Future stability of Pakistan not a settled matter: Davis

The future stability of Pakistan is not yet a settled matter as the nuclear-armed country continues to adopt a selective approach to combat the internal extremist threats, an influential US lawmaker has said.
"The future stability of Pakistan is not a settled matter," said Congresswoman Susan Davis, the Acting Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee during a Congressional hearing this week.
"Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, is currently conducting major and effective operations against some internal extremist threats, but hardly all of them," she said during a Congressional hearing on global threat assessment.
Davis said al Qaida had not entirely been eliminated and some of its offshoots continue to plot attacks against the US and cause further regional problems.

"We cannot take our eye off that ball just as we need to be very cognisant that we still maintain troops in Afghanistan, and that country, while vastly better off than better, is still very fragile," she said.
"As we look long-term, Russian throw in Europe and Asia is not clear, but their recent actions and very nude and ongoing military buildup are not encouraging signs," she said.

Davis said the US should not assume an adversarial relationship with China.
Their actions in the South China Sea and their military developments bear watching. The world has hardly become less complex since the fall of the Iron Curtain, she said.

"While we may not face the same existential threat posed by the Soviet Union, the threats we face today are still very real and again very complex," Davis said.
"An increased and deep understanding of these threats and the trends and developments that drive them is key for this committee as we work to shape the defence budget and help the Department of Defence, and the rest of the national security establishment, and their ongoing actions in our defence," she added.