Pakistan's Foreign Policy Towards US and Afghanistan: An Analysis of Musharraf Era

Abstract

This paper investigates Pakistan’s foreign policy towards US, and Afghanistan, especially during the Musharraf era, which started in 1999 with a military coup and ended in 2008. There were strategic shifts and geopolitical changes in his era because of the terrorist attacks in USA which suddenly changed the political scene all over the world. As a neighboring country Pakistan and Afghanistan have strong and long history of relationships but being a key ally in War-On-Terror (WOT) with the US, Pakistan revisited his foreign policy towards Afghanistan. To understand the strategic motivations behind the foreign policy of Pakistan, the realism and constructivism theoretical framework has been used. This paper analyses the military dominance over foreign policy and the domestic politics as well of Musharraf-led-military government in Pakistan and the consequences of the GWOT, taking side with the US by Musharraf. The qualitative method is used with historical and analytical approaches.