F-16 package
The Biden administration’s approval of a $450-million F-16 fighter jet fleet sustainment programme for Pakistan heralds the resumption of major security assistance by Washington to Islamabad. Calling Pakistan an important counterterrorism partner, the US State Department has said that the programme will ‘sustain Islamabad’s capability to meet current and future counterterrorism threats by maintaining its F-16 fleet’. It was in 2018 that the then US President Donald Trump had suspended about $2 billion in security aid to Islamabad for not taking adequate action against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network terror groups.
Pakistan has done precious little in the past four years to convince the international community of its commitment to counter terrorism. Islamabad needs to explain how it has been using its existing F-16 fighters, if at all, to break the back of terrorists operating from its territory. The undeniable ground reality is that Pak-based terror groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba are targeting India as well as Afghanistan and posing a threat to peace and stability in the region. Considering Islamabad’s lack of credibility on cross-border terrorism, Washington’s decision to bolster Pakistan Air Force’s F-16 prowess reeks of a sinister design to provoke India. America’s double standards are obvious: on the one hand, it sees a key role for India in strengthening the anti-China coalition in the Indo-Pacific region; on the other, it has no qualms about encouraging military muscle-flexing by China’s all-weather ally and India’s arch-enemy Pakistan.
Pakistan’s F16s had taken on India’s fighter aircraft after the 2019 Balakot strike, which was carried out to avenge the Jaish-plotted Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF soldiers had lost their lives. The upswing in America-Pakistan defence ties during Biden’s rule is an ominous sign for India, which should first safeguard its strategic interests and be wary of America’s ploy to use it as a pawn against China. New Delhi must call out Washington for its dubious policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.
