Pakistan's Last Gambit continues .....

Pakistan benefited from being the strategic ally of the US in the ‘Global War on Terror.’ Billions poured in for the support, much of it went into beefing up the military and its top leadership.

There were other ‘goodies’ in exchange for cooperation. But what the military leaders in Pakistan failed to grasp was what the country had lost in the bargain. There were murmurs of protest within the top military leadership for striking a bargain with the US. Those who opposed the alliance believed that it undermined their own time-tested policies in dealing with problems emanating from Afghanistan. They believed that the US would force them to give up their ‘strategic assets’—first the terrorist groups and then the nuclear assets.

BLOWBACK POST-2001

Although General Pervez Musharraf and his coterie prevailed, the decision to support the US-led Global War on Terror cost Pakistan heavily. The loss, in terms of security and economy, was enormous.

A June 2013 estimate made by the Pakistan Finance Ministry claimed an overall loss of $100 billion during the 12 years of the 'Global War on Terror.’ The economy careened—the GDP growth stood hovering around 2 per cent in 2009 while other economies in the region (India at 8 per cent; Bangladesh at 6 per cent) were marking a phenomenal growth rate. Energy crunch became an acute crisis.

The Ministry of Finance in one of its reports summed up the cost of the blowback: “Since 2006, the War has spread like a contagion into settled areas of Pakistan that has so far, cost the country more than 35,000 citizens, 3,500 security personnel, destruction of infrastructure, internal migration of millions of people from parts of northwestern Pakistan erosions of investment.