U.S. suspends security aid to Pakistan over militant groups - Polidicks

[QUOTE]WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it was suspending an undisclosed amount of security assistance to Pakistan, which two officials said was worth more than $255 million, until Islamabad takes action against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. The U.S. State Department announced the decision, saying it reflected the Trump administration’s frustration that Pakistan has not done more against the two groups, which have long used sanctuaries in Pakistan to launch attacks in neighboring Afghanistan that have killed U.S., Afghan and other forces. The department declined to say exactly how much aid would be suspended, saying the numbers were still being calculated and included funding from both the State and Defense departments. U.S. officials said two main categories of aid are affected: foreign military financing (FMF), which funds purchases of U.S. military hardware, training and services, and coalition support funds (CSF), which reimburse Pakistan for counter-terrorism operations. They said they could make exceptions for money that went to critical U.S. national security priorities. A glance at U.S. budget figures suggest the amounts frozen could exceed $1 billion. The United States gives Pakistan $255 million a year in FMF, which falls under the State Department’s authority. For fiscal year 2017, which ended on Sept. 30, 2017, it has authorized up to $900 million in CSF, which falls under Pentagon authority. Briefing reporters, U.S. officials stressed the suspension did not affect civilian aid to Pakistan and that the money could go through if Islamabad took decisive action against the groups. “Our hope is that they will see this as a further indication of this administration’s immense frustration with the trajectory of our relationship and that they need to be serious about taking the steps we have asked in order to put it on more solid footing,” a senior State Department official told reporters. “We’re hoping that Pakistan will see this as an incentive, not a punishment,” he added. [/QUOTE] [B]Source:[/B] [url]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pakistan-aid/u-s-suspends-security-aid-to-pakistan-over-militant-groups-idUSKBN1ET2DX[/url]

For the country that hid Bin Laden from us for years... Yeah I don't blame us for cutting military aid.

related [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/world/asia/pakistan-trump-tweet.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=world/asia"]Pakistan Dismisses Trump’s Tweet on Aid as ‘Incomprehensible’[/URL] [QUOTE]ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has dismissed as “incomprehensible” and of “no importance” a tweet by President Trump saying that it had accepted billions of dollars in aid from the United States while failing to act against terrorist networks. Mr. Trump, in a tweet on Monday, accused Pakistan of deceit and lies and said that Pakistan gives “safe haven to terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help.” “No more,” Mr. Trump warned. Later that day, Pakistan’s foreign affairs minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, dismissed Mr. Trump’s Twitter outburst as having “no importance.” David Hale, the American ambassador, was summoned late Monday to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad, the capital, and a diplomatic protest was lodged, Pakistani officials said. Coverage of Mr. Trump’s comments has dominated the Pakistani news media, and an emergency session of the country’s National Security Council was held Tuesday evening to allow top civilian and military leaders to prepare a response.[/QUOTE]

I've been reading General David Richards' account of the Afghan conflict from his position as head of ISAF at the close of last decade. It seems the Pakistanis were in the tenuous position where if the word was said, the Taliban could have taken control of much of the region bordering Afghanistan away from the government. I actually wonder whether the reason more wasn't said about drone strikes and the raid on Bin Laden was because tactly Pakistan was happy for someone else to be the Taliban's 'enemy'. Sadly Trump won't listen to any actual, qualified experts like Gen Richards on such complex matters as Middle East geopolitics.

