IN Pakistan, the sun sets and rises in the west. Political meteorologists saw a waning sunset in US-Pak relations in the US National Security Strategy (NSS) encyclical of 2017, issued during President Donald Trump’s first tenure. They notice a false sunrise in his latest NSS paper, issued in November 2025.
NSS of 2017 devoted a precious paragraph to the threats emanating from an unstable Pakistan. In part, it said: “The United States continues to face threats from transnational terrorists and militants operating from Pakistan… . The prospect of an Indo-Pakistani military conflict that could lead to a nuclear exchange remains a key concern requiring consistent diplomatic attention[.]” It says, the US seeks “a Pakistan that is not engaged in destabilising behaviour” and that it “will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts [and] encourage Pakistan to continue demonstrating that it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets”.
In NSS 2025, there is no mention of Pakistan incubating terrorism nor of the Indo-Pakistan skirmish in May 2025, beyond a self-congratulatory pat on the back by Trump for settling in eight months “eight raging conflicts”, one of them being between Pakistan and India.
On India’s part, it has always been suspicious of suns that rise in the west. NSS 2017, for example, may have declared that the US would deepen its “strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region [and] encourage India to increase its economic assistance in the region”.
Trump’s largesse has not erased memory of US sanctions.
In NSS 2025, however, that unequivocal endorsement stands diluted. It says that the US would “continue to improve commercial (and other) relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to Indo-Pacific security, including through continued quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and the United States (“the Quad”)”. It foresees that the “Indo-Pacific is already, and will continue to be, among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds [my italics]”.
President Trump has yet to visit Pakistan. He has, however, hosted its top civilian and military leadership in the White House. At the Gaza peace summit in October in Sharm El-Sheikh, Trump unusually yielded the microphone to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. He returned the compliment by nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
If ‘America First’ is the North Star in Trump’s firmament, to Indian PM Narendra Modi Indo-Russian ties are a “guiding star”, as he put it during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi this month. Modi’s hopes that Putin might revive the fusion of interests that birthed the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty of 1971 proved illusory. No Su-57 stealth fighter aircraft, no S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, or the S-500 model. Both Russia and India know that Russia no longer has the military means nor the international clout to confront Trump’s America or outclass Chinese technology.
Trump has already made his attitude towards India and Russia clear. In July, he tweeted: “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together.” He has described India as a “laundromat for the Kremlin”. He would like India to stop or at least minimise its purchase of oil from Russia, but India remains obdurate. It’s is the second-largest consumer of Russian oil, after China.
No sooner had Putin flown out of New Delhi than Trump untied US purse strings by approving a sweetheart deal for Pakistan worth $686 million of defence articles to rejuvenate Pakistan Air Force’s F-16 fleet. To some in Pakistan, Trump’s impulsive largesse has not erased memory of the US sanctions and arms embargo on Pakistan in 1990, because of our nuclear programme. Then, 28 F-16s paid for by us were embargoed and stored on US soil. At present, Pakistan is believed to have between 70 to 80 operational F-16s. This latest sale would help extend the jets’ service life through 2040.
To others in the US, America’s military dominance is actually on the decline. A recent analysis by The New York Times’s influential Editorial Board examined the US military — “technologically, bureaucratically, culturally, politically, and strategically”.
Why, it asks, have successive US administrations invested “in the old way of war?” It blames Congress, the Pentagon, military culture, and their resistance to change. It warns against Trump’s determination to squander $1 trillion in 2026. That money will do more, it believes, to magnify America’s weaknesses than sharpen its strength.
Interestingly, the NYT board predicts that China will seize Taiwan by 2027. That eventuality will fall within the terms of the present US and Pakistani governments. Will Pakistan again change the direction of its sunrises?
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2025
