Daily Times

After a great deal of thought, the US has agreed to sell Pakistan $ 952 million worth of military equipment. The attack helicopters and laser-guided Hellfire missiles will help modernise our air power. It is significant that the US has acceded to providing AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, sidewinder missiles and multiple launch rocket systems that were previously banned from being supplied to Pakistan by the US and European countries. The equipment will also include night vision devices, sniper pods, laser designators for long range targeting by the Air Force, ground surveillance devices, combat radio sets, explosive detection and disposal vehicles, etc. This arms deal is a gesture of trust from the US to support Pakistan’s war against the terrorist organisations that have been ravaging the country. As the war in Afghanistan wound down, the US was looking for a means to dispose of the reusable weapons from their operation because the corridors to transport weaponry back to the US were insecure and costly. Pakistan started lobbying for the arms and received a portion of the leftover weapons in January of this year. Perhaps because India has raised its defence budget by 7.9 percent for the fiscal year starting April 1, 2015 and is undertaking to acquire more naval and airborne capacity, the Pakistan government feels a changed threat perception and wishes to boost its own defence in response. In fact one of the reasons that this deal has taken so long to come to fruition is because opinion in the US was wary of the strained relations between India and Pakistan and afraid that Pakistan might use these weapons against its long-time rival. This is why the US has clarified that heavier weapons, like the self-propelled howitzers and M1A1 Abrams tanks will not be provided. Marie Harf, the Deputy Spokesperson for the US State Department stated in no uncertain terms that these weapons “are for internal counter-terrorism uses inside Pakistan so to be very clear about that, going after terrorists inside their own country”. Harf also expressed confidence that the weapons will be used for the purposes for which they were sold and expressed the confidence that the US can track end use of such weapons.
Given the state of Pakistan’s economy and the seemingly unending energy crisis, questions remain as to where the nearly one billion dollars will come from and if the economy will suffer as a result of this big expenditure. It is not clear whether the defence budget will cover these funds or whether they have been appropriated from some other section of the budget. Pakistan’s commitment to rooting out the entrenched terrorist bases in different parts of the country is certainly a relief to the people of Pakistan and the rest of the world, yet the government should abstain from spending more money on arms than is absolutely necessary. *