 Good afternoon. My name is Moid Yusuf. I am the Associate Vice President here at USIP's Asia Center and look after the South Asia Pakistan portfolio. Thanks all for joining us. Today's event on a relationship that has been one of the closest since 9-11, and yet one that remains contested at a number of levels. Today's event will focus on the US-Pakistan assistance relationship, which of course has become an even more crucial question given that a new administration will be in office. There have been a lot of conversations about where this relationship will go, what its utility is, how does US assistance help Pakistan, and what are Pakistani views on this assistance? Just to give you a quick rundown, Pakistan has received more than $20 billion, $20.9 billion dollars in US assistance, economic security, humanitarian, and military reimbursement since 9-11. Congress appropriated more than $18 billion of this assistance, including $10.5 billion for economic development and humanitarian aid. In addition, there was about $13 billion on the Coalition Support Fund, which are military reimbursements. The slide we've put up here gives you a sense of the actual disbursements to Pakistan, except 2017, which of course are appropriations and anticipated. But if you look from 2009 to 2016, the numbers you see there are actual disbursements against security, economic, and then CSF reimbursables. The thing to note here is fairly obvious, which is that the assistance is on a downward trajectory. It peaked in 2010 at about $4.6 billion, and since then has been going down. And in 2017, again, this could prove to be slightly different. But this is the first time that we are seeing a number which is going to be probably less than $1 billion in disbursements to Pakistan in 2017. We are also in a time when earlier this year, I think it was fairly clear that there was a sterner view being taken in Washington on Pakistan's assistance. We saw more conditionalities applied to security aid. We also saw a defeat of a proposition to allow the FMF account for Pakistani F-16s, essentially a subsidy for Pakistan to buy those fighter planes. And I spent the summer in Pakistan and was fairly troubled that a fairly similar view exists there in terms of US assistance, the conversations on both sides being fickle partners. It's not working out. And in Pakistan, increasingly, a conversation about, well, let's look elsewhere. So the mood is fairly somber, I think, on both sides. And to discuss these issues and the assistance package and also where this relationship will head in the coming year or two, we have an excellent panel. And I can promise you, we couldn't have had better people sitting here to discuss this given their experience and background. I'll introduce them very briefly. But before that, let me just inform you on the format that we decided we'll go with. And rather than sort of the traditional longer presentations up front and then a Q&A, what we thought we'll do is make this much more conversational. So I've requested the panelists to speak for a very brief three to four minute period in the beginning to give their introductory remarks, essentially addressing what they would advise the next US administration on US assistance to Pakistan and what would be the justification for that. And then we'll open it up for a conversation among the panelists. I'll ask a few questions, but they will basically have a free flowing conversation, I hope. And then we'll leave at least half an hour for discussion at the end. Please do turn off or put your cell phones on silent as we begin. We are webcasting this event. There is also overflow space where people are. So we want to make sure that everybody can hear. So if the panelists can also please speak into their mics so that you're audible to the people not in the room. So very quickly to introduce our panelists, Lisa Curtis is the senior research fellow on South Asia at the Heritage Foundation, works on US India, US Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and on Islamist extremism and religious freedom, spent a number of years working in the US government and also has served as professional staff on the Hill. Ambassador Robin Raffael, former US diplomat, ambassador to Tunisia, also an acclaimed Pakistan expert, and she served as the first, if I'm not wrong, US non-military assistance coordinator in Islamabad for a number of years. And so basically lived this assistance world every day in Islamabad. She was also the first ever US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs back in 1993. Ambassador Hussain Akhani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US from 2008 to 11, currently senior fellow and director of South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, also has held several cabinet positions in Pakistan in the past, a scholar in his own right, his books Pakistan Between Mosque and Military, and more recently, Magnificent Delusions, US Pakistan, and the Global Jihad, are both bestsellers. And last but not least, Dr. Ishut Hussain, who we are very fortunate to have, he's visiting Washington DC on a fellowship, public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Institute. Formerly the governor of Pakistan State Bank or the Central Bank, also has had a distinguished two-decade long career at the World Bank before that, so knows Washington very, very well. Robin, may I begin with you? Yes, you may. Just hold it, I think it's on. Just hold it, it's on. Okay, thank you very much, Moid. It's really a pleasure to be here with this very distinguished panel. I'm gonna be the glass half full person here this afternoon, I think, since I was there at the beginning of our efforts to devise and implement the Kerry Luger-Burman bill money in Pakistan starting in 2009. And I think there are a lot of myths about that program. It didn't work, the Pakistanis didn't. Like it, USAID and the State Department were fighting all the time and so on. And I think many of the criticisms that have been made of this program are both inaccurate and certainly a bit out of date. There actually have been a number of important and successful projects that came out of the six billion that's been appropriated thus far under Kerry Luger-Burman. I'm sure many of you who are interested in aid to Pakistan have heard this before, but let me just briefly recap. 2,400 megawatts of electricity added to the grid, clean energy partnership with the Planning Commission in infrastructure, 1,100 kilometers of roads, economic growth we set up the first public-private partnerships, USG and private sector money to invest equity investments in projects in Pakistan by three private equity partner firms. In the health sector, we built two hospitals, did endless training for midwives and other health professionals and so on. Education, we have four major university partnerships focusing on key areas of interest for the Pakistani economy, water, agriculture, energy and so on and a number of smaller university partnerships, 20 to be precise of smaller ones, which engage Pakistani and American academics and of course still the largest Fulbright program providing opportunity for Pakistanis to study in the United States and Americans to study in Pakistan. And finally, there was about a billion dollars spent on humanitarian assistance over this period. And I would argue that the people affected by these programs and certainly Pakistani officials by this point very much appreciated and saw the value of these projects. Now, what about the criticisms that there wasn't a plan, that there wasn't good interagency coordination, there wasn't Pakistani buy-in and so on? I can say, because I was there from the very beginning, we worked hard between the State Department and USAID to try and come up with a program that met everybody's interests. And in fact, there was a plan. We identified five sectors and more or less over the years, those five sectors were where we put the money. And we did consult from the beginning extensively with Pakistanis and we met with other donors and so on. So all that was going on from the beginning. The sorts of things that people criticized us for not doing we were actually doing. So what was the problem? Well, the State Department and USAID had to reconcile the competing interests that we had. Long-term projects versus short-term projects with the goal of the short-term projects looking for stabilization in post-conflict areas. Long-term projects looking for long-term development outcomes. We had to reconcile those. We had to reconcile implementation mechanisms. Were we going to work through the government and therefore underwriting the government's priorities or were we going to implement through contractors less connected with the government? Two different methods, two different results. And then there was the policy perspective of the State Department and the implementer's perspective of USAID. So we had to reconcile these sorts of things. The plan that we had evolved, it had to adjust to changing circumstances. At one point in 2010, there was a massive flood we had to shift resources for that humanitarian emergency. The Pakistanis devolved responsibility for education and health to the provinces. So we had to adjust our programs to work with the provinces. There was a recognition finally that many of the social and economic problems that Pakistan had were in the urban areas, not just with the rural poor. So we shifted resources to programs in Karachi. So there were these kinds of changes that we had to make to our overall program. Pakistan itself had a limited ability to prioritize its development needs. People wanted to do this, but they just didn't have the staff. They didn't have the experience. So the absorptive capacity on the Pakistani side was very limited. And a lot of people and officials were in an old groove of aid dependency and entitlement and so on. So we had to move beyond that. And of course, we ended up dealing with increasing security challenges, rapid turnover personnel. These are problems that we've had in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. The USAID mission, for example, is on its fifth mission director since 2009. And that makes it hard to bring continuity. Normally, a mission