I didn’t say pragmatism should not be a consideration, I said it shouldn’t guide her FP decisionmaking. As a military type who has spent many years overseas, in Pakistan and in Latin America, I know about getting along with the host country and what the boots on the ground have to deal with. Extortion is extortion, and to pay it makes us appear even weaker than the world thinks we are already. If Pakistan - or any other nation - wants our money, they need to be held accountable for their actions.
Colonel, USAFR
Using loaded words like extortion just distorts the discussion. We use foreign aid as a quid pro quo to attain our foreign policy objectives. For example, the foreign aid we give to Egypt was really part of the price we paid to get the Camp David Accords that stabilized relations between Egypt and Israel for over 30 years.
We hold nations accountable for their actions whether they receive foreign aid or not. Much of it is done in private through diplomatic channels. If you recall, we cut off aid to Pakistan in 1979 when they developed a nuclear weapon. We even refused to give them weapons they had already purchased. We resumed aid after the Soviet invasion of Afganistan so we could use Pakistan to provide covert assistance to the Afghans. We drastically reduced aid in the decade of the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union.
I was personally involved in negotiations with the Pakistanis to provide reimbursement for the burning down of our embassy in Islamabad in 1979. Pakistan is not an ally, but neither is it an enemy. The political situation in the country is complex and unstable. Still, we must develop a stable bilateral relationship given the strategic interests we have in the region. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and radical Islamic elements within the country, including in the ISI. It is a very dangerous situation, which we should not exacerbate with inflammatory rhetoric. It is counterproductive.