President Donald J. Trump, who is widely viewed by mental health professionals to be mentally unstable and exhibiting “marked signs of volatility and unpredictable behavior, and an attraction to violence as a means of coping,” offered his maiden tweet of 2018:

“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

The tweet encouraged the Indian commentariat who have long been hopeful that Trump would act decisively against Pakistan, given his presumed antipathy for Muslims specifically and his propensity for bluster more generally. Meanwhile Pakistan responded as it has in the past for being called out for its mendacity and perfidy: it rallied its trolls; it summoned and demarched the US Ambassador in Islamabad; and, in all fora possible, it denied the allegations of nefarious deeds with all of the sincerity and credibility of the wholesome human resource manager of the Chicken Ranch.

However, even as the tweet continued to titillate Trump enthusiasts in India and at home, the responsible members of Trump’s government were strategizing how to roll this all back. Later that day, a National Security spokesperson reiterated what the New York Times had already reported on December 29, 2017: namely that “The United States does not plan to spend the $255 million in FY 2016 foreign military financing for Pakistan at this time.” This is not the sweeping cutoff that Trump implied in his braggadocios tweet.

Trump’s staff has offered various justifications for the tweet, even though it may be the most accurate thing the president has said in the last month. For example, McMaster told VOA that Pakistan “goes after terrorist and insurgent groups very selectively and uses others as an arm of their foreign policy.” We South Asianists have been calling this “Pakistan’s Selective War on Terrorism” and we have been using this term for about as long as the Americans have been fighting terrorism in South Asia, ostensibly with Pakistan as a partner.

Let’s just get this out of the way: there is little that is or ever will be, new in Trump’s Pakistan policy. We are not going to see sweeping sanctions or aid cutoffs. We are not going to see the joint declared a state sponsor of terror, although it surely is. We’d be lucky if his administration targeted specific people, but I doubt that would be an adequate punishment to get Pakistan to behave any less opprobriously. His policies will not diverge significantly from that of George W. Bush or Barrack Hussein Obama. Why do I say this? Is it because I think everything he touches turns to horse excrement? No. There are two simple reasons for my dour assessment. First, there are the night terrors triggered by imagining how terrifying Pakistan could be without American money. Americans just cannot manage to understand that Pakistan is the most stable instability. It can survive without our money and it would probably be better off in the long-run if it weaned itself off of Chaccha Sam’s teet. Second and more important than the first is the logistical requirements of staying the course in Afghanistan.

Stop Hyperventilating: Obama Did the Same Thing Too…And Pakistan Still Screws Us

Trump is fond of making outrageous claims that are not even modestly true. Despite his preposterous rhodomontades to the contrary, Trump is not the first president to express distaste for Pakistan’s actions. In August 2007, presidential candidate Barrack Hussein Obama threatened to undertake unilateral military strikes against the terrorists harbored by Pakistan. Obama, upon being president, took the fight to Pakistan with his zealous use of airstrikes by remotely piloted aerial vehicles. Obama did more in the early years of his presidency to wipe out al Qaeda in South Asia than George Bush did during his entire eight years in office. Moreover, in March 2009, when Obama announced his so-called “Af-Pak Strategy,” he specifically identified Pakistan as a terrorist safe-haven. His Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Pakistan and said more clearly than any of her predecessors that Pakistan’s past policies of supporting terrorism account for its own domestic terrorism. Specifically, she impugned Pakistan by explaining that “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. You know, eventually, those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard.”

Let us not forget that it was Obama who ordered the US Navy Seals to unilaterally attack a compound near Pakistan’s famed military academy in which Osama Bin Laden had been residing in plain sight for numerous years.

And, during the Obama administration, the United States also withheld funds from Pakistan: $300 million to be precise for several years. Arguably those funds were more important than the FMF presumably off the table at present. It did so because the US Congress passed legislation that authorized $1 billion dollars in coalition support funds (CSF), but rendered $300 million hostage to Pakistan taking decisive action against the Haqqani Network and in later years, against the Lashkar-e-Taiba. These sums of money could only be paid if the administration certified that Pakistan had complied with the requirements. On several occasions, it demurred to do so largely because no one really wanted to perjure themselves that bad to allow those funds to go forward.

CSF has been a hugely lucrative source of funding for the Land of the Pure (Duplicity). Of the nearly $34billion that the U.S. taxpayer has handed over to Pakistan since 2002, CSF has comprised the bulk of it: nearly $15 billion. In 2008, the U.S. Government Accounting Office was so pissed off about the corruption in this program that it conducted a thorough investigation and wrote a scathing report about the malfeasance in the program. While the program was intended to reimburse Pakistan for the marginal cost of killing its own terrorist, the Pakistanis have had a field day billing all sorts of major expenditures to the U.S. taxpayer. While the program has become less absurdly lucrative for the Pakistanis, it is still an important source of defense subsidy for Pakistan’s army which has never won a war—except against its own democracy.

