Pakistan-US Military Alliance

PAKISTAN'S disputes with India were no doubt central to Pakistan's foreign policy immediately after independence. But it is a common mistake to look at it too narrowly, in the context exclusively of Pakistan's conflicts with its big neighbour. That obscures the extent to which Pakistan was increasingly drawn into the west Asia (as from the mid- 1950s) following on the role that it was assigned by the US in western military strategy for the region. Pakistan's relationship with the US was set on a new course in (he 1950s, culminating in a military alliance and treaties that imposed far-reaching and unilateral commitments on Pakistan to subserve US purposes.