director would stay three or four years. So what has changed with these various challenges to make the progress that we have made possible? And mostly the answer is time has gone by and people have worked hard. The relationship between state and aid and their various perspective has matured. They see much more eye to eye now. There's more genuine commitment to the programs that we've evolved over this period. Pakistan has a much better sense of its priorities. This planning commission has Vision 2025. The US and other donors are trying to align our programs with that. The current Pakistani government's less focused or even obsessed, one might say, with aid. You don't hear so much about the war, Pakistan's participation in the global war on terrorism, costing them $50 billion and that the international community ought to make that up to them. You don't hear that so much anymore. There's much more of an emphasis on the trade, not aid, on trade and investment agreement talks, on business conferences to interest US companies in investing in Pakistan. So in short, the aid, bilateral aid package and program has a more realistic perspective, is seen with a more realistic perspective in Pakistan at this point. And this is only reasonable since bilateral donor flows now globally are much smaller than they were here to for. They're dwarfed by remittances and other flows. For the future, I would say it's important to stay engaged clearly with Pakistan and on the economic and development issues. That's my prejudice as a diplomat and development professional. And I think to a certain degree, we need to recognize that you have to pay to play. If we're gonna have a voice on economic reform in Pakistan, if we're going to be heard in the strategic dialogue that we have in sectors that are important both to us and to the Pakistanis, we need to keep a development program in place. It doesn't have to be the billion dollar program that we started with in the 2009 period. It can be a much more appropriate number, but you need to have some assistance to support reform, to support the kinds of changes we would like to see in Pakistan, which we think would be good for them. Finally, I think it's very important to keep in mind two things. One of which I've already underscored. Any assistance program takes a long time to show results. Everybody in the case of Pakistan was much too impatient. We were, our Congress was, Pakistanis were. In fact, the $7.5 billion that was authorized by the Kerry Luger-Burman bill over five years should have been over 10 years. It would have been much more realistic. And then we need to be clear about what the purpose of our economic and development assistance programs are. If it is to make people like us, I think we're barking up the wrong tree. The real purpose, in my view, is to promote inclusive economic development in countries like Pakistan. And the reason we wanna do that is because we believe, and I think it's still true, that if you have that, people get invested in their society, they get invested in their governments, and you're more likely to have political stability. And political stability is the object of the exercise from the point of view of status quo powers like the United States. And it's just very important to remember that money can't buy you love. And this, we decided was our theme song and there is points in our assistance relationship, both political and both economic and military. That was our theme song. But I think if we keep our eye on the ball, which is that development is important in its own sake, and we don't need to have credit for it necessarily, we'd be a lot better off. And of course, in the end, when you do give people opportunities for higher education, when you build a road in their neighborhood, when you build a hospital in their neighborhood, they do appreciate it. It's all the hype that went along with this program for various reasons that I think got us off course. So, thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Hello, thank you for coming here today, and thank you, Moid, for inviting me. It's an honor to be here with the rest of the distinguished panelists. Let me start off by expressing my sincere condolences. The assistance is still intact, it's just the mic. So let me start off by expressing my sincere condolences on the two major terrorist attacks that have occurred in Pakistan over the last couple of weeks. You may have read about the attack on the Sufi shrine in the heart of Balochistan last weekend, and before that, last month, the major attack on the police academy in Quetta. So I just want to extend my sincere condolences in hope that the perpetrators of these heinous attacks will be brought to justice. So the Obama administration entered into office eight years ago with the idea that they would elevate the strategic dialogue between the U.S. and Pakistan. And also, the Kerry Luger-Burman legislation was passed about six, seven months into the Obama administration, a new plan for drastically increasing economic aid to the country. So there was this strategy of increasing engagement with Pakistan, and hopefully that would convince Pakistan to more closely align its objectives in Afghanistan with those of the U.S. I think that was essentially the plan. And of course, by 2010, 2011, the U.S. was providing significant amounts of economic aid as we saw in the chart, I think 4.6 billion in 2010, 3.6 billion in both military and economic aid in 2011. Since 2011, those numbers have been gradually decreasing. And in fiscal year 2017, the State Department requested 743 million in aid, roughly half in security assistance, half in economic assistance. Now, of course, I think one of the reasons that the aid has begun to drop off is because of the U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan. The U.S. relies less on the ground lines of communication through Pakistan and to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The fact that Islam bin Laden was eliminated, the Al-Qaeda threat has receded somewhat, although not altogether in the region. I think this has contributed, but I also think what's contributed is a growing frustration that we have not seen more action against the Taliban that resides in Pakistan, against the Haqqani network, which still has bases in the tribal border areas, and other actions against groups that attack India, like Lashgri Tyba and Jeshi Muhammad. So I think we have to acknowledge there's a certain frustration there. So there has been counter-terrorism conditions on our military aid going back to the Kerry-Lugar-Burman legislation. You might remember there was a lot of consternation in Pakistan because of these counter-terrorism conditions. Now, the Obama administration exercised its national security waiver authority for many years to waive those conditions. But a couple of years ago, the Congress put into the National Defense Authorization Act stipulations that basically indicated that 300 million of the coalition support funds would not be allowed to fall under that waiver authority. So in fact, this past summer, when the Defense Department was not able to certify that Pakistan had taken certain measures against the Haqqani network in particular, 300 million in coalition support funds was withheld. So back in 2008, I actually co-chaired a working group on Pakistan. How the new Obama administration then would, how they should approach Pakistan. And I actually see some people in the audience, like Jack Gill, who were part of that report, yeah, so, but let me just quote for you because I think it's important to, so that we kind of track where we are on these things. In 2008, we had recommended in our report that the US should develop a strategy that seeks to adjust Pakistan's cost-benefit calculus of using militants in its foreign policy. And we should do this through closer cooperation and by calibrating US military assistance. Well, I think eight years later, we can say that the strategy has not really worked. The Taliban still operate in Pakistan. The Haqqani network still operates from Pakistan. We even had a terrorist, the ringleader of the Mumbai attacks, Zakir Rahman Luckvi, was released from a Pakistani jail in April, 2015. We've had two major attacks in India by Pakistan-based militants in the last nine months that have put the subcontinent on a crisis footing. So clearly the strategy did not really succeed. Now, also in this 2008 report that we had done, this Pakistan experts report, we had noted that US government agencies at the time were divided over what they thought the nature and the extent of Pakistan support to the Taliban and other extremist groups was. I would say eight years later, you don't really find anybody in the US government who disputes that there is that support to the militant groups. So the question is, what can the US do about it? And I think the title of the program was, what would we advise the next US administration? So certainly the US cannot achieve its counterterrorism objectives without Pakistan cracking down on terrorists that both attack Afghanistan and attack India. It's my belief there has to be a comprehensive approach to all terrorists that are present in the country. But it's certainly not in the US interest to make an enemy out of Pakistan. And I think this idea that has come up, particularly on Capitol Hill, of designating Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism would be completely unhelpful. This would preclude the US from providing any kind of aid to Pakistan, preclude the kind of engagement that Robin has just talked about. And I believe would lead to an irreparable breach in the relationship. Therefore, I don't see that as a realistic policy option. But the US must, it can and it must, however, better leverage our US military aid to encourage tougher policies against all terrorists that are present in Pakistan. And I do think that the civilian aid should not be impacted. I think Robin has just spelled out a lot of the good that has been done in Pakistan with our civilian aid. I'm very supportive of those programs. They may not be perfect. There may be some corruption, some lack of efficiencies. But I think by and large, this is a way for the US to show its goodwill to remain