United States and Pakistan in the war against terrorism: The dissymmetry of their geopolitical interests

Bilateral relations between the United States and Pakistan have been dominated by a clear dissymmetry between the countries' strategic outlooks. The complex interactions resulting from this imbalance have prevented them from cementing a true strategic alliance based on long-term shared interests. Instead their relationship has been based on responses to specific situations, and therefore oscillates between partnership, retreat and conflict. By analyzing bilateral relations between 2001 and 2014, this article aims to demonstrate how the war against terrorism, waged by the United States after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, has intensified this strategic dissymmetry to an unprecedented degree and generated tensions that have determined the complex and contradictory behavior of their association in the new context.