Islamabad’s frustrations and Pakistan-US relations in 2025

Pakistan has strived to improve its relations with the United States for years now. However, unfolding events in the regional and global strategic environment continuously spoil its diplomatic initiatives to cajole the Americans. The result is that currently, Pakistan is neither an ally nor an adversary of the US. Yet, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer’s fictitious conclusion on December 19 that Pakistan is an emerging threat to the United States has surprised Pakistanis and rung strategic alarm bells in Islamabad. Undeniably, the statement influences the Pakistan and US bilateral relationship in 2025.

The China-US strategic competition, India-US threshold alliance and Netanyahu’s endeavor to establish a new Middle Eastern order with the connivance of US military muscle may have diminished Pakistan’s importance but not its relevance in the Americans’ international geopolitical calculations. These factors will shape the incoming Trump administration’s approach toward Pakistan in 2025. This means that the future relationship between Pakistan and the US will be dependent of the Trump administration’s engagement with China, India’s pursuit of its strategic autonomy, and the situation in the Middle East. 

Pakistan was an ally in containing the former Soviet Union, defeating Russian forces and the latter transnational terrorist syndicate in Afghanistan. Therefore at the time, generous diplomatic, economic, and military aid was provided to Pakistan. However, this episodic alliance arrangement was not without seeds of mistrust that resulted in sporadic sanctions. Before December 19, no American official ever signalled that Pakistan was developing a long-range missile capability to neutralize targets in the United States. 

By assuming the role of a net security provider, India seeks to become a “regional policeman” at the behest of the US, thereby upsetting the regional strategic balance at the cost of Pakistan.

Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal

Pakistan’s steadfast pursuit of credible nuclear deterrence capability to prevent India’s military aggression and nuclear blackmail since India’s so-called peaceful nuclear explosion on May 18, 1974 (Smiling Buddha) has resulted in numerous US sanctions. The sanctions have aimed to cap and roll back Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Recent sanctions against a government institution and three commercial entities manifest the continuity of Washington’s decades of policy against Pakistan’s nuclear and missile program. 

Pakistan paid a heavy price being a non-NATO ally of the US during the two-decades’ ‘war on terror.’ Islamabad’s human and economic sacrifices failed to win the confidence of the Americans due to its covert engagement with the Afghan Taliban. Throughout the war, the US high-ups compelled Pakistan to ‘do more.’

Ironically, instead of acknowledging Pakistan’s positive role in the Doha agreement, the Americans accused Pakistan for their failures in Afghanistan. This added a very destabilizing variable to Pakistan-US relations and has effectively thwarted Pakistan’s initiatives to improve bilateral relations since the US forces withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021. Besides, the rapid transformation in the Middle Eastern strategic environment and international geopolitics is not promising for the relationship between Islamabad and Washington. 

Pakistan is neither available to contain China nor willing to be a part of creating the new Middle East. Islamabad’s pursuit of a neutral foreign policy and the US alliance politics in its neighborhood will shape the new Trump administration’s approach toward it. The previous Trump administration constituted the US Indo-Pacific strategy in June 2019, and Quad (a forum composed of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States) re-booted in November 2017. India is a member of Quad and has revamped its military doctrine to complement the US Indo-Pacific strategy to counter China. Thus, the new administration in 2025 will continue the Biden administration’s policy toward Pakistan, probably with more stern sanctions to cap the country’s nuclear, missile and space programs.

President Trump and his adviser’s hawkish statements about China indicate that the new Trump administration will empower the Indo-Pacific strategy by strengthening minilateral security groups, i.e., Quad, AUKUS, and I2U2 in the Indian Ocean region. It will increase the standoff between China and the US in political, economic, military, and ideological domains. It inevitably raises the strategic relevance of New Delhi in Washington Indo-Pacific strategy.

India will systematically utilize US dependency on it to contain China in fulfilling its decades-old dream to establish its hegemony in South Asia and become a net security provider in the Indian Ocean region. By assuming the role of a net security provider, India seeks, in effect, to become a “regional policeman” at the behest of the US, thereby upsetting the regional strategic balance at the cost of Pakistan.

Indeed, Islamabad will do everything to convince the new administration in Washington that it has not acquired and is not aspiring to develop a capability that undermines US security. Moreover, its earnest desire is to improve politico-economic cooperation with Washington.

The inbuilt characteristic of military alliance politics boosts the arms race, intensifying the security dilemma puzzle in the regional and global strategic environment. These evolving regional and international geopolitics trends can frustrate Islamabad’s endeavors to improve Pakistan and US relations in 2025.

– Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal is an Islamabad-based analyst and professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University. E-mail: [email protected], X: @zafar_jaspal