Dilemmas in the United States–Pakistan Security Relationship

Abstract

For fiscal year 1984, the Reagan administration requested congressional approval of security assistance programs amounting to almost $5.8 billion for twenty-two of the forty littoral states of the Indian Ocean. The administration proposal for Pakistan, consisting of $300 million in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) financing, $225 million in Economic Support Fund (ESF) assistance, and $800,000 in International Military Education and Training (IMET) support, came to $525.8 million, or about 9 percent of the total. It placed Pakistan fourth in the world after Israel, Egypt, and Turkey among ninety-one recipients of U.S. security assistance. Washington was supplying all three of Pakistan's military services with some of the world's most sophisticated air, ground, and naval weapons and weapons systems; and the possibility existed that the scope of security assistance and the dimensions of the security relationship itself might expand significantly in coming years. For thrice-embargoed Pakistan, with whom even economic assistance had been terminated by Washington in 1979 on grounds that it was pursuing unsafeguarded nuclear technology applicable to the development of nuclear weapons, this third installment of a six-year $3.2 billion military and economic assistance package represented a considerable jump in status.