Last week, the indecision about the F-16 sales to Pakistan defined the Pak-US relations. A week later, it is all about the US drone strike that killed the Taliban leader Mulla Mansoor Akhtar inside Pakistan’s territory. This latter incident forced Pakistan’s interior minister to point out at the strained relations between the two countries, following which the Pakistan’s army chief has had a meeting with the US ambassador to express his displeasure over the drone strike.

This is how complex the bilateral relation has been in the last six or seven decades. Both the US and Pakistan have gained a lot out of this consistently long partnership as allies and yet it has remained marked with tensions. To be fair, Pakistan has tried to reap all benefits that it could by virtue of its strategic location in both the Cold War and post 9/11 contexts. But it has had to face sanctions of one kind or the other once the US interests were served or a stick rather than carrot was the order of the day.

Last week, in the discussion around the sale of F-16s to Pakistan, the irritants that came to the fore from the US Congress’ viewpoint were all in the counter-terrorism context. Pakistan would have to foot the entire bill for the aircrafts, "without a subsidy from the American taxpayer," because it hasn’t done enough to get rid of the Haqqani network, it hasn’t handed over Shakil Afridi, the man the US wants and other things.

But the world of 2016 is not static and new realities have emerged, where Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US cannot sustain or break their relationship, judging by their progress on the ‘war against terrorism’. Other regional actors have become important players and economic interests have gained primacy of sorts.

Pakistan, too, has been trying to play its diplomatic cards in a manner that it gains more out of these economic battles being fought in the region. Whether it played them well is a subject of debate because as of today, it appears to be diplomatically isolated. The Pak-US relations have been impacted in this new regional context as well. All these issues are a subject of our Special Report today.