If I were China or Russia I'd be making moves to strengthen the relationship between Pakistan and my respective country. If that happens I hope to everything that someone can ensure India's safety

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;53027395]If I were China or Russia I'd be making moves to strengthen the relationship between Pakistan and my respective country. If that happens I hope to everything that someone can ensure India's safety[/QUOTE] The Russians are more pro-India if anything (although with a bunch of soured defense deals lately, this has sort of frozen a bit recently :/). China and Pakistan are best beds, though - but more in the sense that they're both being friends that they have self-serving interests in being best buddies. Both sides realistically don't give a flying fuck about the other on any deeper cultural bonding sense, they see each other as means to an end. If that weren't the case, Pakistan, as a theocracy, would've been appalled by their 'best buddy''s approach to oppressing their Islamic minorities. The only reason they're even friends is purely because Nepal couldn't be bought as easily when the policy first began (Though this, due to several Indian Foreign policy blunders, has changed as Nepal has gotten increasingly cozy with the Chinese too - the real source of the frozen relations was the oil blockade less than a decade ago). Pakistan is going for the "Death By A Thousand Cuts" approach, spearheading numerous covert operations to infiltrate the country via the Kashmir border, incite the populace there and let their terrorists conduct operations within India. China realistically only cares about encircling India (The String of Pearls) through strategic and defense partnerships with most of India's neighbors to establish and maintain control of the region, often at the cost of pissing off people. They primarily do it through debt control - offering to build ports, etc. at a certain cost, leaving the host country at an enormous debt in the process, making them more pliable for influence. There's little India can do beyond a point without serious ramifications to its defense establishment or economy, so for now it's just shoring up things and watching how it plays out. In the meantime, China will saber rattle, Pakistan will continue their subversive tactics and little will change, short of a situation where one of the terrorists gets their hands on a nuke. If [I]that[/I] happens, Pakistan's going to be shitting bricks, India's going to be pissed (God knows they came [I]so [/I] close to wanting to turn Pakistan into a parking lot after 26/11) and China is going to re-evaluate their position because it's going to be a hard choice of going to bat for your ally and tank your economy.

Its always baffled me that Pakistan Intelligence services, the ISI, actively supports the local taliban when they are the very same people bombing pakistanis.

Isn't american "aid" basically bribery of sorts so Pakistan won't sell out nuke tech to the highest bidder? That seems unwise.

We renovated their entire nuclear command and control system at almost complete cost to us. It's not because we are best buds, but because we wanted to make sure that their system could be as secure as possible from rouge actors within and outside their military structure. A very worrying trend is the progression of more radical Islamic believers through the ranks of their military command structure. We wanted to be absolutely sure that if one military leader went rouge for some reason, there would be plenty of redundancy in place to keep it all from going to hell. However that's only as good as a majority of the Pakistani command structure has calm and level heads. A radicalization of the entire government, which seems to be the trend from the increasing negligence of basic human rights in favor of appeasement to more and more radical religious traditions, should have everyone extremely worried. At this point financial appeasement is one of the very few options we (the world) has left to keep things in check there. So while I disagree for many of the policies the pakastani government supports, and the blatant dumping of funds into, at best, negligent regimes, it seemingly is one of the few ways to keep mad men off the trigger of a very dangerous arsenal.

Rather bump the thread than create something separate for an ongoing situation. Pakistan Reacts: [quote](from npr) HADID: So Pakistani officials seem to have been taken by surprise by the initial New Years tweet by Trump and the subsequent public humiliation they say they've experienced. But they weren't really that surprised that there would be some sort of announcement in a cut in military aid. This relationship has been rocky for years, and it took a nosedive in August, when President Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan. And that's the first time he publicly accused Pakistan of harboring militants. That's really set the tenor for what's happened.[/quote] [quote]MARTIN: Right. So now, America is punishing Pakistan. Does Pakistan have any leverage to punish America? HADID: It can pinch. It can shut down the air route and the land route that America uses to ferry troops and supplies into Afghanistan. Without that, the war in Afghanistan would be a lot more expensive. But that's a very dramatic move. I don't get a sense here that anyone wants to go that far yet. MARTIN: NPR's Diaa Hadid reporting from Islamabad this morning. Thanks so much, Diaa. HADID: You're welcome.[/quote] [B]Source: [/B][URL="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/05/575876584/pakistan-reacts-to-u-s-suspension-of-security-assistance"]npr[/URL] Pretty surface level, but interesting for a reporter in country to give some information.