Abstract
Despite strong shared interests and their dependence on US assistance, Kabul and Islamabad frequently fail to cooperate with the USA’s post-9/11 security agenda. Why doesn’t the USA have more leverage in these alliances and what can it change to be more influential? This article identifies four structural factors in Washington’s alliances in Afghanistan and Pakistan (‘Af-Pak’) contributing to Washington’s lack of coercive power: 1) the USA’s interest makes coercion difficult; 2) Kabul and Islamabad have more invested and will bargain to protect their interests; 3) the form of US commitment (an intense but explicitly temporary military commitment) produces incentives for Kabul and Islamabad to adopt short-term solutions, frequently running against US interests; and 4) the tenets of counterinsurgency policy cause Washington to be politically dependent on Kabul and Islamabad, effectively reducing its influence.
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