Strategic Competition: Why Pakistan Matters

This paper emphasizes the importance of the U.S. maintaining a strong relationship with Pakistan as strategic competition with China intensifies.

Excerpt:
It is worth noting that Pakistan remains vitally important to U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific, not least because of its all-weather strategic cooperative partnership with China who regards it as an “element of its strategic competition with the United States and India.” The current state of U.S.-Pakistan relations is symptomatic of an increasing ambiguity that is counterproductive to advancing U.S. interests. To state the obvious, the more the U.S distances itself from Pakistan, a country not very long ago considered a “key U.S. ally in the region,” the more expedient it will be for China to pursue its global economic, political and military aspirations.