engaged with the country. And even just something like the Fulbright Scholarship Program. This is so important, educate, bringing Pakistani students over to the US for education. These kinds of programs need to continue. So, I think just to wrap up, I would just say that I think what we do with Pakistan is related to Afghanistan. Clearly the US has important objectives in Afghanistan. We still have nearly 9,000 troops posted there. It will continue to be an important front in the war against terrorism. We can't afford to see Afghanistan have a meltdown like we saw in Iraq in 2014 with the rise of ISIS. And I think the next US administration will be very cognizant of that. And I think that, so I think it will help us if we are to sort of recommit to stabilizing Afghanistan, maybe even increasing our troop numbers. Because if you remember in 2010, US military commanders when the Obama administration was starting to draw down from the surge, US military commanders at that time were recommending about 15 to 20,000 US troops remain in Afghanistan indefinitely, helping the Afghan security forces. So I think if we can recommit to Afghanistan, I think that will help in our strategy with Pakistan because I think the sort of timelines for withdrawal that were repeated by the Obama administration have led Pakistan to sort of hedge its bets when it comes to Afghanistan. So lastly, let me just take this opportunity to remind everyone that there are two American professors from the American University in Afghanistan that were kidnapped in August and they remain prisoners three months later. And the available information does point to them being held somewhere in Pakistan. So it's our hope that Pakistan will take this responsibility in preventing organizations from using its territory to carry out actions such as this and that all possible actions will be taken to secure the release of those being held hostage. Thank you. Thanks, thank you, Lisa. Asakand. Thank you very much, Moeed, for inviting me to speak here and thank you even more for putting up that chart up there for those in the audience who forget to when I served as ambassador to the United States. The three years when the aid to Pakistan was highest are the three years that I served as ambassador to the United States, including the year when it had 4.6 billion. So therefore what I say about aid to Pakistan should be seen in the context of somebody who has actively tried to lobby the city for more aid and succeeded. This wasn't planned. This wasn't planned. I know. Let me just say that I will try and put the US-Pakistan relationship and aid in context and I have chosen six words of the English language, each one of them beginning with the letter D to characterize the US-Pakistan relationship as it relates to aid. The first of these is divergence. I think that since the beginning, Pakistan and the United States have had a divergence of core interests. Pakistan's foreign policy has always been centered on Pakistan's relations with India. That may not be my choice, but that is my nation's choice and that has been Pakistan's consistent policy. It has not been America's consistent policy. So therefore this relationship has always tried to do a dance around with one another how to fit in America's sort of concerns, du jour in Pakistan's concerns in a way in which Pakistan can continue to receive assistance under the rubric of America's bigger policy grant strategy. You want to fight communism? Of course we want to fight communism. Can you arm us? Please do. We will raise a few divisions and of course we will give them to you to fight against communism after you have helped us sort out our problems with India. So therefore it has always been an India centered thing and the convergence has always been marginal. The divergence has been far more significant. That's point number one. Because that really impinges on aid policy because Americans always end up getting upset that we gave this to you for this reason but you haven't used it for that purpose, especially military assistance. Second, it has fed delusions on both sides. So delusions is the second D. Divergence, delusions. And of course I have written a book and those of you who haven't bought it please go and buy it right away by the hardcover edition. That contributes to my children's future a lot more than the paperback one. It's titled Magnificent Delusions. And why do I say that? Because if you read the history from inception 1949, first serious interaction, the Prime Minister of Pakistan comes to the US. Pakistan has always felt that the relation or used to feel that the relationship with the United States is the key to enabling Pakistan to be able to have what Pakistan is described as parity with India. And on the American side there has always been a presumption, well these guys need our assistance and our aid so much that if we just give them what they ask for then we can bring them around to doing what we want them to do. Both have been delusions. The Pakistanis are not about to change their priorities just because America thinks Pakistan should change their priorities. It's something that is deeply felt in the Pakistani security establishment which has a veto over policy. But it is also felt in the civilian society. So it's not like just by changing leaders we will all of a sudden find somebody in Pakistan who will start thinking differently about the region about relations with Afghanistan, about India, about Jammu and Kashmir. Those are not things that people will change just because of the quantum of American assistance. So those delusions that have been felt in this relationship have actually made both sides react at different times. Pakistan for example was never going to be easily dissuaded from going nuclear just because America provided it conventional weapons capability even though American officials went to Congress and said that the reason why we are providing them conventional weapons capability or enhanced weapons capability is because that will dissuade them from going nuclear. That was never going to happen. So I think that the second characteristic is delusions and both sides have them. And on the other hand there's the Pakistani side. Pakistan assumed especially in the 60s and even later that the Americans will put their weight behind Pakistan in sorting out Pakistan's issues with India. And that has never happened. So in 1965 when Pakistan went to war President Ayub actually thought, you see the records, you see the conversations between American officials and Pakistan officials. He thought that when the chips are down the Americans will come on our side. It didn't happen. 1971, the Pakistanis against kept hoping that the Americans will come and help. Then after 9-11 the American expectation that Pakistan will shut down the Jihadi enterprise completely because we now are in Afghanistan and Pakistan is receiving this significant aid package. No, Pakistan is willing to cooperate. As I said, within the divergence of the interests up to a point where the core interests are not affected. So going after Al Qaeda we can help you find a few of the Arab Afghans that are in Pakistan. We'll arrest them. We'll hand them over to you. But boy, the groups that operate in Afghanistan and India, they are our core interest. There, we won't be able to do what you want us to do. And so the delusions then end up taking over the relationship because both sides are trying to work within a context of divergence of core interests. Third, dependence. I think the dependence factor is much more on the side of Pakistan. I think that Dr. Ishrath Hussain is far more competent than me in talking about this. But the fact remains that despite all the inputs of the United States, something like $43 billion in cumulative aid, civil, military, and other, since 1949, Pakistan has created a whole culture of dependence on the United States. There's an elite that depends on the US. When I was ambassador, I remember, I often used to get a phone call in the last three days of every quarter that can you make sure that the CSF payment is made before the 30th of the month because that money will then be shown in the State Department's quarterly report as being there in our foreign exchange reserves. Then we will meet our target for the IMF program. And so therefore we are getting money from Uncle Sam in bilateral money, NCSF, which then helps us make the case to the IMF that we have met our foreign exchange target. The truth is, it serves as a disincentive for working harder at increasing exports, et cetera, et cetera, which is what the economy should be doing. So it's an economy that is kind of geared up towards donor interests and what will attract much more aid in the second round. What can we show them as a successful project rather than going for the core projects that Pakistan needs to develop for itself? Just as an aside, okay, per capita factors, et cetera, notwithstanding, $10 billion in total aid to South Korea have resulted in the economic miracle of South Korea. So America put in $10 billion. The South Koreans work their economy in a right direction. They're an engine of growth themselves in the global economy. Pakistan, with $43 billion input, has still not been able to become that. So there's obviously something wrong there and that needs to be understood and as a Pakistani, I feel strongly about that. The fourth, of course, is disappointment. So because of the earlier three factors, there is definitely disappointment. Despite all the American assistance, et cetera, the economy doesn't take off the weight or two in a consistent manner, large manner, and that creates disappointment. On the American side, the disappointment is we've paid you. Even as transactions go, there is something wrong with the transactional arrangement in which the payment comes first and the performance is to come later. And when the performance doesn't come, you get angry for a little while and then after that you say, okay, now, what can we pay you again for performance and it doesn't happen again and again and that's the cycle we are entering right now, especially in relation to militant and terrorist groups. The fifth, of course, is the distortion in views of each other. And I