram Highway, the highest paved road in the world at an elevation of 15,000 feet. Attitudes toward the highway demonstrate how each side viewed the relationship: for Pakistan, the road demonstrated China’s commitment and friendship. For China, the highway was a land route through which it could gain access to Central Asia as well as to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Pakistan viewed itself as being indispensable for China; China viewed Pakistan as a part (but only a part) of securing its energy sources and markets.

Sino-Pakistani cooperation in the nuclear field can be traced back to the 1980s. As early as 1983, American intelligence agencies reported that the Chinese transferred a complete nuclear weapon design to Pakistan, along with enough weapons-grade uranium for two potential nuclear weapons. In 1986, China and Pakistan concluded a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. Later that year, Chinese scientists began ‘‘assisting’’ their Pakistani counterparts with the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium. Analysts believe that, since 1986, ‘‘China has supplied Pakistan with a wide variety of nuclear products and services, ranging from uranium enrichment technology to reactors.’’ There are also reports that China ‘‘involved’’ Pakistani scientists in a nuclear test at its Lop Nur (Xinjiang) test site in 1989.

For Pakistan, the key indicator of true friendship is a country’s view of India and of the Kashmir conflict. China used anti-India rhetoric during Pakistan’s wars with India in 1965 and 1971.

Three years later, during the 1999 Kargil conflict, China once again demonstrated that it had no intention of entering into an India-Pakistan conflict. Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif had flown to the United States to seek American support but President Bill Clinton had asked him to ‘‘respect the sanctity of the Line of Control’’ and withdraw his troops. Hoping for Chinese support, Sharif flew to Beijing, where he received a similar message. These messages delivered by the Chinese, however, have not had the intended impact: Pakistan’s leaders still have faith that China will stand by them in any conflict with India.

As part of Chinese investment in Pakistani infrastructure projects, in 2002 China promised to help in the construction of the Gwadar seaport. For Pakistan, Gwadar was important for both strategic and economic reasons: the port’s development would make Pakistan the gateway to shipping routes for both western China and the Central Asian republics. Pakistan also sought ‘‘strategic depth’’ in Gwadar: Karachi, Pakistan’s other main port and naval headquarters, was located too close to the Indian coast. Gwadar has both strategic and economic benefits for China as well. Gwadar is closer to western China than the ports on China’s eastern coast and is located nearer the Persian Gulf, through which most of China’s oil tankers travel. From the strategic point of view, the Chinese navy’s desire for ‘‘blue-water navy’’ status demands a presence in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.