Russia has agreed to sell military helicopters to Pakistan and is poised to build a $2 billion natural-gas pipeline in the South Asian country—its biggest investment there in decades—as Islamabad turns toward a former adversary and away from the U.S., its longtime ally. Islamabad has been weighing its strategic options amid rising tension with Washington, which views Pakistan as an unreliable ally in combating Islamist militants in the region, including neighboring Afghanistan. On Thursday, Pakistan said it would buy four Russian Mi-35 attack helicopters for an undisclosed price, after a spate of high-level visits between the two countries. In the Russian city of Ufa last month, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Russian President Vladimir Putin and declared that he wanted a “multidimensional relationship” encompassing defense, commerce and energy. That represents a major shift for both countries, in response to a changing geopolitical dynamic. Pakistan worked alongside the U.S. to defeat Soviet forces that occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, while Russia built close ties with India, Pakistan’s estranged neighbor and rival. Now, the U.S. is increasingly embracing India as a counterweight to a rising China, which it views as a strategic competitor. That has encouraged erstwhile enemies Russia and Pakistan to mend fences. Russia and China are both wise to the tectonic shift underway due to the US’s retreat from the region. The region has been left in a veritable mess. The Afghan war, far from being finished, has left the country in a more precarious position than before, and the Gulf suffers from instability. Not only is it in the interests of these two great powers to have stability and development in their southern region, the significant clout a geographically connected Eurasian nexus of countries with large landmass and larger populations will have is not lost on anyone. Hence the wooing of both Pakistan and India by Russia and China, both wary of the US’s attempts to contain their influence. Pakistan for its part needs a constant supply of foreign assistance. The Russian commitment to build a lengthy gas pipeline and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor both reveal the benefits it can get out of this triangular arrangement. The military establishment is also happy with this arrangement since this guarantees a constant stream of new weapons technology. While it cannot be truthfully claimed that Pakistan-US relations will ever completely collapse, given their history, it makes sense for Pakistan to forge new alliances and learn to live with the new global permutations.
pk.shafaqna.com