agree with Ambassador Raifel that money cannot buy you love but money should buy you something. And so I, on this one, feel that the American congressmen and senators who used to say to me, you know, what is our money buying us was a valid question. On the other side, the Pakistanis have a valid point too which is, you know, why should we change our world view and how we see everything just because you give us X amount of money but at the same time, while accepting money, one should think about it. Why am I accepting money that is coming with strings if I don't accept the strings? So the whole thing, for example, the Kerry Lugar-Burman bill, it came with certain strings. We didn't support those strings but that's what the congress approved. It was American legislation. Pakistanis started protesting, especially our military reacted very heavily and said, why are those conditionalities there? The truth is we examined all previous aid packages. There was always conditionality. Sometimes it's implemented, sometimes it's waived but there are always been conditions in this assistance. So why do we accept conditional assistance if we do not intend to fulfill the conditions? And so we are actually distorting the way we look at each other. Unfortunately, Pakistanis are seen as people who promise and do not deliver. Why did we promise? Why did General Zahul Haq promise that we will not go nuclear if we get X number of F-16s and if we get X amount of dollars in aid when we did not intend to keep that promise? And why have we been promising for the last 15, 20 years that we will go after all Jihadi groups when we do not intend to do that? So that creates a distortion and the last, in my humble opinion, is dysfunction. I think that the relationship as it has proceeded has actually added to the political and democratic dysfunction in Pakistan. It has led to, say for example, the Pakistani security establishment which is far more dependent on the assistance than the economy as a whole because of the quality of the equipment. So for example, the Pakistan Air Force always wants or prefers American aircraft which we cannot buy on cash because we don't have the hard currency. So we prefer FMF. And so therefore, we are led to make promises and adjustments which we do not really intend because they do not fit in into our worldview and that's where the divergence of interest comes. So what am I recommending? I am recommending to Pakistanis a re-evaluation of this desire to remain dependent on the United States while having a divergence of interests. If we can find convergence, genuine convergence, fair enough, if we cannot, we need to get out of this cycle of promising things that we cannot fulfill just to be able to get the assistance because that will just keep on feeding this vicious cycle that we've had. We also need to pay attention to our own economy, find a way of mobilizing resources at home. Yes, technical inputs, et cetera, et cetera, from developed countries are always useful but there are many countries including the country right across our border, 1947. Same day, 15th of August, 1947, India and Pakistan both became independent. Why is it that India, which was not so dependent on American assistance, has a higher literacy rate today than Pakistan does even though in 1947 the literacy rate difference was only 2%. It's something that Pakistanis need to think about. As far as Americans are concerned, they really need to think about what kind of society and state are they promoting by looking for those short-term interests. I know that, for example, in the 1960s, the 1950s, the original expectation was that Pakistan will provide a military base from where B-52 bombers could fly over the Soviet Union. That base was not given. Then what did Americans settle for? They settled for a U-2 base near Peshawar so that they could spy on the Soviet Union. Was that really something that contributed in the big picture with hindsight? It's easy to study. Was that really the price Pakistani society and America should have paid for a minor success in espionage because it wasn't that significant? The very first flight out of that base was the plane that got shot down. Gary Powers applied. So those are the things that Americans need to think about. Does this relationship of divergence, delusions, dependence, disappointment, distortion, and dysfunction really work for America's interest? Certainly does not work for Pakistan's. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ghani. Thank you, Mohit, for inviting me to this very interesting session. Let me first confess that I'm a beneficiary of the U.S. assistance. I came as a young civil servant to study at Williams College to do my master's development economics. So that is a bias which I carry as far as the U.S.-Pakistan relations are concerned. Having said that, as an international development economist, let me bring to this very august audience some hard empirical evidence. There is no correlation between development and aid. Cross-country comparisons, as well as in-country cases studies have shown that aid has no significant impact as far as an economic and social development concern. So let's start with what is established economic research tells us. So to assume that you give aid and then honey and sugar will flow all over the country, that's not truth. Second, if you look at the volume of U.S. assistance, people talk about 43 billion, 30 billion, 22 billion, I accept all that. At its peak, Pakistan has received only 2% of its GDP as assistance from the foreign donors. So 98% of the GDP or national income has been generated domestically. At its peak, as a part of the budget, the one and a half billion, which came under the Carrie Luger-Burman bill, constitutes only 4% of the total expenditure of the federal and the provincial governments, 4%. 96% has nothing to do, and I include the security and defense expenditure in this. Admit, which following Robin, is that the CSF is an assistance or aid to Pakistan. I have been sitting in the cabinet meetings where our defense ministry has said, this is the amount of money we are going to spend in order to support the U.S. through air bases, through the movement of troops, through logistic supports and whatever. This is the money which Pakistan government itself spent in addition to its normal defense budget to support the war against terror. And all we wanted to is to get the money back as reimbursable, it's called reimbursable. So I have looked at OECD definition of aid and I have never found that CSF kind of reimbursement, which is for the services rendered, is considered as a part of aid. So $8 billion, which has gone to Pakistan under the CFS, is included as part of the aid. I very humbly back to disagree. This is our money, we have spent it, and at times we had to wait for a year in order to get the reimbursement. And I think this is a reality which must realize. Point I want to emphasize is that neither the U.S. is happy with the traditional historical financial, economic, and security aid. And things are becoming tough in the U.S. also. I mean, why should the U.S. taxpayers continue to subsidize some other country like Pakistan? It is a hard-earned money. So there is no appetite for aid to any country, and particularly to Pakistan. And there is the media and the Congress, which always threatens that Pakistan will come to its knees if we suspend the aid. That creates a very adverse reaction in Pakistan. And even the friends of the U.S. are put at defensive because they say, what kind of intimidation is this to a sovereign country? So I do not think that there should be a single penny of traditional economic or security assistance going to Pakistan. And Pakistan also should tax its elite class and extract the excess profits and rents they are making from huge returns. And that goes across the board in order to carry forward. 10% of GDP is collected as taxes. It is one, two percent. We have 5% of GDP, which is untapped and a good tax administration and a good tax policy can bring this 5% into the exchequer. So we don't need any aid. Fifth point I want to emphasize that the historical relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan has been based when or they've become close when there is a mutual threat, which is not a very positive, but essentially a negative and reactive incentive for cooperation. So Cold War against the Soviets, you want Pakistan on your side, Cento, Seattle, and you align them. Soviet Union, you want to kick them out, Afghanistan, you become close. War against terror against Al-Qaeda, you want Pakistan's cooperation, we get together. It's interesting to both. But a relationship which is based on negativity is not going to last and endure over a long term. It will be opportunistic and it will be very short term. And it hurts both after 1991, after the pressure of amendment, Pakistanis were very annoyed that here we have done what the U.S. wanted us to do to help kick out the Soviet Union from Afghanistan and to have imposed all kinds of sanctions against us. Is that a fair bargain? And what happened to Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal is being blamed on Pakistan. Although these Mujahideen were all being trained both by CIA and the ISI. And that residual, what I call as the fanaticism snowball because nobody was minding the store. So what do I suggest? I'm a great admirer of the U.S. It is the citadel of innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, risk taking. I would love Pakistan's future with the knowledge economy by sending its best and the brightest students to come and go to the best universities in the United States, work in the best research laboratories and go back and have collaborative research projects with the U.S. 40% of the world's research and development spending of the world is spent in the U.S. 70% of the Nobel Prize winners are working in the United States. This is what the future is going to be. We used to send 7,000 students to the U.S. universities back in 1989 and 90. And India used to send 28,000 students. The last report I saw of the Institute of International Education shows there are 5,000 Pakistani students with dear apology with the largest Fulbright program from the U.S. And there are 132,000 Indian students, mostly enrolled in PhD degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The Fulbright sends Pakistani students, and I've argued this, both privately and publicly, to the second-rate universities because they want to avoid cost and have the number game. So they want to send 1,000 people to the universities which are charging 10,000 to 15,000 tuition fees in subjects like public policy, international studies, gender studies, sociology, psychology, these are great subjects. I don't have any problem with that. But is this what we need? We don't need them. We need hardcore stamp subjects in which our students can go back and take the reins of the knowledge economy of the 21st century. Finally, Robin, with dear apology again, I don't think the U.S. aid or U.K. aid has done anything in order to support economic reforms. And that is my grief. As the chairman of the National Commission for Government Reforms, we produced two-volume report for the governance reforms in Pakistan, which is the problem, most difficult problem of Pakistan. And none of the donors took any part of that report for dialogue, even dialogue with the government that these are the reforms which will set the course of Pakistan in a completely different direction. 