United States cuts aid to Pakistan, again.

With today’s news that the Trump administration will withhold almost all military aid to Pakistan, I wanted to share the table and working timeline I’ve been using to help ground my argument for why the United States policy is neither new nor is it a game changer.

The disbursement amounts can be found on the USAID Foreign Aid Explorer. It is a remarkable source of information and I am glad that something like this is finally available. For years, figuring out how much money the United States gives to countries has been like trying to figure out a level 6 Hanayama puzzle.

A few observations:

Since 2001, U.S. patience with Pakistan’s actions on terrorism seems to run out after every 2-3 years, which is when a cut in aid has typically occurred.

Changes in aid seem to follow a major incident or conflict, such as the Osama bin Laden raid, but they also occur in parallel to major political transitions, such as the election of a new government (both in the United States and Pakistan).

It appears that a change of leadership allows states to rethink strategies that perhaps were connected to specific leaders but were no longer productive. Here, the case of Pervez Musharraf is strongest. The United States probably gave him the most blank checks of any Pakistani leader since 2001, but when his government began to topple, U.S. policymakers spoke up about putting conditions on military aid to Pakistan.

Aid is a partisan tool. The Obama administration listened to experts who said that civilian aid in Pakistan was massively underfunded for decades, and especially under the Bush administration, which sent military aid to Pakistan skyrocketing. To balance that out, President Obama approved a bunch of cash for Pakistani civilians. The move, ironically, had the opposite effect. It angered the military leadership, who viewed U.S. support to civilians as a threat to its own existence.

What’s missing? All of the covert aid that the United States funneled into Pakistan through its *other* programs. We don’t know how much of that continues today – but I can guarantee that most of it, if not all, is military focused.

Which leads me to my final point: the Trump administration said it would suspend most security aid to Pakistan, but not all. Let’s wait and see what they’re really talking about.

Here are the numbers: