A string of attacks by foreign and homegrown militants in Pakistan in October has focused attention once more on Pakistan’s vulnerabilities and increased pressure on Pakistan’s fragile civilian government. Instability in Pakistan has broad ramifications on regional security given Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, its role as a de facto safe haven for the Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan and its dangerous rivalry with India. Moreover, Pakistan faces continuing trouble attracting the capital inflows needed to finance its current account and fiscal deficits and attracting the long-term investment needed to spur a revival of economic growth.

With U.S. policy in the “Af-Pak” region under review, these attacks underscore the stakes involved.  The U.S. has allied itself with Pakistan for geopolitical reasons over the past six decades, providing billions of dollars worth of military and economic aid and development assistance. Yet Pakistan’s ties to the Afghan Taliban, ostensibly severed after 9/11 but in fact still actively cultivated by the country’s ISI intelligence service, have been a cause for concern to the Obama administration. The deterioration in Pakistan’s domestic security situation complicates the administration's goal “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Added to Pakistan’s domestic political fissures, its history of military interference in politics, its simmering nuclear rivalry with India and economic challenges, these weaknesses in Pakistan will complicate efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. Obama has stressed that the core American interest in the region – anti-terrorism -- lay in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As President Obama reassesses US strategy in Afghanistan, security issues in Pakistan amount to far more than a distraction, and experts warn that if left unattended the country’s problems could make Afghanistan look simple by comparison.