Pakistan Is Feeling US Pressure. Now What?
After a short trip to Pakistan last week, I return to Washington convinced that the Trump administration’s new coercive approach toward Islamabad is working, at […] More
Daniel Markey
Washington Runs Serious Risk in Coercing Islamabad
U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for Pakistan to stop harboring terrorists, or else – outlined in a speech on U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and South […] More
Cipher Brief Expert View: Sharif’s Resignation a Win for Pakistani Military
On Friday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigned after the Pakistani Supreme Court disqualified him from office on charges of corruption. Sharif’s family finances were […] More
Pakistan’s Proxy Strategy Principal Cause of Mistrust for U.S.
Despite Pakistani claims to have taken action against all terrorist groups on its soil, U.S. government officials have continued to signal that neither anti-Afghan Taliban […] More
The Latest
Pakistan’s Entrenched Deep State
Academic and policy analysts generally agree that Pakistan’s army and directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, exert a controlling influence over most of Pakistan’s core […] More
Pakistan's Influence and Control
The Haqqani network’s continued presence in Pakistan, as well as recent Taliban advances in Afghanistan, have resulted in a “steady deterioration in U.S.-Pakistan relations over […] More
A Real Force To Be Reckoned With
As the Taliban causes havoc on the battlefield and with terrorist attacks, The Cipher Brief asked Daniel Markey, a former State Department official and senior […] More
Preparing for Change
For over six decades, the United States and Pakistan have suffered through a tormented and often tumultuous relationship, one defined at its apex by wartime […] More
The View from the U.S.
At least since the end of the Cold War, U.S. policymakers and analysts have devoted considerable thought to the dissonance between existing international institutions and […] More
The Pakistan Problem
Nowhere on earth is an act of terrorism more likely to spark a nuclear war than in South Asia. This is by no means a […] More
The Pakistan Problem
Several years ago, relations between Pakistan and the United States hit a post-9/11 low. The 2011 discovery of Osama bin Laden’s compound not far from […] More
Superficially Normal
Several years ago, relations between Pakistan and the United States hit a post-9/11 low. The 2011 discovery of Osama bin Laden’s compound not far from […] More
Buying More Time
For the past several years, the Obama administration’s strategy for Afghanistan has rested on the basic assumption that although no reasonable amount of U.S. money […] More