40 years, we had an excellent civil service, the best and the brightest. Today, we don't find them. I headed the best business school in Pakistan. I persuaded some of my students, boys and girls, to go and appear at the civil service exams. And they said, you must be crazy. That is no no for us. And this to me is something frightening, that if the public service is losing its quality, if we are not training people in the subjects of the stamp and we are not integrating ourselves with the rest of the world, then we do not have a bright future for Pakistan. And that's where the Trump administration and the US Congress should really help Pakistan to have a non-intimidating, a non-threatening, but extremely synergistic relationship between the two countries. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thank you to all the panelists for very interesting. I won't call them opening remarks anymore. So I've definitely failed in my duty as moderator so far. The good news is it can only get better. So if I may change tack a little bit and perhaps pose a question to each of you, a couple of rounds and then open up given the time. And if we could please keep the responses brief so that we could allow our audience to ask questions. But just following up on comments that I've heard, one tension that I see in the comments and I think it's no news to anybody, is this fundamental question that keeps coming back, which is what ultimately is the assistance for? And depending on which way you look at it, civilian versus military, I think one may come up with different answers. And that's probably where some of the angst and tension comes in. So if I may begin with you, Lisa, just asking whether we've basically been working of a wrong diagnosis, whether the issue is not how you condition or not condition security aid, but that it's not assistance that is going to get the results that may be required on the security front. And maybe the incentives are elsewhere in terms of maybe the regional relationships Pakistan has or other concerns it has. So is it really ultimately about the number and the condition and whether it succeeds or not? Or are we just playing the wrong game here? Well, I'd like to make a distinction between the economic aid and the military aid because I do think that the military ultimately can influence the fight against the Taliban and the other extremist groups. So I think the military aid is an important tool that we have to be willing to calibrate. And I think the US has started to go down this path. As I mentioned, not allowing 300 million of the CSF to be under national security waiver authority. I think the US has started down the path of actually enforcing the counterterrorism conditions on the military aid. And I think we'll have to continue to go down that path. Foreign assistance is a tool. You were saying that there's no relationship between development and economic assistance, but it is a tool. And it's one of the few tools that the US has to try to get Pakistan to align more closely with US objectives in the region. So I do think that we need to at least try to leverage our assistance more precisely. And I do think it has to be linked to certain actions against terrorists, the military aid in particular. I think one thing, and we've had this discussion in the past, you have said, well, if it's not gonna make a difference if we withdraw the aid and they're gonna continue their policies, well, okay, that may be the case, but at least we know that our hard-earned US tax dollars aren't going to a country that potentially is harboring enemies of the United States. Sure, thank you. I guess I would just ask whether, the point not being whether it or not aid, but is there something else that you can attach to the package which may make it more likely for the results to come? Because we're only playing with assistance as far as I can see the numbers. Is there other sort of avenues to attach something? But we can come back to that. Maybe, Masayi Khan, if I may come to you, you're very interesting six Ds. If I may add a seventh one, which is disincentive. And I think it underlies much of what you've said, but what is the incentive for either side not to distort would be a question. For instance, you say that Pakistan overpromised, and if Pakistan said, I'm never gonna do anything about these rules or give me money, it won't get money. And if the US said, we'll actually rally into this because of the Akhani network, but we'll do some other stuff, it won't work. So isn't there a disincentive here not to distort? Absolutely, there is. And that is why I think that one of the weakest links in the US-Pakistan relationship has been because very early on it became an aid relationship and it became an influence relationship. If you go back to John Foster Dulles and his view that we can't get Pakistan to do what we want it to do right now, but if we develop an influence relationship, it will do it later. So that has now permeated so down. I mean, there are friends of mine from the State Department and I don't mean to insult them, but the way I look at it is they really think that this money buys influence, so therefore let's get it. And it doesn't. It buys some excess, some more invitations to good cocktail parties in Islamabad and I'm not one to run them down because they are difficult to find sometimes, especially for people who don't know where to get them. But the truth of the matter is that influence is when you can actually make somebody else change policy. And we have discovered that that hasn't happened. The core policies have not changed as a result. The marginal changes would come about anyway. Look, Dr. Ishrath Hussain rightly pointed out that reimbursement does not constitute aid, but may I with respect ask him what self-respecting sovereign country behaves like an employee of a major corporations that they run an reimbursement account? Most countries either act in their interest or they don't act because it's not in their interest. To say that we will do this if you will reimburse us for doing this is not how most militaries around the world operate. And let us be honest. I was ambassador for three and a half years. Coalition support, fund reimbursement, claims went through me. The disputes we had bills for $120 million for beef for Pakistani troops operating in Swat, $100 million for barbed wire in North Waziristan, and Congress people rightly used to question Mr. Ambassador, can you explain to me how much barbed wire comes for $100 million? So let us be honest. And when we are having a panel discussion, face certain things frankly. Similarly, this whole notion that the Taliban are nothing but something that grew out of the Mujahideen. Well, with all due respect, the Soviet Union left in 1989. So anybody who was 20 years old then is what in their late 40s or approaching 50, they're not fighting. Now there are new young people who's training them. Certainly not the CIA. So it's time to take some responsibility on the Pakistani side and acknowledge that yes, we did. Lashkarateva didn't exist. And in that time of the Soviet war against the Soviets. Jesheh Mohammed didn't exist at that time. These groups were created primarily for Kashmir. And even in Afghanistan, the Taliban are a much younger generation with a different ideology. Last point. We do look in all such relationships, the distortion. In all such relationships, you tend to overstate your virtue and understate your flaw and your weakness. So the Americans have a vested interest in understating that they were trying to use Pakistan fair enough. But the Pakistanis also understate certain things. Like Pakistan's basic educational system is so poor right now that many of our kids don't qualify for Ivy League schools for science and technology. And those who do eventually do end up there as long as they can get a scholarship. The Fulbright program is not deliberately structured to send people to University of Oklahoma. It does send them there. But part of the problem lies on the Pakistani side. Why should the U.K. and U.S. aid program help reform in Pakistan? Why shouldn't reform in Pakistan be the objective of Dr. Ishtar Hussain and Hussain Akhani's struggles within Pakistan? This whole psyche, in my humble opinion, is the result of this aid-based relationship that we have created since the 1950s. Thanks for heavy weights on the panel. I can't help it. Please, if we can be brief. I would allow you. Yes, I would just say in defense of the U.S. system, just to clarify that CSF is not a Pakistan-specific sort of approach. I mean, it's a number of countries in the world get CSF from the U.S., but many of them. This is the incremental expenditure which was agreed between the U.S. and Pakistan before Pakistan decided to commit itself. Pakistan was spending a lot of money from its own defense budget. I'm just saying this was to support the U.S. troops' movements and logistics. This was not being incurred by the Pakistan for