It’ll be interesting to see how President Trump’s strategy of withholding military aid from Pakistan will work out, as reported by CNN this morning:
The White House said Monday that it would continue to withhold $255 million in military aid to Pakistan out of frustration over what it has characterized as Islamabad’s obstinance in confronting terrorist networks.The Pakistani government has yet to issue a formal response, though on Monday, US Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the foreign ministry to meet with senior foreign office officials, a US Embassy spokesman confirmed.
It’s long been rumored that that the Pakistani intelligence services are not fully cooperative with the various governments of Pakistan, both democratic and, perhaps, military, the rumors centering around sheltering certain radical anti-Western Islamic groups from attack.
The problem, of course, is how do you prove such contentions? Westerners find it difficult to infiltrate such societies successfully, so we have to work from electronic intercept and second-hand reports.
A complicating factor is the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, developed in response to the India nuclear weapons program. I know very little about this program, such as the capability of its delivery systems, but diplomacy with our ally India certainly makes responses to Pakistan quite the little dance.
But maybe it’s time for a bull in the china shop approach, although I suspect it’ll end with Pakistan sacrificing some mid-level intelligence officer and everyone making up.
