It depends on how you define being really smart and clever

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The first thing we need to say about Pakistan is that it is a failed state, like Myanmar, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Haiti, North Korea, and Zimbabwe.

Thus any perceptive view that Pakistan has out smarted the USA, must be tempered and ameliorated by the overriding basic fact that Pakistan for all its cleverness, is at the end of the day a mere failed state. 

The said Pakistan military must take the biggest credit for this failure since they have essentially run the country since 1951, just after the assassination of Liakat Ali Khan, which was carried out by them.

Obviously it is somewhat "romantic" to think that a Third World nation has at least outsmarted the rich country in something. One is reminded of the cider advert from British TV many years back, whose byline was "That makes a refreshing change". But the overall picture of USA/Pakistan relations has been of one abusing the other and not much more. The abuse further has been carried out through the Pakistan military, and its SS, the notorious ISI, which is now funded and run by the CIA, for the USA.

What it all means now is that the USA can get the Pakistani military to fight their proxy wars against fellow countrymen, most often killing them, turning them into internal refugees, for no particular reason other than to create the image that fake GWoT is still relevant, after all these years, and will continue to be relevant indefinitely into infinity.

That Colonel Yevgeny Khrushchev is not being very smart by the Pakistan military. But let us look at relations since 1954, to reinforce this one sided tragic saga.

The ISI was created by the departing British in 1948, as a covert means of running the Pakistani state through the Pakistan military. The British then nudged the new country into the loving arms of the USA, as part of the newly created Cold War alliance in Asia...CENTO/Gary Powers U2...etc. from 1954, where the USA gave Pakistan a military orientated aid package, clearly to bolster their position within the Pakistani state.

Emboldened by this, four years later the Pakistan military officially came into power in 1958, though they were already running the country, and simultaneously destabilizing it from 1951. As with events in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq...the USA encouraged the military to take power.

Then in 1965 the USA imposed an arms embargo against Pakistan for fighting a war against India....I don't have any particular problems with this, though it created considerable problems for the Pakistan military whose entire military machine was dependent on American spares and ammo.

Then from 1965---1969, the USA destabilized the military junta.

In the 1971 civil war, the USA gave considerable signals that they would help Pakistan maintain its territorial integrity, BUT behind the Pakistanis privately told the Indians to invade East Pakistan.

In 1977, the USA initiated a coup and toppled the democratically elected government, and executed the PM......using the Pakistan military.

From 1978/79 the CIA used Pakistan to create the Afghan Mujaheddin, and the "Bear Trap".....1979--1999, which NEVER brought any direct benefits for the country, save for the country becoming a narco-transit state, and a foreign policy which was directed by the military for the military. Further the country became a safe haven for training of extremist Islamic Fundamentalists, with even Israeli trainers being invited to the country. (Israel and Pakistan had no diplomatic relations in the first place)

Then the USA gets rid of the Pakistan military in 1988.

Then in 1990 the USA/State Department gets rid of the Democratically elected government of Benazir Bhutto, because she made pro-Saddam remarks......mere remarks!

Then Nawaz Sharif is got rid of in 1993, and Benazir Bhutto comes back into power.....and it is under her, with the aid of the Pakistan military/ISI that Osama is invited to Afghanistan via Pakistan, and the Taliban are created by the CIA.

Then Nawaz Sharif comes back into power in 1996, and then an American directed military coup in 1999. Musharaf rules the country for the next 9 years as a USA sponsored puppet.

Then in 2007, the ISI kill Benazir Bhutto....and this is used as a pretext for removing Musharaf, to bring super crook Zardari into power, as a totally complaint puppet of the USA from 2008.......and its been down hill since then.

I cannot see where the Pakistani military has outsmarted the USA in any area for 58 years.....except for the brief period of 7 months where they blocked NATO/USA supply routes into Afghanistan, after the USA killed 24 Pakistani border post soldiers. But since making this smart move they have relented.

With these facts one really can't override the simple conclusion, even with the aid of clever words and semantics that some show Pakistan has outsmarted the USA security establishment. One can however say that with 58 long years of dealing with them from a position of negativity and servitude, that they may have learnt some valuable lessons, and may have even sometimes played with them at their own games, from a position of solid experience.

