LONDON: Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British think-tank, in an analysis stated that the Pakistan Army under the “Bajwa doctrine” Pakistan appears far more confident than it was when the US threatened then president General (r) Pervez Musharraf and coerced the country into cooperating.
In a report published on Thursday, the RUSI said the US threats are futile as “gone are the days of timidity and scurrying to please the Americans”.
According to the report, the current policy of the army that should not ‘do more’, but rather the world must do more: the “Bajwa doctrine” dominant in Pakistan’s relation to the US. The doctrine projects that “Pakistan is now adamant that the time for American threats and directives is over.”
The report written by Kamal Alam, RUSI’s expert on Pakistan and the Middle East, quoted Milt Bearden, a former station chief in Islamabad, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, saying Pakistan alone is not responsible for the worsening conflict in Afghanistan.
Even though in Donald Trump’s administration, there is no tolerance for Pakistan, General Bajwa has clearly stated even before Trump’s tweet that the time for Pakistan to do more has come to an end.
Pakistan delivered everything it promised on Afghanistan but the US policy towards Pakistan appeared to be a departure from reality. It further said that Pakistan found new allies in the form of Turkey, China and Japan, whose foreign ministers had made their support for Pakistan’s counter-terrorism effort well known.
“The Pakistani military is fully prepared to face any cuts in US military aid and potential threats of cross-border incursions by American forces and feels its global recognition and reputation of its counter-terror efforts and the military’s role is very different to what it was in 2001,” stated the RUSI report.
US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis has already said that he is in touch with the Pakistani military, as without them the US forces cannot move their equipment or survive in landlocked Afghanistan.
The report said that as far as US military aid that Pakistan is dependent is concerned, the words of the Pakistani Army’s spokesperson Major-General Asif Ghafoor sums up Pakistan’s perspective, ‘Pakistan never fought for money but for peace’.
Pakistan as a military ally to the US has proved more productive than any of its NATO’s allies, and Pakistan is not losing its importance in the region in the near future, the report concluded.