WASHINGTON – Apart from China and Russia, one country watching the newly kindled romance between India and the United States with particularly keen interest is Pakistan.

It has been left a spectator as the invigorated US-India partnership deepens amid shared concerns about China, and driven by multibillion-dollar deals in defence and technology.

“I think we do not have any problem with the United States developing a partnership with India if it is not at the cost of Pakistan,” the country’s Minister of Defence Khawaja Asif was quoted as saying ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington this week.

But Pakistan is mired in its own internal political and economic turmoil – and that complicates matters.

The country was hit by an epic flood disaster in 2022 that the World Bank estimated caused US$40 billion (S$54 billion) in damage. Its gross domestic product growth this past year clocked in at less than 0.5 per cent, and annual inflation is at over 37 per cent. Talks with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout remain in limbo at the moment.

On top of that, on May 9, former prime minister Imran Khan – ousted from office in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in 2022 – was arrested on corruption charges. His supporters rioted, with mobs attacking the headquarters and installations of the army, which had once backed him.

Meanwhile, attacks on civilian and military targets by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly referred to as Pakistani Taliban, have increased. The group is allied with the Taliban which took over Afghanistan when US and Nato forces withdrew in 2021 – a development that emboldened the TTP.

This is a conundrum for the US, which designated Pakistan a major non-Nato ally in 2004. It has not helped that Khan, who now has multiple cases against him, has been blaming the US for engineering his downfall.

The US has been frustrated with Pakistan, says Mr Husain Haqqani, Pakistan‘s former ambassador to the US and currently diplomat-in-residence at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi.

“The US has chosen India as its big Asian partner… in the rivalry with China. So that puts Pakistan in a spot,” he told The Straits Times’ Asian Insider podcast.

“The smartest move for Pakistan would be at this time to reach out to India,” said Mr Haqqani, who is also a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

India and Pakistan have had four wars since both countries became independent in 1947 – and have come close to war on several other occasions.

If Pakistan resolves the long-running issues with India, then Islamabad would not need China on its side in opposition to India, and would not need the US to break with India, he said.

“That (would create) a huge new export market for Pakistan,” he said. “Trade opens, tourism opportunities open with Indians coming into Pakistan and spending dollars, and Pakistan puts off any idea of conflict with India for the foreseeable future.”

But “that again, is one of those ideas that are brilliant on paper”, he said, adding that “they are not practical in the sense that nobody on the ground is actually about to implement them”.

“So for the foreseeable future, Pakistan… (will remain) closer to China than it is to the United States,” he said. “It wants to be wooed back by the United States, and that is just not happening at the moment.”

Commenting on Pakistan’s internal security, Mr Haqqani said: “Pakistan remains politically fragile.”

On the one hand, the Pakistani military is the problem because its political engineering and intervention has not allowed Pakistan’s leadership to come up with new solutions and a new path forward for the country. On the other hand, it is also a huge force that can maintain some semblance of order.

“The country’s fraying economically, the social fabric is in tatters, but it manages to be kept together by force of arms,” said Mr Haqqani.

“Pakistan will remain in a flailing position and in a weak position,” he noted. “But if somebody thinks that it’s going to come apart very quickly, that is not the immediate scenario.

“Pakistanis often say ‘we are a resilient nation’, and Pakistan has proved to be that,” he said. “But it’s a resilience that allows them to survive without succeeding.”