How can Pakistan maintain a balance between its growing relationship with Russian

Federation (i.e. present Russia) and the ties with its longtime ally USA? Discuss from
geopolitical angle.

The relations between Pakistan and the United States sink and Washington’s affect over
Islamabad has cutback, Pakistan and Russia (the cold war era “Rivals”) have undoubtedly
reinforced their mutual ties. The reason behind the sink of the relation between Pakistan and
the United States took place by; Pakistan took some alliance from United States in place of
USSR, the reason to choose the U.S for alliance was firstly, Russia, freshly just stepped out of
World War II and was weak economically, Russia was a communist country. Now, Pakistan
chose the U.S first because Pakistan itself was a capitalist country and believed in democracy
and USA was at the top economically, not only did US ruled economically, but was also strong
and ruled in the free world, making it the top priority for Pakistan to pick it. One more reason
for Pakistan not to pick Russia was that when the Kashmir issue took place, Russia was not in a
favor to help Pakistan, since Russia supported India on the matter, and USA was the one to
offer help.

Currently due to the blockage of financial AID, President Trump has now moved towards India
and also is anti Pakistan. Does not support Pakistan much and also utters bitter words against
Pakistan. However, Russia does not have the same opinion, it differs. Instead of cutting off, it
wants to broaden it’s forays into South Asia by forging ties with Pakistan and portraying the
primary role in peace building efforts in Afghanistan.

Pak/Russia relation:

After the cold war, Russia has been trying to set friendly relationship with Pakistan and to an
extent, the relationship is moving towards betterment. This relationship refers to the bilateral
between Pakistan and Russia. To restrain the relationship, some efforts have been made such
as; Various deals of collaboration in the fields of agriculture and energy were signed on the visit
of Pervaiz Musharaf, the Russian defense minister visited Pakistan later and signed treaties on
the extension of defense and armed relations other then the agreement for Mi35 helicopters.

The betterment lie’s under two divisions, that are the political and military interests. Pakistan’s
political interest is the CPEC route which connects China to Pakistan and central Asia which
proves to be beneficial for Russia as Russia’s access route of trade will shorten like China which
will be beneficial for Pakistan economically, but U.S does not support this. The relationship
between the U.S and Pakistan is not quite smooth. It has it’s ups and downs. Although the
political interest has not remained the same. Due to military interest we must remain on good
terms with the U.S.

What’s forthcoming for Pakistan-USA relationship?

As the new year, 2018 evoked, President Donald Trump decided to catch on the USA
“misaligned ally” ,Pakistan. Trump started putting false accusation on Pakistan, just to get rid of
Pakistan. Later in August, the same year USA cancelled Pakistan’s participation in the
International Military education and Training program (I.M.E.T) followed by the cancelation of
the military aid during the same year in September. President Trump classified these measures
as South Asia strategy, which involved pressurizing Pakistan to help combat militant groups in
Afghanistan.

The ups and downs in U.S.A relationship is not much of a novel phenomenon. For past seven
decades, the relationship has been a classic “transactional relationship” with Pakistan’s geo
strategic intensity in the region rendering it inevitable for the U.S.A to seek it’s in return for the
economic, military and diplomatic support. Even after transactions as such, there has been
year’s of bitterness and stress due to unavailability of common strategic objectives, which only
took place in making the trust deficit and suspicion deeper between the two countries.

At present, U.S.A is stuck in Afghanistan. Trump wanted a complete withdrawal from

Afghanistan. He wants to broadcast the super power’s alleviation from Afghanistan as one of
his noteworthy achievements. Apart from Afghanistan, the anticipation of cooperation
between the U.S.A and Pakistan are extremely fragile.

A new balance of potential agreement has been developed in South Asia featuring Pakistan as a
“strategic partner” of China, in the opposite bloc of U.S.A crossways, India. The-arch-rival of
Pakistan.

The U.S and India have joined hands to prevent a dispute among China’s geo economic venture
of Belt and road initiative (BRI) and it’s flagship. Also the China Pakistan economic corridor
which is hosted by Pakistan .CPEC has made Pakistan an enticing partner for any power
interested in south Asian region.

The balance between both seems bizarre, as the allies are inter dependant on each other and
can’t just cut relation with any one of the allies.
References:

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/01/28/whats-forthcoming-for-pakistan-usa-relationship/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335095398_Pakistan-
Russia_Relations_and_the_Changing_Paradigm

https://southasianvoices.org/pakistan-russia-cooperation-trouble-for-the-united-states/