Rawalpindi-Riyadh embrace

BRUCE RIEDEL, fellow at Brookings' Saban Center states that understanding the Saudi-Pakistani relationship was important to understand the future of both the countries, the nuclear balance in Near East and South Asia and the crisis in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia today.
In an op-ed for Force, "Enduring Allies", he states that Riyadh-Rawalpindi relationship was a longstanding, intimate alliance, with a decades-old strategic military relationship, an as yet unacknowledged nuclear partnership to provide Riyadh with a nuclear deterrent at short notice, if needed.
He states that Pakistan was the largest recipient of Saudi aid outside the Arab world and the Pakistani madarsa system was funded by the kingdom's Wahabbi clergy while Rawalpindi provided military expertise and resources, augmented by close intelligence and security relations and apprehensions about a Shia Iran.
He concludes that turmoil both in the Arab World as well as Pakistan and tensions with Washington were impelling the House of Saud and Pakistan towards even closer partnership.

US - Pakistan strains

STEPHEN COHEN of the Brookings Institution traces the history of the fluctuating relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. since the inception of Pakistan over 60 years ago.In his book, "Superpower Rivalry and Conflict: The long shadow of the Cold War on the 21st century" he states that this relationship has resulted in the transformation of the Pakistani self-image from that of a staunch, reliable and strong moderate Muslim ally to that of a state that has suffered on behalf of the West and which has not being adequately compensated for its suffering.