I now read the above link more carefully. US was NOT able to hack into Pakistani VIP and military telecommunications at all. There is no evidence of that anywhere.
You do need to read such things carefully and objectively. Otherwise it would look like as you implied.
The news just says they were able to steal plans only (e.g. fiber optics lines, communications protocols etc).
The leaked documents in the news you mentioned just says, if you read it carefully
,''targets in Pakistan’s National Telecommunications Corporation’s (NTC) VIP Division,' which contained documents pertaining to 'the backbone of Pakistan’s Green Line communications network' used by 'civilian and military leadership',"
While that's bad. it would have minimal effect on Pakistan. Communication protocols are similar throughout the world. They still cannot eves drops in Pakistan. There is NO evidence of that. Eves dropping on military without traitors is not possible.
Simply because of due to combinatorial nature of decryption algortihms, even the most powerful computers cannot break them every-time and fast enough even with insider information (encryption keys are regularly updated), despite NSA claims since military communications are not like civilians (i.e. mine or yours) (may be when large scale quantum computers become available but then there will be quantum encryption).
More often than note, even the best "randomized algorithms" fail in decrypting any given intercept (it might take years in general) and if they do it on time once in while due random chance (that's what randomized algorithms offer) soon it is detected and new encryption schemes takes over. NO one can keep up with that.
SO no it was NOT a hack into Pakistani military or VIP communication systems itself but only they only found out its construction plans just like china found out F-35 communication systems engineering plans such as communication protocols etc by hacking into US systems (many can do, now not just US).
Did china hacked into US military Jugular vein with F-35 plans? NO, neither did US into Pakistan.
Knowing from where a fiber optic cables goes can help ( you can use a traitor to tap into it) but decrypting it and that too without detection is very hard. Newer encryption schemes are now reaching theoretical impossibility with classical decryption algorithms running on classical computers (i.e. non-quantum computers). Even if it is done due to some traitor or other commercial info leak, modern counter detection algorithms allow Pakistan to detect such "data leaks". US can't do it for long.
Iran Hacks like that into US systems regularly so can Pakistan. but doing it regularly and at will is not possible neither for US or anyone else.
coming back to the news item you mentioned, In this case, they could NOT hack into Pakistani green line telecommunication system itself, Not at all. There is NO evidence of that anywhere. SO no US could NOT go for Pakistani jugular veins.
US can't do it. Even theoretically its very hard. Otherwise, 4G is 4G and military protocol are very similar in capabilities. If they can do it, so do others. Temporary hacking is possible but it will be detected very soon. That's why they need traitors on site who steal data and then to hide those traitors, they "pretend they hacked into it from US when it was some one in Pakistan" doing it for them.
Still counter measures allow detection of data theft and leak of any kind very quickly.
Things are not that easy for US. There are always counter strategies that protect Pakistani communications (he likely used encrypted communications).
Otherwise, they would have "hacked into osama bin laden" communications too or those were "helping him" here and abroad (i.e. bin laden family in saudi arabia). Hiring afridi looks like things are not as easy for US as our colonized mind make us think.
WE did not have proper coverage on western borders during osama raid as pointed out by Bilal at Quwa plus they were probably US radars if any which are easier for US to jam (using kill switch?). Otherwise, they could not have entered even Pakistan.
Stealth is not that stealth. A fundamental theorem similar to Black body radiation in statistical physics related to Electromagnetic scattering says, even if we have perfectly absorbing radar material, half of energy will still be given off as EM scatter waves which can always be detected with proper radar coverage (yes even for stealth aircraft, I am too tired to write on it now).
Furthermore due to this energy scatter, there is range within which even the most theoretically possible stealth aircraft can be detected and tracked. No one on earth can ever engineer such a perfect radar absorbing material or even close to it, unless they are god.
NOTE this theorem only valid for high frequency radars.
High powered, Low frequency radar with properly shaped radar waveform with frequency appropriate for a given shape and size of aircraft, can detect and track a stealth aircraft (with some loss of localization accuracy) without much problem. multiple such radars can even localized them with increasing accuracy.
If US can enter any country using stealth aircraft as they will, iran would NOT have tracked their stealth drone and hacked into it and landed it in iran.
If they could, why don't they do it to China, russia or undeveloped and poverty stricken North korea. How about Iran?
US has its severe limitations. we must never forget that.
I am really too tired and above probably is full of spelling and grammar mistakes, my apologies.