However, with the USA, the smart thing that should have been done by the military establishment was for the country to detach itself from the USA totally.........at least from the 1970's, and evolve closer secure ties with neighbors India and China, rather than continue acting as Washington's, useful idiot on the spot. One can't help but notice that all politicians, left, right and center along with the military keep going on about how important Pakistan is strategically to the USA.....BUT fail to remember the severe consequences and downsides to this relationship.

The lesson has still not been learnt, as it is business as usual, with NATO/USA supply routes reopened, and American military trainers back in Pakistan......and the American embassy busy as ever. Its not as if Pakistan is bereft of other secure options....namely the China card, which is never played.

Putin will be in Pakistan....presumably to impress the Indians on their pro-USA tilt. 

Russia, with Pakistan (THE MILITARY) along with China can develop a strategy to encourage the drug peddling USA to leave Afghanistan.....real progress can be made, as the writer below has noted and concluded logically.

Like Great and benevolent China, Russia can provide strategic help for Pakistan.....which has never been forth coming, either from the USA/UK.

Infrastructre

Steel mills in Kalabagh

Super dams in Kalabagh and else where

Coal based power stations from the Sindh Thar fields, which has reserves of 200 billion coal.

Iran/Pakistan gas pipeline.

Machine-tools factories

Domestic manufacture of Russian arms---SU--30MKM etc,

Such strategic help will encourage Pakistan to FINALLY leave the dangerous orbit of the USA......and additionally the USA will be denied a local puppet which creates mischief of its geo-strategy in the area. 

To bolster the confidence, and strategic orientation of the Pakistan military....Russia can offer a trade/investment package of $30 billion involving the above projects. 

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Pakistan American option strategy

Rt.com and Colonel Yevgeny Khruschev

­Every country has its own peculiarities, but in international affairs, Pakistan stands out as the one and only state that, despite the perennial turmoil in internal affairs and lack of a powerful Beltway lobby, has excelled splendidly in exploiting US ‘smart power’ ambitions . 

When the US betrayed their staunchest ally, the Shah of Iran, General Zia ul-Haq – unlike Noriega, Qaddafi, Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, Nasser, Marcos, Diem of South Vietnam, and Mulla Omer's Taliban et al – was the first to conclude that counting on succor from the White House when push comes to shove would be a suicidal folly.

Since then, the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment has cracked American secret code of international conduct and pioneered a fool-proof formula: “If you don’t want to be dispensed with by the US, you gotta be indispensible for the US.” And the best way to do it is to embrace Washington’s agenda and then highjack it. 

Though it may look like it’s easier said than done,  Islamabad has been doing that without fail for more than 30 years, with Inter-Services Intelligence gingerly ‘leading from behind’ long before that approach was mistakenly attributed to the most prominent Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The successive US administrations were hypnotized into believing they have always had ‘their’ policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan as a Petri dish for ‘chaos management’ field testing.
 

The rude awakening that has yet to come is that America has been recruited on the sly as an ‘indispensable’ proxy force for Pakistan’s regional foreign policy and designated annuity and materiel provider for its Armed Forces.

The Pakistani military leadership could have enough wisdom to notice that the time-tested policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ and finesse brinkmanship as  anAmerican ‘frenemy’ is at the threshold of diminishing returns.

As the intimate kingmaker of US regional policy, Islamabad knows better than any LA shrink that Washington is a hapless victim of delusion of grandeur:

• Always over promising but underachieving
• a fair-weather friend but a funky foe
• terrific troublemaker but lousy troubleshooter
• a mighty nation-breaker but horrendous nation-builder
• a democracy promoter but narco-state developer.

As I posited at the international conference in Delhi this year, the question should be not ‘what can America do for Afghanistan?’ but ‘who could extricate America from Afghanistan?’ – Now I have the answer.

Only Pakistan has the ability to bail out the over-stretched Uncle Sam from its Hindu-Kush tar baby. 

To accelerate America’s departure for good without any ‘residual force’, Islamabad could call on Moscow to help coordinate their efforts on Afghanistan.

If the White House needs a reality check and friendly encouragement to boot, this booster could come up in the middle of the night as the following breaking news:

“In a joint statement, Pakistan and Russia have announced that for the benefit of the security and stability in the region, they will synchronize and execute their ‘American option’ to simultaneously close for good the southern and northern supply routes to Afghanistan.”