As US President Barack Obama unveiled his much awaited Afghan-Pak policy, it became clear that for the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan are now going to be one theater of operation. This was acknowledged by a top Obama Administration official who headed his interagency review of the policy. "Thus far, our policy sees Afghanistan and Pakistan as two countries but one theater of operation for our diplomacy, and one challenge for our overall policy," Bruce Riedel told reporters after new policy for the region was unveiled. "The cornerstone of this strategy, I think, is that it's a regional approach, and for the first time we will treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as two countries, but with one challenge, in one region. Our strategy focuses more intensively on Pakistan than in the past, and this is normal because it's a -- it's a newer problem," said General James Jones, National Security Advisor, during his interaction with foreign correspondents. "This calls for more significant increases in US and international support, both economic and military, linked to performance against terror," he said. Referring to the announcement made by Obama, Mr. Riedel said: "We're going to engage intensively with the Pakistani government. We have very concrete proposals for increasing economic assistance to Pakistan, proposals that have already been put forward by the Congress. We're also looking at what we can do on the military side." On the Afghanistan side, he said Obama has resourced fully the requirements of the mission -- not just on the military side, but on the civilian side, as well. "Now, for the first time, we are providing the kind of civilian support that this mission has always needed," he said. However, the proposed support to Pakistan is not going to be what Obama said "a blank check", he argued. "For the last eight years, Pakistan received billions of dollars in support from the US -- much of it was unaccountable; much the Pakistanis don't even know where it went," Mr. Riedel said acknowledging the failure of the previous administration in this regard. "As the President indicated in his speech, we're going to make sure that there is rigorous oversight by an Inspector General's office. We're going to work very, very intensively with our Pakistani partners, the democratically elected civilian leadership in Pakistan, to see that we're moving in the right direction, in the same direction that we want to go," he argued.