their own interest, but to support and provide logistics to the U.S. Dr. Hussain, that's a different thing. And I'm sorry to say. I'm sorry to say. I have sent bills which were rejected by the U.S. and these were vetted by our own auditors. So I'm not saying that we are angels or the U.S. Congress is angel. I say whenever you have this kind of reimbursement expenditure, there are differences and disagreements. On the question of the Ivy League, I have seen my own students who are admitted to the best universities. So please don't give me that Pakistan's universities are not up to the mark. I did not give you that, Dr. Hussain. I'm saying that the U.S. aid program should be geared to help these young poor Pakistani students to get into the best universities rather than sending them to Florida State University or other universities. I do respect, two distortions have taken place right here at this stage. First of all, the logistical support and reimbursement for that is very different. It's under the same rubric of CSF, but CSF has two components. One is the logistical costs, which is understandable, that you know you're using our road, you're using our vehicles, you pay for them. The other part is our troops are running an operation in Swat, our troops are running an operation in Waziristan. The reason why the CSF reimbursement costs have gone up is not because the number of American trucks going through Pakistan has increased. That has in fact decreased with the decrease in the number of troops in Afghanistan. What has increased is the Pakistani military operations for which the Pakistani military is seeking reimbursement. That's, but let's not make that into an argument, but my point is, on the one hand, we invoke sovereignty when it suits us, but if you're a sovereign nation, we should make a decision. We are fighting this war because we want to fight it. Thank you very much. Then we need to figure out, and by the way, the original CSF agreement was only for five years. It has been extended subsequently, and that's why the problems have come about in that. Last point, I did not say Pakistanis cannot get into Ivy League universities. I said those who do, do get in, but the fact of the matter is that the Fulbright program does not get you an admission into an Ivy League school. That you have to do on your own capability, and my own examination of the subject and as ambassador, I used to raise this every year. I was worried about the number of Pakistanis coming into American universities as undergrads, declining each year, and that had to do with admission requirements. That doesn't mean that the students that you taught are not great. Of course they are great. I'm sure they're even, they're better than people who get into American Ivy League universities. But the point is, there is a problem in Pakistan, and we need to acknowledge it, and it's about time that we as Pakistanis stopped doing this business about, can Uncle Sam fix this for us? I have to get to others, because we also have the audience. We will come back to that. As we say in Pakistan, we can take this outside. I'm gonna ask Ambassador Rafael a question, and then one other question to the panelists, and I promise I'm gonna come to you, and we're gonna keep them here till they answer your questions. Let me just say one word again, just to resolve this, which is that I think there is also the view that CSF at the time that it was set up was easier to provide rather than going through assistance, and a lot of the money was dealt with because of CSF through that, so I think both sides have to look at this in different ways. Ambassador Rafael, if I may ask you, one of the worries I've had is that as things stand today, both sides and all of you have said that rupture is not in the interest of either the US or Pakistan, but are there rational approaches that both sides can take which may end them up at a rupture? So on the Pakistani side, CPAC, for instance, if the US-Pakistan relationship is not working out, it's deteriorating, can there be voices in Pakistan that say, fine, this is too much of a headache, we're gonna go whole hog China? Here, given the narrative on Pakistan, even if nobody wants a rupture, can there be conversations that keep pushing this in a direction where ultimately it's just easy for everybody to say, well, good riddance, get rid of this? Well, since I'm a half-full person, you know, it's very hard to get me to imagine a full rupture because I don't think it would be in the United States' interest or Pakistan's interest. You talk about CPAC, which I think at this point it's very clear the US government supports. You know, at first there was a sense that, oh, we don't want China building all this infrastructure and the influence that may or may not come with it. I think now our sense is that, you know, you all come. If China has resources that will provide needed and well thought out infrastructure in Pakistan, that is a very good thing. I also think, with all respect to the United States and Pakistan and China and whatever other potential ally, that we all have our pluses and minuses and that whole hog China I think would not be an option that Pakistan would find very sustainable. So I just don't see that happening. So I think the muddle through option, which is the one that has prevailed here to four at the end of the day will probably continue. So let me just ask one line answers on best case, worst case with the new administration in Pakistan or what is most likely you think at the end of the day? Well, the best case scenario would be- Or the most likely scenario, whichever you think. What is this headed? Well, those are two different things. The best case would be, of course, Pakistan cracking down on the Taliban and, you know, all terrorist groups within its borders recognizing that it has to take comprehensive approach, you know, seeking dialogue with India and with Afghanistan, allowing then the U.S. and Pakistan to sort of be on the same page in terms of the future of the region. That would be the best case scenario. Worst case scenario would be there's a major attack in the U.S., a terrorist attack that has its origins in Pakistan. That could be a major deal killer in terms of the relationship. Most realistic, I think what I spelled out that you'll continue to see security assistance decline unless we have some changes in Pakistan policy. I'm not saying things would change overnight, but if you had arrests of terrorists, if you had cases being brought to prosecution, if you had denial of free movement of the Taliban, if you had more coercive techniques being used in Pakistan to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, you know, this would be, I think, very helpful for the overall U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Mr. Sarkhani, where would we be in a year? Most likely scenario, we will have, of course, curbs on immigration from Pakistan. Aid will decline and there will be some reaction in Pakistan. I hope that it is measured so that it doesn't provoke another reaction cycle here. Worst case, best case, I agree with Lisa. The best case is for Pakistanis to realize that we need to change Pakistan for the better, for our own sake, not because America wants us to, but because that's what we need to do. We need to get rid of the jihadis and we need to get on better with India and all that. But worst case, I agree, and that, by the way, was something that President Obama used to warn us about in his tenure as well, that if there is a major attack on American soil that is traced to Pakistan, then all bets are off. Hasn't it come in again? Just quickly, most likely scenario, I think is the new administration will have a relook and will tighten up, harden up on the issues that Lisa is talking about, and that Pakistan will probably, at least in the short term, pull up its socks, as we say, and be, you know, a bit accelerate plans that it might have to deal with some of these groups. But I also think there's a possibility that if, for example, ISIS crops up in Pakistan, more in Afghanistan, and the administration does what candidate Trump had suggested, that you could have, in fact, another period of an increase in military assistance to Pakistan. And this question of a year? And then also, if you want to respond to... I think if this administration de-hyphenates Pakistan from Afghanistan, that will become a more enduring and a positive relationship for Pakistan and the United States. But if you continue to have nuclear, Afghanistan, terrorism, Haqqani, jihadis, the dialogue will continue and we will muddle through. Okay, so let me open it up. I know there will be interest. I would ask for the panel's indulgence to stay on for maybe five extra minutes. Let's just begin here, and we'll try and get through as many as we can. Thank you very much, everyone, for this very balanced and nuanced conversation. My name is Amber Jamil. I'm with American Pakistan Foundation. We are a diaspora organization based here in the United States. We're Americans. We're taxpayers. We're voters. And we're certainly an emerging stakeholder in this conversation. So Pakistan has 60% of its population is under 25. Goldman Sachs predicts that Pakistan will be in the top 11 economy. Question, please. I'm sorry. Well, my question is, what can the United States do to really focus on economic development and aid effectiveness? I know local-led solutions, public-private partnerships, as well as exchange programs are important. What more can the United States do with its assistance programs that are focused on the economy? I'll ask you to respond, but let me take a couple more if I may. Let's go to David here. Hi. There's an underlying assumption from, I think, most of the panelists that the goal of U.S. assistance of Pakistan is to influence Pakistani behavior. And I want to challenge that. The goal of U.S. assistance in Pakistan, and in fact, I would argue, pretty much everywhere around the world, is to serve U.S. natural interests. And our assistance program, our military assistance program, we define it when we go to Congress to defend it. We don't talk about it being used as leverage. Now, there are clearly members of Congress and the CSF conditionality and other