CSF is essentially a bribe to get the Pakistani military to do what any self-respecting military of a sovereign state should do: keep its territory free of terrorists. In fact, Pakistan is required by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1373 (adopted in 2001), which obliges all states to “refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts, including by suppressing recruitment of members of terrorist groups and eliminating the supply of weapons to terrorists.” This resolution is a Chapter VII resolution, which also authorizes force should a country fail to abide by its provision. This is exactly what Pakistan did in November 2008 when its favored proxy—the Lashkar-e-Taiba—savaged Mumbai, yet the United States and China colluded to ensure that no discussion of penalties ever arose at the Security Council. Arguably, by compensating Pakistan to do what it should be doing vitiates the importance of this resolution and established the perverse incentive of rewarding Pakistan for eliminating the very terrorists that it continues to breed. To be blunter: we are paying Pakistan to hunt rats even while Pakistan is farming those very rats. We should put into a place a program that incentivizes Pakistan to stop having rats (or terrorists for that matter) in the first instance.

Despite the Satsuma-hued Satan says about his administration getting tougher on Pakistan than any other administration in the natural history of the earth (which is only about 3,500 years according to most of his base and about 4.54 plus or minus 0.05 billion years for us sentient folks), under pressure from Trump’s Secretary of Defense, The GoP-led Congress actually weakened one provision according to which the United States will withhold coalition support payments to Pakistan when it removed a provision that linked assistance to Pakistan to taking demonstrable action against terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The current National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2018 only requires Pakistan to act against the Haqqani Network, which it surely will not do either. It did so after Pakistan released the organization’s leader, Hafez Saeed, who is a declared terrorist by the United States and the United Nations among others, from house arrest/protective custody and after Saeed announced that his organization is fielding a political party, the Milli Muslim League, to contest the general elections of 2018.

This is hardly a sweeping punishment that will knock Pakistan on a course of acting against terrorism. Historically, FMF funds have not been the mainstay of the American dole to Pakistan. Out of the more than $33 billion given to Pakistan since FY 2002, FMF has accounted for less than $4. The most lucrative payouts have been through the CSF program which totals more than $14.5 billion.

More humorously, if one can find humor in this situation at all, is that FMS probably aids the U.S. military-industrial complex more than it aids Pakistan. Why? Well for one thing, FMF funds enable partner countries to buy American “defense articles, services, and training,” and is provided either as a non-repayable grant or loan basis. In other words, the FMF program is a clever way by which the U.S. government can’t our tax dollars, hand them over to the Pakistanis who in turn use it to buy expensive stuff from U.S. military contractors. FMF is actually a fairly clever way of taking money from the American taxpayers and putting into the pockets of American defense firms. This is one reason why the part of the Pentagon that sells stuff to our allies—perfidious and otherwise—tend to holler when these funds get pinched. (But remember, Trump says he knows how to make a deal. Someone needs to tell him that this irradiated sasquatch dung because, in fact, he has run most businesses he has touched right into the ground. In fact, Trump would be more wealthy if he took his daddy’s inheritance and did nothing with it all or invested it in index funds. He’s just that shitty of a businessman.)

The Preferred Roads to Afghanistan (Preferred by the adults on his staff, that is because he doesn’t have a dog-damned clue), Go Through Pakistan

(PS: I am pretty sure that Trump doesn’t look at maps ever. Reportedly, while being briefed by a staffer on South Asia he asked about “two blobs” on a map. The briefer explained that they were Nepal and Bhutan. Trump then asked? Are those countries? He then proceeded to pronounce them as “nipple” and “button.” Yep. That’s our fucking president people.)

So you may be asking yourself: “Self? Why is it that the United States continues to make huge payouts to Pakistan while highly publicizing the limited efforts to restrict relatively small amounts of aid to the country even though it is widely recognized that Pakistan continues to fund the very organizations—such as the Haqqani Network, the Taliban, and groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba among others—that are killing our soldiers and allies in Afghanistan?” You may also ask yourself: “Self, why can’t any president muster the vaginal fortitude and declare Pakistan to be a state sponsor of terror, for which there is ample evidence?” (Hint: We have a very racist country but we are more sexist and we didn’t want to elect the most qualified candidate since George Herbert Walker Bush because of structural misogyny, Putin and Wikileaks and an inept FBI.) Alternatively, you may ask yourself: “Self! Why can’t the United States simply take its checkbook and let China take over paying Pakistan’s bills as Pakistan continually threatens will happen should the United States walk away from this abusive relationship for good?” You have asked some mighty important questions. It turns out, that that there are several important reasons, none of which are easily ignored…not even the Putin pawn currently defiling the White House.

