The recent sanctions imposed by the United States on Pakistan’s missile program in December 2024 generated an intense debate regarding U.S. non-proliferation policy in South Asia, especially about its discriminatory characteristics.[1] These unilateral sanctions are directed at Pakistan’s missile capabilities and illustrate the lack of balance in the U.S. policy toward the region, which have historical roots of strategic asymmetries. The context of these sanctions was similar to the historical U.S. sanctions on Pakistan, which shows dichotomous behavior of selective enforcement in regional policies, further accentuating strategic imbalances. This demonstrates the selective implementation of U.S. policies while propping up its strategic partnership with India. This is due to the fact that the U.S. conveniently glosses over comparable developments by India in view of geo-strategic considerations, thereby exacerbating the existing security disparities between India and Pakistan and contributing to regional instability.
