By the beginning of 1982, the United States and Pakistan were ready to
renew a defence relationship that had been in suspension since 1965.
Congressional waiver of the anti-proliferation Symington Amendment
lifted the aid ban imposed on Pakistan in April 1979 and cleared the way for
President Ronald Reagan’s Republican administration to move ahead with the
first instalments of a six-year $3 2 billion programme of economic and
military assistance. By failing to adopt a concurrent resolution to block the
administration, Congress also approved a foreign military sales transaction of
$1 1 billion (to be paid for, in part, by Saudi Arabia) for forty high-
performance F- 16 tactical aircraft, six of which were to be delivered within o year. The programme dwarfs the Carter administration’s $400 million aid
offer, made in February 1980, an offer which Pakistan’s President Mohammad
Zia ul-Haq disdainfully dismissed as ‘peanuts’. Divided roughly in half
between economic aid and military ‘assistance programme credits, the Reagan administration package gives Pakistan access to an array of sophisticated
military hardware, including attack helicopters, self-propelled howitzers,
armoured personnel carriers, medium tanks, guided missiles and radar
equipment.’ The decision thus to revive America’s erstwhile partnership with Pakistan runs parallel to security agreements which the Reagan administration
has been attempting to fashion with other friendly regional powers. No less
than in these other cases, Washington’s courtship of Islamabad has given rise to debate among United States foreign policy observers.
Author(s): Robert G. Wirsing and James M. Roherty
Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) , Autumn,
1982, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Autumn, 1982), pp. 588-609
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Institute of International
Affairs
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2618471