First is the way in which Pakistan has literally monetized the insecurity that its policies have explicitly fostered, by design. Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear program in the world, inclusive of efforts to develop so-called “tactical nuclear weapons.” (I prefer to call them “battlefield nuclear weapons” as even the smallest nuclear bomb will have strategic effects if used.) Given Pakistan’s well-known reputation for black market nuclear trafficking, well-publicized reports of moving its warheads around in un-escorted, soft-skin vehicles (such as –wait for it—fucking vans) and an actual petting zoo of every kind of domestic, regional and trans-national Islamist terrorist organization thriving under its protection, Americans and its allies are rightly concerned that any mis-step may result in a terrorist getting his (Pakistan’s terrorists don’t value women’s skills any more than the average Trump voter) hands on Pakistan’s nuclear technology, fissile material, or device. This is Washington’s second worst nightmare. (The first is having a progressive, feminist, pro-choice woman in the White House.) Ironically, Pakistan has invested in both its nuclear and terrorist arsenals on Washington’s time and dime. You can build a lot of nukes and terrorists with $34 billion folks! Yet American officials in virtually all branches of government fear that a complete breakoff in aid will hasten this outcome even while continued payments to Pakistan permit this ever-more effective nuclear coercion. They will tell you that we have to keep bending over and grabbing our ankles otherwise we’ll lose access and influence. With all the good that access and influence have brought, I see end them both!

Second and related to the first, the United States worries about Pakistan’s solvency. If it really wanted to bring Pakistan’s to its terror-loving knees, it would let the International Monetary Fund cut it off when it reneges on its own commitment to financial reform. (In the future, international contributors to the IMF will essentially be subsidizing Pakistan’s exorbitant loan repayments to the Chinese. This alone should be adequate reasoning to let the IMF cut Pakistan off. However, this is unlikely to happen. Pakistan has essentially developed its bargaining power by threatening its own demise. With any economic collapse of Pakistan, Washington again fears that the specter of a nuclear-armed terrorist rising up from Pakistan will materialize.

Finally, and pertaining to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Washington has placed itself in a losing position. I have argued for years that the United States lost the war in Afghanistan when it went to war with Pakistan, one of the states most committed to undermining the US efforts there. I have compared this decision to putting a pederast in charge of playground safety and then wondering what went wrong?

Whereas the United States wants a stable Afghan government which can resist its predatory neighbors and keep Islamist militants out of the government and prevent Islamist militants from using Afghanistan as a sanctuary to train, recruit and plan terrorist attacks in the region and beyond, this is precisely the Afghanistan that Pakistan wants. The only way Washington could have had a hope of avoiding the situation in which it finds itself is if then President Bush had capitalized upon the opening with Iran that then-President Khatami offered.

In 2001, Iran was incredibly supportive of the American effort. Ambassador James Dobbins, who was present at Bonn, attests to Iran’s productive role in trying to secure a democratic future for Afghanistan. The United States instead spurned Iran and even labeled it a founding member of the Axis of Evil. The Bush administration was profoundly clueless about Pakistan’s interests and had foolishly believed that Pakistan’s President and Army Chief Pervez Musharraf was sincere in offering his country’s help in defeating their own proxies in Afghanistan. We know now that this was a preposterous assumption. Yet the die had been cast. The United States became singularly reliant upon using Pakistan’s air and land corridors to move supplies for the war effort. It’s efforts to cultivate a so-called “northern distribution route” failed to fructify.

Throughout the years, I reminded Americans that Iran has a port in Chabahar, which the Indians have helped to develop along with the necessary road and rail lines connecting it to Afghanistan. I noted that Americans could work with Indian contractors to move goods from Chabahar to Afghanistan, thus providing an opportunity to further consolidate our fast-growing ties with India. Moreover, now that the American military presence is sustainable through airlift, the United States only needs ground access to resupply the Afghan National Security Forces. Most Americans recoil at the suggestion arguing that Iran is a nuclear-proliferating, state sponsor of terror. Needless to say, Pakistan is an actual nuclear-proliferating, state sponsor of terror. Moreover, while Iran may be a regional headache, Pakistan is an international crisis generator. Yet the United States has had no problem shoveling $33 billion into that country, even though it uses those funds to kill our troops and allies in Afghanistan and subsidize the very nuclear coercion that keeps checks from the American taxpayer flowing to Pakistan.

Under the Obama administration, the United States made unprecedented progress in thawing relations with Iran with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or the so-called nuclear agreement with Iran), which opened up the serious possibility of moving supplies from the port in Chabahar. In fact, the Indians just completed its first shipment of 1.1 million tons of wheat to Afghanistan that traveled through Chabahar. However, Trump made it clear that he would vitiate the JCPOA as a part of his larger package of programs intended to appease Israel.

Without an alternative port, the United States will have no choice but to continue working with Pakistan if it wants to remain engaged in Afghanistan, as Trump intends to do. (The proposed troop surge is now complete with about 14,000 US troops in the country.) While Trump can tweet whatever he wants about Pakistan or Iran, the professionals on his staff know the truth: the US policy in Afghanistan requires a port with road and/or rail access to Afghanistan. And it seems that even though Pakistan is far more dangerous than is Iran, this administration—like each one before—has cast its lot with Pakistan. And this administration will confront the same failures as those before. Simply put, logistics is a bitch. You can try some clever ruses to keep her down. You can even try to slap her. But she will rise up and kick your ass to the curb every damned time.

Christine Fair is a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program within the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is the author of the book Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (OUP, 2014) and the forthcoming In their Own Words: Understanding the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (Hurst/OUP, 2018).

A version of this was published at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/old-whines-in-a-new-bottle-us-policy-towards-pakistan_us_5a4d560be4b0df0de8b06f32.