ABSTRACT
The best way to describe the relationship between Pakistan and the United States is to describe it as a marriage of convenience. During the 1950s and 1960s, within the context of the Cold War, the United States was almost single-mindedly focused on securing alliances with as many countries in the greater Middle East region as possible, and Pakistan received its share of the United States’ attention. Pakistan entered into a series of US-inspired alliance relationships and received large amounts of financial and material aid from the United States in return. However, the United States’ imposition of arms embargoes during the periods of the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, and the withdrawal even of economic aid in April 1979, engendered considerable bitterness in many Pakistanis toward the United States.
