Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Pete Hegseth downplayed the idea that either Pakistan or India were potential missile threats to Washington's national security.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Pete Hegseth downplayed the idea that either Pakistan or India were potential missile threats to Washington's national security.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Pete Hegseth downplayed the idea that either Pakistan or India were potential missile threats to Washington's national security.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth's recent comments on the growing ties between Washington and Islamabad have sparked concerns that the "true friendship" between them may have exposed a gap within the Donald Trump administration on matters of national security.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, Hegseth was full of praise for Pakistan's PM and army chief for their role in mediating the three-month-long war in the Gulf.

He also downplayed the idea that either Pakistan or India were potential missile threats to Washington's national security.

"We’re not pointing a finger, at least from our view right now, at either country and calling them a threat to us," he said at the defence forum, in response to a question from a Pakistani delegate on whether India's Agni-6 ICBM test indicated that New Delhi's missiles might also present a future threat to US national security.

The pointed question was a clear reference to former US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard's March 18 statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Pakistan's long-range missile programme's potential to "put our homeland within range" one day.

"Pakistan continues to develop increasingly sophisticated missile technology that provides its military the means to develop missile systems with the capability to strike targets beyond South Asia, and if these trends continue, ICBMs that would threaten the US," the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment report said, adding to Gabbard's remarks.

Though the report itself has not changed over time, Hegseth's comments appear to be prioritising diplomacy over threats that are, at the moment, hypothetical.

Mediation in the Gulf conflict is not the only reason why Pakistan is important to the Trump administration—it is also Islamabad's location that influences the US' strategic calculations on regional stability in South and Central Asia.

Are Pakistan's current missile capabilities really a threat to the US?

While the report focuses on potential missile threats from Pakistan, it does not, however, identify any current missile delivery systems capable of crossing more than 12,000km from Islamabad to the US.

At the top of Pakistan's deterrence strategy—guided by its need to counter India's developments in missile capabilities—is the Shaheen family of solid-fuelled, surface-to-surface missiles, as per a report from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Among three variants of this missile family, even the Shaheen III, said to be its most capable, has a range of 2,750km, designed to extend its strategic deterrent reach to the easternmost parts of the Indian mainland, which had earlier been a blind spot.

Though this range would put the Shaheen III in the category of an MCBM, it is still nowhere near the 5,500-km benchmark for an ICBM.

In that regard, there is also no publicly confirmed evidence showing that Pakistan has an operational missile system capable of bridging the gap of more than 12,000km, as per a Defence Security Asia report.

The report also indicates that Pakistan's Ababeel programme, based on the MIRV technology, may have factored into the assessment of Islamabad as a hypothetical missile threat.

This missile programme is reportedly designed to integrate Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle (MIRV) capabilities, which allows multiple warheads to be delivered to different targets with a single launch.

Though the Ababeel programme has a range of just 2,200km, it carries implications beyond the question of missile range, due to the MIRV technology that would add a new layer to regional deterrence calculations.

However, currently available information indicates that the Ababeel programme is still in development only, and is not operational.

Given this, Hegseth's comments can be viewed less as a clash between the Trump administration's geopolitical signals and its intelligence assessments, and more of the former taking precedence over the hypothetical predictions in the current scenario, where Pakistan retains its focus on trying to remain in step with India in regional military equations.

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