ABSTRACT
A history of Pakistan's relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Bretton Woods Institutions in general, cannot be told without reference to the complex and changing role played by the United States, especially since the mid-1980s when the Reagan administration stepped up responses to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. This chapter examines the incentive structures underlying each of the three players in this new 'Great Game', the US, the IMF (including staff and the board), and the elites in Pakistan. The foundation of the relationship with the US is based on Pakistan's strategic location at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. In 2002, when the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the IMF reviewed the record of the IMF's relationship with Pakistan through the decade of the 1990s. Pakistan has an immature political structure, with political parties struggling to replenish coffers after lengthy periods in the wilderness, especially given long periods of military-led rule.
