Pakistan and the United States have been allies since the 1950s, but their relationship has rarely been without tension. Mistrust and cross-purposes have plagued what is characterized as America’s most complicated external relationship. With an expanding nuclear weapons capability and home to a number of Islamist extremist groups that threaten both regional and global security, Pakistan presents a formidable foreign policy challenge for the new Trump administration.
On Friday, February 10, Hudson Institute and The Heritage Foundation released an important new report, A New U.S. Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid Conditions without Cutting Ties. Authored by a group of eminent U.S.-based Pakistan experts, the report calls for a sharper, clear-eyed U.S. policy approach toward Pakistan involving both pragmatic engagement and consequences for uncooperative behavior. The co-chairs of the Experts Working Group on Pakistan Policy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani of Hudson Institute and Lisa Curtis of The Heritage Foundation, discussed the report’s key policy recommendations for reforming the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
