A Study On The American Policy Toward Pakistan (1941-1957)

After the outbreak of the 9·11event, Pakistan actively helped the U.S. fighting against terrorism, US-Pakistan relations have abruptly warming, the research on United States foreign policy toward Pakistan and related issues of academic also caused great concern.Pakistan has a special geographical advantage, in history, it has important strategic value for the United States to contain the former Soviet Union and China and to implement the Middle East strategy of the United States; while the Islamic attributes of its ideology and its influence in the Islamic world has important significance. This paper study the U.S. policy toward Pakistan in 1941-1957, it is divided into six parts: Introduction; the first chapter, the United States policy toward British India during World War II; second chapter, the United States and Pakistan movement; third chapter, the Truman administration's policy toward the new Pakistan; fourth chapter,The first session of the Eisenhower era U.S. policy towards Pakistan;conclusion.Introduction:In this part ,I have made a summarized introduction on some of the major domestic and international academic research, also explained and justified the topics of significance, research methods and data sources.Chapter I: In the World War II, India's geographical advantage highlighted, the U. S. actively fight for India's participation in the war and began to get involved in India affairs. But in the face of sensitivity and stubbornness of British, the U. S. eventually compromise to the United Kingdom in order to maintain the alliance with Britain.Chapter II: From the idea of Pakistan was proposed in the annual meeting of Lahore in 1940to the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the attitude of the U.S.to Pakistan has gone from strange, ignoring , denying to approving. The U.S.has opposed the partition of India and Pakistan, supported a united India, but when Pakistan's independence was a foregone conclusion, the U.S.gave approval and became the first country to establish diplomatic relations with it .Chapter III: As the first United States president of post-war, Harry S. Truman's policy toward Pakistan can be defined as "friends, but not Allies". The early postwar period, the entire South Asian region does not occupy an important strategic position in the U. S., therefore, the U.S. only maintained a friendly relationship with Pakistan and provided a small amount of financial assistance. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Pakistan's strategic importance to the U. S. has greatly improved, the policy of the U. S. to Pakistan substantially changed , it began to actively support the British in the Middle East defense plan and to expand economic aid to Pakistan. However, in the Truman period, the U. S. finally rejected Pakistan's request for military assistance in view of the strong reaction of India.The fourth chapter focuses on the first session of the Eisenhower policy of US-Pakistan military alliance. the U. S. pay more attention to Pakistan's strategy of containing communism and the important value of expanding economic assistance to Pakistan., in 1954, the U.S. and Pakistan signed a mutual defense assistance agreement ,the U. S. gave military aid to Pakistan. Since then, the U.S.made Pakistan join Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and the Baghdad Pact, Pakistan became the United States the most allied in Asia, bilateral relations have entered a "honeymoon" period.In Conclusion, Summarized the causes and characteristics of U.S. policy toward Pakistan. It was subject to U.S. national interests and was affected by the Cold War mentality, subordinated to and served the South Asian balance of power strategy in the United States.