From Military Alliances to Selective Technology Partnerships: Pakistan–US Relations in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

How does artificial intelligence change an unequal strategic relationship shaped by military cooperation? This article examines Pakistan–United States relations through a qualitative, theory-informed documentary analysis, using historical scholarship, selected official records, and descriptive trade statistics. It questions the assumption that technology partnership represents a clean departure from security dependence. The article develops the concept of selective technological interdependence to distinguish access to commercial services, research networks, and applications from access to sensitive computing infrastructure and strategic capabilities. Its central proposition is that cooperation can broaden while remaining differentiated by security concerns, commercial incentives, and domestic capacity to absorb technology. The available evidence establishes a history of overlapping security and civilian cooperation and a contemporary policy interest in AI; it does not establish a completed bilateral AI transformation. Three observable dimensions—implementation, control over critical inputs, and domestic capability formation—provide a framework for evaluating that transformation. The contribution is an analytically bounded explanation of how technological diversification may coexist with unequal bargaining power, together with a transparent research design for testing this explanation beyond diplomatic announcements.