Pakistan–United States military relations
The military relations between Pakistan and the United States have been present since the two established diplomatic relations in 1947. The United States and Pakistan's military have historically close ties and it was once called "America's most allied ally in Asia" by Dwight D. Eisenhower, reflecting shared interests in security and stability in South Asia, Central Asia as well as in regions covering Eastern Europe.
A unit photo of the Pakistan and the U.S. Armes in 2010, by Foreign Affairs.
Since the 1970s, the Pakistani government led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has been committed to its nuclear weapons program.
The USAF and PAF's F-16s head out for a training sortie at a PAF operational base in Peshawar. This was a first exercise since 2019.
A U.S. Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter en route from Tarbela Ghazi Airbase, providing flood relief efforts in 2010.
Drone strikes in Pakistan
Between 2004 and 2018, the United States government attacked thousands of targets in northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) operated by the United States Air Force under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division. Most of these attacks were on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan. These strikes began during the administration of United States President George W. Bush, and increased substantially under his successor Barack Obama. Some in the media referred to the attacks as a "drone war". The George W. Bush administration officially denied the extent of its policy; in May 2013, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time that four US citizens had been killed in the strikes. In December 2013, the National Assembly of Pakistan unanimously approved a resolution against US drone strikes in Pakistan, calling them a violation of "the charter of the United Nations, international laws and humanitarian norms."
An MQ-9 Reaper landing in Afghanistan.
Minneapolis anti-war protest: 'Stop Killer Drones', 5 May 2013
Shamsi airbase in 2006, reported to show three Predator drones