elements that reflect a congressional desire and belief that assistance can be used as leverage. But I wouldn't define it that way from the administration's perspective. And I also want to point out that there is actually no academic evidence that assistance, either security or economic assistance, is a tool for leverage anywhere around the world. I'll never leave aside Pakistan for a moment, but there's been significant research done worldwide. So I just want to make that point. And if we have or wish to have an argument or a discussion for the next administration, that for U.S. national interests, we should be reducing aid because we are not gaining for our own interests the benefits from this aid that we believe we should be or we believe that we have been. That's a very different discussion. And I think that's a worthwhile discussion to have. But I don't know that there is any value to be had in discussion about whether or not the assistance has leveraged or changed Pakistani behavior because it hasn't been the goal and it doesn't seem very likely that it's ever going to be. Master Hoagland, right here, I'll come to you. Thank you, Mohit, and thanks very much to each member of the panel. It was really, really good. My name is Dick Hoagland. I'm speaking from 30 years of experience in and out of Pakistan, late 80s, late 90s, 2010s, 30 years experience of implementing and also sometimes riding American foreign policy. I agree with David. Foreign policy of the United States is based on our own national interests, first and foremost. Early on in Pakistan, our national interests were ideological balance with the Soviet Union. More recently, it has included very definitely counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, terribly important, and then sometimes to a greater or lesser extent a footnote of human rights. The problem is that when we do our foreign policy, an awful lot of voices come into it and a lot of ideology trickles into it. And so the kind of thing that Hussein Haqqani was talking about, and I agree with, every word you said is the problem of an ideological foreign policy. Something that I'm not sure we've ever tried with Pakistan is real politique. Sitting down in advance and getting agreements for where our national interests converge and then what can we do? So my question, sorry for the length, is to Robin especially and to Lisa especially, do you ever foresee a day in the United States when we might practice real politique with Pakistan? I'll take another round. Isshutza, if you want to take the first question on what U.S. assistance could do. I think you're quite right. That's a prism I wanted to allude to and I'm glad that you raised it. This is a country of 200 million people. The 60 million are middle class with $10,000 purchasing power at their disposal. This is a big market for the U.S. and this is a good market for the U.S. companies. The average return to the multinationals today is 25, 26% in the dollar terms. And that is because it's a high risk country but high risk we teach in business schools is accompanied by high reward. Therefore, this is a market where you have youth who have 30 million broadband internet connected with the rest of the world. They are very sophisticated, they are urban, they're educated and their expectations are very different from my generation or my father's generation. So it's a new Pakistan which we should try to cultivate and the U.S. can find many opportunities for both its businesses but also for Pakistan as a market for its goods and services. I mean, you want to say something about Ambassador Hogan and David's comment? Yes, well, I agree totally with David's comment and with Ambassador Hogan's comment. And I think, you know, many of us and you're very well, all of you are very aware that we've been arguing for a real politic approach to the U.S.-Pakistan relationship for a long time but other realities creep in and we get very interested in the immediate. And in terms of our interests with military assistance, you know, we wanted the Pakistani army on the border. We wanted the access for the goods needed to supply our troops in Afghanistan so we made a compromise. Ambassador Hogan asked, why would Pakistan take the assistance when they didn't intend to live by the requirements? Well, you know, the obvious is that is why did we give it when Pakistan didn't abide by the requirements and the reason was it was perceived to be in our interest. So it's a complicated equation but with the new administration, we should redouble our efforts to be much more explicit on both sides. I think we've tried to have that conversation about where our national interests converge and here I'm talking specifically about Afghanistan but I think Pakistan has been unwilling to have an honest conversation about what it needs in Afghanistan and this could be for two reasons. One, may not know, you know, perhaps Pakistan's leaders want to continue doing what they're doing because it's work for them. Or two, maybe they know that what they really are looking for in Afghanistan, the US will never accept. So that's why they're not willing to have that honest conversation. So I think, you know, we have tried and it hasn't happened yet but, you know, we have a president-elect who apparently likes to make deals. So, you know, let's see, maybe we should have some optimism. Sure. One very quick response to your question. I think I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Ishrathasan. I think there's much more potential of the United States and Pakistan doing stuff together in economic terms in leveraging Pakistan's young population and taking advantage of the potential of Pakistan rather than reducing it to a security relationship that we've had for so many years. As far as David's point is concerned, with all due respect, yes, your objective is your national interests but please pay attention to those who think that your national interest may be in making Pakistan change its strategic calculus or changing its outlook. Maybe four wars with India, with American military assistance, was not in America's national interest. Maybe both India and Pakistan going nuclear was not in American interest. So if some people criticize using different language, they're not saying you should have a foreign policy that's not in the American national interest. All we are saying is that the national interest you expect to fulfill through an assistance program or a large assistance program will not be fulfilled through a large assistance program. Okay. We'll take another round. I am struggling as you can see for time. Right here, Mr. Sheikh, and then I'll come to the others. We'll take three or four, so if we can please take notes and then answer. So short if you don't mind. Short is difficult for diplomats but I'll try. Well, thank you first of all for having this panel and the discussion itself indicates that it's a complicated topic because even with this synthesis of views we had, there is no single answer that is emerging soon. And one question, one perhaps inference that clearly comes out is that there is a need for this relationship, certainly. Now, in terms of what it has been, it has been love perhaps, or if you look at on and off relationship because of events in the region or on the international scene, it has been kind of a proximity infatuation. Whatever it has been, it is continuing for now, certainly. What perhaps needs, and I'll agree with David, my friend who immediately left after having that question. He got his answer. Okay. I'll agree with him that it is certainly, it has to be based on national interest. The relationships have to be based on national interest. But then national interest should not be a unifocal thing, not look at it from your own national interest. Give the other country the opportunity to determine its national interest. Since it is a question about aid and assistance that we have been getting, we might be in a developing country, maybe certainly to a certain extent dependent on aid, 2% or whatever it may be in our total kitty, but our minds are not underdeveloped. So certainly we know how to determine our national interest and we would not certainly appreciate as a sovereign country, counseling or coaching in that regard. So that, the question is that while the new administration is certainly going to perhaps afford the opportunity of rebooting or resetting the relationship, the people to people contact, which perhaps has been discussed already in different forms, education, et cetera, would be perhaps the way to go forward in terms of seeking a more durable, sustainable, multifaceted relationship? Because there is diaspora here. There are Pakistanis, youth, et cetera, which can certainly contribute to the partnership of both nations. The other problems where there are divergences, we need to have mechanisms that they can work through. I don't think anybody could disagree with that. Let's go to the hand up. No, all the way back, the hand that's up. I need to sort of come back, please. Anum Aftab, a Fulbright scholar studying George Washington University. And who- Here we go. Here we go. It's a brilliant answer. And who chose to let go and offer from Columbia and Ivy League just because I'm going to come to Washington, D.C. Short, please. My question is, we see a dwindling of aid to Pakistan over the years. If this aid continues to decrease, I want to know about the component of the aid. Will it just be military aid or will aid relating to programs like the Fulbright or economic aid will continue to? Sure, sure. One and two and three and four and we'll end. Right here, in front. Chris DiAngelo, some foreign service officer and actually worked with Ambassador Hogan and Ambassador Raifel over the years. Lucky man. Yes, very, very much, thank you. And, you know, I was out, I was on the desk, the Pakistan desk, 2002 to 2004, Deputy Econ Counselor of the Embassy, four to six and then 10 to 11 as the economic counselor. So I worked on a lot of these issues. And so the question I have, and I agree, I think from everything I heard, I agree with parts, but I think more with Ambassador Connie and what Ambassador Hogan said, what I've seen in my experience has been a very much a divergence