Charles W. King

A month ago the Trump administration announced that it was cutting off financial assistance to Pakistan to the tune of $255 million. Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been strained for years due to an apparent unwillingness or inability on the part of the Pakistani government to address the presence of Afghan Taliban fighters using the semi-autonomous Federally Administrated Tribal Area (FATA) as a base of operations. The Trump administration has gone further, alleging that the Pakistani government attempted to deceive American officials in order to receive aid they never meant to use against the Taliban in Pakistan. This assessment is not without merit; in 2007 the Pakistani military negotiated a deal with Taliban forces in the FATA after two years of disastrous military operations against the combined forces of the Afghan Taliban and Tribal militias. This deal caused strain between the George W. Bush and Obama administrations and the Pakistani governments, and numerous member of Congress have been calling for a reassessment of American aid to Pakistan for years.

The ongoing situation in Pakistan raises the question as to whether or not there is value in giving foreign aid to a country that appears to be acting counter to American interests. This means asking what is going to happen to Pakistan without the American aid it has been receiving since the Cold War, and is that going to be more or less dangerous to the United States and its interests than the status quo? Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is considered to be one of the best intelligence services in the world, punching well above its weight relative the security services of countries of similar size and development. This is due to the history and geopolitical situation that Pakistan has found itself in since independence in 1947. Tension with the also newly independent India began immediately, and in 1971 India defeated Pakistan in a war that resulted in the independence of Bangladesh. Relations with Pakistan’s other neighbors, Afghanistan and Iran, have also always been tense, prompting an outsized influence of the Pakistani military in domestic politics including coups in 1977 and 1999. Throughout the territory of Kashmir has been disputed between Pakistan and India, and concerned that the Pakistani military is unable to defeat the Indian military in a conventional conflict Pakistan developed nuclear weapons and cooperates with the Haqqani network of militants and groups who have conducted terrorist attacks in India. Surrounded by India, Afghanistan, China, and Iran and with instable domestic politics it is understandable why the Pakistani government and military consistently act to limit the risk of increased instability or existential danger.

This suggests that American aid to Pakistan was never entirely about Pakistani cooperation in the War or Terror. Given the dangers, real and perceived, to the Pakistani state from within and without and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, it is understandable that the United States would seek to prevent the failure of the Pakistani state. It is truly an example of choosing the devil you know over the devil you don’t. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s the world managed to survive the very real danger of loose nuclear weapons, it might not be so lucky if Pakistan collapsed. As distasteful as it may be to support a government with the human rights record and bellicose nature that Pakistan exhibits, preventing loose nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands might be a bargain at twice the price.

Charles W. King

With the ubiquity of air travel and the trivial cost of ocean freight it is easy for contemporary policy-makers to neglect the importance of land borders as a conduit for trade. The North American Free Trade Agreement has allowed American manufacturers to spread their supply chains to Canada and Mexico to take advantage of economies of scale and cheaper labor prices not possible in the United States. This, along with the movement of other American manufacturing, has garnered the ire of both labor unions on the left and economic nationalists on the right, but a number of other examples demonstrate how open borders not only facilitate trade that is good for domestic consumers, but are an important method for creating safe and stable regional communities.

The Good Friday Agreement has been the bedrock of peace in Northern Ireland since it was signed in 1998. The prospect of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and the makeup of the ruling coalition in Westminster threatens this tenuous peace because it threatens the status of the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Theresa May, the current Prime Minister of the U.K., has committed to leaving both the E.U.’s customs union and common market, known as a Hard Brexit. After a disastrous snap election last year May’s Conservatives were forced into a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland to create a majority in Parliament. The nature of a Hard Brexit would establish a customs border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, requiring checkpoints and the other institutional features of a regulated border. The Democratic Unionists are in favor of this because it would weaken ties between the province and the Republic. Republicans both in the Republic and Northern Ireland object to this vehemently, and point out that such a border would be indirect contravention of The Good Friday Agreement. The status of the Irish border remains one of the major issues of Brexit negotiations, it will take compromise and creativity to fulfill the Article 50 requirements without violating the Agreement, but violating it would imperil twenty years of peace and progress in Ireland.

In recent years, India and Pakistan have increased the size of their border posts on their mutual border. Rather than increasing their military presence on the border, and therefore tensions, the construction and staffing has been to facilitate cross border trade between the two countries which has been anemic for decades, despite the two countries location and the existence of large markets for each other’s goods. While the relationship between India and Pakistan remains fraught with tension, especially when terrorists with links to the Pakistani intelligence services conduct attacks in India, the increase in trade has helped to create a more stable foundation for the official diplomatic relationship between the two countries. Conversely the relationship between Israel and Gaza has deteriorated since Israel established a military blockade in 2007. The Israeli Defense Forces now contend that the reliance on aid and inability to cross the border for trade and employment has been ineffective at best, and likely counterproductive to improving Israel’s security.

These relationships demonstrate that even in an increasingly connected world the relationship between neighboring countries should have a place of preeminence in the thoughts of policy-makers. It can be frightfully easy to turn a peaceful relationship into one that is only a spark away from violence. They also demonstrate that closed and fortified borders do not necessarily translate into physical security, but that economic security can.