It has always been, and perhaps will continue to be, a bumpy road of interaction between Pakistan and the US. They come together in special occasions for a brief period, as two planets seen in close proximity in the sky, in the spirit of mutual consideration and then set apart leaving behind some good and bad memories. This occasional and casual interplay does not allow trust to build and the relationship to blossom into something meaningful.
And this transactional relationship (proclaimed as strategic) has had an opportunity cost that each country pays in more than one ways. To put this into perspective, one has to give a quick glimpse of what went wrong (and why) over the last seven decades of the Pak-US interaction. The picture so presented may not be perfect and may not have much predictive power but it will certainly tell a convincing story thanks to the benefit of hindsight.
In the early 50s, when Pakistan has just emerged on the world map, the cold war was heating up with two blocks (the so-called free world led by the US and the communist states led by the USSR) making it increasingly difficult for small countries to sit on the fence. Due to strategic and economic compulsions, every country had to choose sides as neutrality (non-alignment) was less risky but had low returns too.
Political leadership in Pakistan, with no experience in international relations, found it convenient and prudent to join the US-led camp thanks to the hangover effects of the British Empire in politics, bureaucracy and education system. A decision to choose a different path would have many issues of system alignment as communism was founded on radically different principles defining relationship between state, market and society. It would be probably a strategic mistake for a nascent country to tread an unchartered territory without a map in hand.