of national interest. And I think that the focus needs to be on where those interests converge. One thing I wanted to say about Dr. Hussain's comment, I think minimize the effect of U.S. assistance, it may have only been one to four percent depending on the year, but when the national government is only able to produce 10 to 12%, that's still a very significant number and it influences the effect of the reliance on U.S. assistance. So my question is, is this not now with the new administration time for, as Ambassador Connie suggested, giving the Pakistan government incentive to figure out how it's going to provide services that it needs to provide to its citizens by perhaps focusing on those interests that converge and reducing the amount of aid? Thanks. The hands have disappeared. No, back. Right here, the gentleman here and then one back and then a quick. And if you could please make it brief because we're already over time. I will try, but I'm going to give one statement about a reimbursable and we all know that's a presidential budget. No, hold on, sorry. Has the reimbursable? Sorry, we have to go to question. Okay, here's the question, but my question is directly, is directed to, Sure. Ambassador, yes. And to Ambassador. We heard about the terrorism. We heard about how the aid is being used by Pakistani government to eliminate terrorism. You all talked about cutting the branches of a tree, but I have not heard yet to take the roots of the tree. So, can you please elaborate on that? How this aid is being helpful to cut the roots of the terrorism and which countries are supporting that terrorism? Okay, fair enough. Thank you. The question by the, yes. Thank you. I'm Asan Chaudhary. I studied law, international politics. I now work with the diplomat. My question is, just I have been hearing you, Akani, and all those. And my question boils down to when we talk about Park-U.S. relations, we assume that these two nations or two countries are unitary actors. In the United States case, that is two, but in Pakistan case, it is not two. Pakistan is not a unitary rational actor. That means Pakistani people are not represented. They are not represented by their elected representatives. There's military that dominates. And military has its own interest. And whatever the aid of America gives to Pakistan, that directly goes to the military rather than to the people. My question is, rather than targeting under the garb of Pakistan, the military, the United States should be giving the aid to the people. Or if that is the case. Thank you. And the final one right here. And if you could please make it very short and then I'll ask the panelists to pick their favorite question and answer that. I'm Kru Kappan Ali. I'm the aid associate in the Embassy of Pakistan. And my question pertains to the intent versus capacity. While the U.S. side always believes there is no intent of going after all kinds of group, I think we need to reconsider whether it's the intent or the capacity. And I would like you to focus or comment upon, especially Lisa Gertz, that over the last 15 years with all the U.S. aid, with all the U.S. military, with all the military forces, has this coalition been able to root out all the Taliban and then we can debate about the intended capacity? Whether Pakistan has the capacity or not. Let me this time begin from the other side and then we'll end here. Also, which one, the mic? The Fulbright scholarship. I think the money which is being spent on Fulbright is much less than the total volume. So even if the U.S. has to cut down its aid, I still maintain that the benefits of supporting Fulbright program on a similar scale as today is in the interest of the U.S. as well as in the interest of Pakistan. There is a study which says that most of the Silicon Valley startups are people who have been trained in the U.S. but belong to a foreign land. So the value addition which is taking place by these people is to the U.S. also. So it's not limited. So when I say non-threatening, non-intimidating and to answer your question, we have concentric circles where the intersecting space is limited. Let's expand that intersecting space to the mutual benefit of both the countries and economic and education and science and technology will expand that space between the U.S. and Pakistan. Okay, to the gentleman who said that we ought to focus on assistance to the people, I would simply remind you that the whole Kerry Luger-Burman project was designed to do exactly that, to make the levels of civilian assistance more equal to those of military assistance. So we do get that point, how effective that assistance is another matter and it's not as effective as we all would have wanted it to be, but that was the goal. And to the gentleman who was talking about the roots of the tree, I would argue that one of the roots and there are many does rest in economic development, economic opportunity and doing what we can to expand that and make it more inclusive. It's not the whole thing. We've figured out that you give a person a job doesn't necessarily mean they're not gonna be a jihadi, but to provide economic growth opportunity, particularly to the expanding numbers of young people is really important. And I would agree with Dr. Ishrat that there's a huge amount of talent in Pakistan, but it needs to be channeled and provided opportunity. I do hope that the educational exchanges and programs like Fulbright survive all kinds of aid cuts, but there are two different things. One is what you hope for and what you expect. So unfortunately, Congress doesn't always do the rational thing. But again, I would be one of those who hopes that that happens. And as far as giving directly to, look, the US cannot distribute $7.5 billion like as a cash subsidy to the entire people of Pakistan, although that might be a great idea giving everybody something. But it doesn't, that's not how it works. And the civilian side does have inadequate capacity. Successive civilian governments have proved not up to being able to absorb all the aid as Ambassador Rifle rightly pointed out. Yeah, the roots of terror and the related question, which is will versus capacity. And I would just simply say that, it's difficult to understand how it's purely a question of capacity when terrorist leaders like Zakir Rahman-Lukhbi is released from jail. So I think it sends a signal when certain terrorists are let off easy, then it sends a signal to other terrorists that, hey, we're free to operate here. And it also reinforces the overall ideology because even though some of these terrorist groups have different focus, Khadni Network focuses on Afghanistan, Lashgri Type focuses on India, they basically operate from the same ideology. And so you can't fight one and turn a blind eye to the other. And so I think this gets at the very question of how do you get at the root of this? It's not totally that simplistic. I'm not saying there aren't other factors involved, but I think this is a major factor. And yeah, and just I quickly wanna do a shout out for the Fulbright scholar, thank you for coming. And I'm just glad you said what you did about, it doesn't have to be an Ivy League school. We've got a lot of great universities here in the US. And I think that I take umbrage with this fact that it has to be an Ivy League school. So thank you. And I hope there's many more Fulbright programs. I hope they continue. I hope the civil society dialogue continues. I hope the people-to-people context. And if you're studying gender studies, all poverty. So, the goal was to make this an interesting panel. And boy, I wished for too much. Thank you all for coming. Let me just wrap this up and say a number of interesting things are discussed. And I think if there's one takeaway, this is complicated business. So there's not a black and white and more and more needs to be talked about. I also want to mention we have another aspect of this that we will be talking about at USIP on December 1st, looking at the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and what that does to the region and US interests and stability or not. If I may conclude with two statements on a provocative note, and then we'll all thank the panel. One is everybody's talk about Fulbright and knowledge. And I just want to put out something that there is a conversation between the US and Pakistan on something called the Knowledge Corridor, which is essentially trying to get Pakistani students to universities here. And quite frankly, if it were up to me, I would put whatever money I could find to that because that's the long-term investment that can work. The second thing I'll mention, and this is to end on a provocative note for real, I think I hear this often in US-Pakistan conversations and somebody who's sort of right in the middle and gets the worst and best of both sides, I think there's this conversation about national interest that I haven't seen in other relationships as much at least. And perhaps one thing I point to both sides is, take a day off from work, go and put yourself squarely in the other's shoes, and then decide if there are convergences that you can work on. I think too much of this conversation is about, I think the other side should do this and that's all fair, but what we know here is that the relationship is not working as well as most of us wanted to work. And if all of us agree that a rupture is not in the interest of both sides, maybe that's one way forward, to really become the other side for a day, the blue and red, and see what may be a convergence that we haven't looked at. And maybe isolate the divergences and then focus on this. I will confess I'm biased, I spend my day and I've spent that for the past 15 years working on this relationship, so I will personally hate for it to not work out, but I think both sides agree it's important. And so this is one avenue which is not explored enough. And the conversations both sides have with each other, it seems to the other side that it's finger pointing, ungratefulness, you don't like us, et cetera. I think there is space for convergence if both can really figure out how the other is thinking and where we can come together. With that, thank you very much and join me in thanking the panel. Thank you.