Some historical context.
The initial period, up to 1951, established strategic preferences and mutual perceptions. Pakistan’s birth was, of course, very difficult and the economic, institutional and strategic inheritances left it feeling vulnerable. As an anxious state it sought financial and military assistance. Britain was in depleted financial health after the war and its role in the Kashmir dispute was not viewed favourably by the Pakistan state. In these conditions many in the establishment thought the USA was the best bet.
This was not uncontested. A faction led by Khawaja Nazimuddin favoured an approach to foreign policy with an emphasis on pan-Islamic links. There were also some scattered leftist voices that advocated a more balanced approach that included closer engagement with the Soviet Union. Ultimately the faction led by Ghulam Muhammad, Zafrullah Khan, Ayub Khan and Iskander Mirza, steered Pakistan toward a pro-Western orientation. This early orientation shaped Soviet perceptions of Pakistan as a state within the American sphere of influence.
It was symbolically significant that Liaquat visited the US in 1950 rather than Moscow. It also says much about the anxious mindset of the elite that Liaquat expended great energy in the trip in trying to persuade the US of the need for a territorial guarantee for Pakistan underwritten by the US and Britain. Although Liaquat made a good impression, the material outcome was meagre. No promises of aid, no territorial guarantee, no assurances on Kashmir. Liaquat was disappointed and therefore did not agree with his cabinet that Pakistani troops should be sent to Korea.
When in 1951 the US provided significant amounts of aid to India, compared with the offer to Pakistan, even Ghulam Muhammad complained that it had left them feeling like “a prospective bride who observes her suitor spending very large sums on a mistress, i.e. India, while she herself can look forward to no more than a token maintenance in the event of marriage.”
Although the evidence remains inconclusive, it has been suggested that, shortly before his assassination, Liaquat had begun reconsidering Pakistan’s unqualified alignment with the West. Yet by this point, the basic strategic direction had already been set in motion.
Pakistan’s formal entry into Western security arrangements (SEATO in 1954 and CENTO in 1955), institutionalised its alignment with the US and reinforced Soviet perceptions of Pakistan as a state in the Western camp.
These foundational choices explain the early estrangement with the Soviet Union, which later developments reinforced. The Soviet Union’s increasingly close military and diplomatic partnership with India during the 1960s and 1970s culminating in the the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was a further ‘nail in the coffin’. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and Pakistan’s central role in the US-backed mujahideen resistance sealed the antagonism.
