ASP Fellow Joshua Foust’s latest piece in The Atlantic examines Pakistan’s recent reopening of NATO transit routes  (“Ground Lines of Communication,” or GLOCs) in the south of the country.   However, this detente between the US and Pakistan is purely transactional, and the alliance between the two nations is likely to dissolve following NATO’s exit from Afghanistan.

U.S.-Pakistan relations seem on course for conflict the moment the U.S. no longer needs Pakistani GLOCs for Afghanistan. What shape that conflict takes remains to be seen. The U.S. can construct a strong case for describing Pakistan as a rogue state: it harbors and supports international terrorism; it is one of the world’s most brazen proliferators of nuclear and ballistic missile technology; and it seems so stubbornly unwilling to admit fault that U.S. officials say they can barely raise either subject with their Pakistani counterparts.

Read Joshua’s latest here.