The Strings Attached to Pakistan Aid May Not Lead Where You Think

This is a joint post with Wren Elhai.It seems everyone has an opinion on what the U.S. should do with its aid to Pakistan. In recent weeks, there have been calls to freeze all assistance to Pakistan – military and economic –and calls to stay the course. Nearly three in four Americans back cuts. Many of the loudest voices in Congress have been for attaching strings to the aid (or enforcing the conditions already in place)—usually demanding that Pakistan do more to root out militant groups within its borders. But it’s worth distinguishing more carefully between military aid and economic aid. The same conditions are not right for each. The obvious example: Withholding aid that supports Pakistan’s civilian democratic government because the military or intelligence services aren’t behaving is cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.Fareed Zakaria is one of the more thoughtful observers parsing the conditionality question. He writes in the Washington Post that, among other steps, that Washington should:

“Demand that the provisions of the Lugar-Kerry bill on civilian control of the military be strictly followed or aid will be withheld.”

That’s actually quite a clear statement—but open to misinterpretation by those who haven’t read the Kerry-Lugar bill (it’s here if you’d like to give it a quick skim). Though many today are blurring the distinction, the 2009 Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill (that authorized $7.5 billion in economic aid to Pakistan) clearly separates the conditions it imposes on economic assistance and security assistance.The provisions related to military interference in the civilian government in the Kerry-Lugar law (the provisions Fareed wants enforced) refer explicitly to the billions of dollars in security assistance the United States gives to Pakistan. They do not apply to the $7.5 billion designed to support economic development and to help Pakistan’s fragile democratic government enhance its capabilities. This is a point that the authors themselves had to clarify after the bill’s passage when the Pakistani security establishment cried foul.The authors of Kerry-Lugar-Berman got it right—and those in Congress calling for more strings on aid to Pakistan should heed their logic. In applying conditions to the disbursement of aid, it’s critical to consider the incentives at play—who gets the aid, how much they would care if it were cut off, and in the case of the civilian government, whether it has the ability to provide the United States what it wants.The events of the last two weeks highlight just how little ability Pakistan’s elected civilian leaders have to say no to top military brass (let alone tell them what to do!). Part of the point of Kerry-Lugar-Berman was to add support for the civilian government to balance the considerable support for the military provided since 9/11. Kerry-Lugar-Berman was an investment in a stronger, more democratic state and in the economic conditions (e.g. more middle class jobs) that could nourish democracy in Pakistan. Threatening the economic aid program over security-related demands would be a clear sign that the U.S. relationship is indeed purely transactional, just another sphere where the military calls the shots. Talat Masood, himself a former general, warns that pulling aid would strengthen the military and weaken an already fragile civilian government—making a military takeover that much more likely. Anyway, cutting off economic aid probably wouldn’t affect the military’s bottom-line. Even as the Pakistani deficit balloons, the Army has been the top priority in the Pakistani budget process—cutting everything else comes first. We are agnostic on the best way for the United States to influence the strategic calculus of the Pakistani military—but it should be clear that threatening the relationship with Pakistan’s civilian leaders isn’t it.The importance of development in Pakistan extends far beyond the current rocky moment in the bilateral relationship, only the latest in a steady stream of such rocky moments. Economic aid to Pakistan is fundamentally about the clear U.S. interest in a more stable and prosperous Pakistan over the long run. Done well, aid might help nudge along those politicians and technocrats who are struggling to drive change from inside. Aid can support Pakistan’s thousands of active and independent civil society groups, its new generation of educated women who are starting low-cost private schools of good quality, and, yes, its many enlightened public servants and politicians who are struggling to make government more responsive to its millions of non-terrorist families. (Though, to be sure, the assistance program must do this better than it has so far.)This moment does present an opportunity to revisit what Pakistan and the United States expect from each other, and how the rhetoric of an “enduring partnership” can be made more than talk. That process must include a discussion of what the U.S. development program in Pakistan aims to achieve. But before policymakers on Capitol Hill attach strings to economic aid in Pakistan, they must be sure they know where those strings lead.