By Solomon "Customs" Bridges
Pakistan has struck a new drone deal with a company that also sells to India — Pakistan's rival and a nation Islamabad does not diplomatically recognize — according to Al Jazeera reporting. The report describes the firm as backed by Donald Trump, but does not name the company, and this desk could not independently identify it.
A claim in the Al Jazeera account that the firm was co-founded by a former Israeli soldier could not be verified against a named, checkable source, and is not repeated here as fact.
This account of the deal rests on a single Al Jazeera report; the company's identity, the exact contract terms, and the scale of its India sales could not be independently confirmed by this desk.
Even stripped to what can be responsibly reported, the arrangement is a small case study in how modern arms markets scramble old alliances. Pakistan and India have fought four wars and remain locked in one of the world's most dangerous unresolved rivalries, over Kashmir above all. That a single supplier — with backing reportedly tied to the U.S. president — can sell into both capitals at once says something about where power in the drone trade actually sits: not with governments drawing sharp lines, but with manufacturers happy to serve whoever can pay, regardless of who they're pointed at.
Drones have become the great equalizer of regional arms races — cheap relative to fighter jets, deniable, and increasingly decisive on battlefields from Ukraine to Nagorno-Karabakh. A supplier willing to arm both sides of a rivalry isn't unusual in this business; it's the business model. The question for the region is what happens when both India and Pakistan are flying hardware that may trace back to the same production line, and something goes wrong over a border neither side agrees on.
Nothing happens "over there" anymore.
— Compiled from reporting by Al Jazeera.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."