PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir’s meeting with American President Donald Trump will continue to echo for weeks, perhaps months.
The US president’s continuous engagement with Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership is being framed as a signal of a broader policy shift in Washington, one that touches the Middle East, South Asia and, most critically, America’s approach to China and India. Pakistan, for its part, has accepted a role in this evolving order, though uncertainty lingers over what shape it will ultimately take.
Analysts continue to speculate, but the specifics of Pakistan’s emerging role are unclear. What is evident, however, is Islamabad’s agility in sensing Washington’s shifting policy mood and recalibrating its own position accordingly. In recent months, Pakistan has faced a tense stand-off with India, ongoing instability in Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine and China’s expanding global influence, all of which have reshaped the strategic landscape. Amid these disruptions, Pakistan has repositioned itself to remain relevant.
In this shifting context, Pakistan has regained sudden importance not as a client state, nor as a conventional security one, and certainly not as a functioning democracy, but as a flexible idea state. Despite its fragile economy, weak institutions and a self-serving elite, it continues to navigate regional and global politics with surprising dexterity, maintaining a precarious balance among adversaries. Its willingness to engage any power that recognises its potential, primarily in defence, minerals and natural resources, has become its main bargaining leverage. The ability to reposition itself in turbulent times has long defined Pakistan’s survival strategy.
Managing this balance is not easy for a medium-sized state with two powerful neighbours — one an outright adversary, the other a partner sensitive to Islamabad’s other alignments. Pakistan also has to maintain its balance vis-à-vis two other states with competing ideological and political priorities, reinforced by their influence within Pakistan’s religious communities, where they are perceived as friends or foes. Yet, Pakistan has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to coexist with these contradictions and utilise them to its advantage.
The specifics of Pakistan’s emerging role are unclear.
This outlook was recently captured by Pakistan’s defence minister, who credited the ‘hybrid’ nature of the state for soothing US-Pakistan relations. The term, often invoked by both civilian and military leaders to describe their domestic arrangement, has now extended into foreign policy.
Pakistan, in effect, has become a hedging state: one that cultivates ties with competing powers, avoids overdependence on any single actor and keeps its strategic options open. However, unlike other hedging states, Pakistan’s version is driven by its hybrid security structure, where security imperatives dominate politics and governance, intelligence agencies wield disproportionate influence and foreign policy is shaped more by the logic of threat and survival than a long-term vision.
A state with such credentials can do business even with its adversaries if it sees an advantage. Turkiye, Egypt, Qatar and Azerbaijan share similar traits, maintaining relations with powers that are often at odds with each other. Yet Pakistan’s case remains distinctive; its hybrid regime not only practises this flexibility but openly frames it as a strength. Islamabad has never hesitated to initiate dialogue with India when expedient, though the driving motive has consistently been elite survival and consolidation, rather than a coherent long-term state strategy.
These very credentials — the ability to navigate contradictions, recalibrate under pressure and conduct business even with adversaries — appear to have inspired Washington to enter yet another phase of partnership with Pakistan, despite the bitter legacies of counterterrorism cooperation and the Afghan war.
The warming ties reflect a convergence of pragmatic needs on both sides: for the US, in line with its interests in the region, counterterrorism, trade and mineral investments; for Pakistan, economic relief, strategic recognition and reaffirmation of its indispensability. Trump’s willingness to personally host Pakistan’s military leadership at the White House, alongside meetings with Prime Minister Sharif, underscores Washington’s acknowledgement of the hybrid structure of power in Islamabad.
For Pakistan’s elites, the revival of this partnership is less about a coherent long-term strategy and more about leveraging US interests in the region to consolidate their own political and economic standing, while keeping open channels with China, the Gulf states and even India when expedient.
What, then, are America’s regional interests in West and South Asia? Analysts have listed several. In the Middle East, Washington’s priorities range from advancing the Abraham Accords, this time with Saudi Arabia, and potentially Pakistan, on board if there is to be regime change in Iran, in support of President Trump’s new peace roadmap on Palestine, which Prime Minister Sharif seems to have publicly endorsed after he met the American leader and other Muslim leaders in New York, where the UN General Assembly is underway.
In South Asia, the US appears focused on containing India, at least temporarily, by partnering with Pakistan on common objectives in Afghanistan, and most importantly, pulling Islamabad back from Beijing’s orbit, a move that could unsettle China, which has long viewed Pakistan as its most reliable ally.
Geo-economics further complicates this web of regional objectives. A race for mineral and energy resources, most visibly between the US and China, is already underway, and for Pakistan, this competition presents an attractive space for collaboration. Yet the real question is which of these objectives Pakistan can genuinely help Washington achieve, and for how long. What would be the nature of the relationship if the US were to meet its goals at a desirable level?
Does Pakistan have the capacity to sustain meaningful engagement with the US in economic and defence cooperation, the outcome Rawalpindi most desires over the long term, and at what cost? These questions will continue to shape the debate in the weeks ahead, surfacing in varying contexts as the partnership is tested.
The writer is a security analyst.
Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2025
