Pakistan and the Problem of Military Aid

[Draggingtree]

Ludwig von Mises Institute: Pakistan and the Problem of Military Aid

Mises Daily: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 by Salmaan A. Khan

“Trade, not aid” said the current prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif. It was six years after its 1947 independence from India that Pakistan experienced a near-famine due to two failed crop seasons from lack of monsoon rains. Meanwhile, Pakistan didn’t have enough hard currency to buy wheat on the international market. The US State Department considered Pakistan on the brink of starvation, so President Eisenhower gained approval from Congress to send one million tons of wheat (known as the Wheat Aid Act), thus beginning Pakistan’s tragic addiction to US foreign aid.

 

According to former Pakistani ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, Eisenhower’s advisors had spoken of their agenda for “bringing strategically situated Pakistan into the free world’s defense system” and “building a Pakistani army and eventually locating American airfields there.” Pakistan had always turned to America for expensive weapons and economic aid, especially due to frequent tension with its much larger neighbor, India. In exchange for weaponry, the US government would make Pakistan a key ally in its “Northern Tier of Defense”