Sub-National Diplomacy

Pakistani legal sovereignty over their frontier areas does not prevent jihadis from using the area as a base to attack us in Afghanistan but that legal status has kept us out for the most part. The problem is that Pakistan does not control all its territory nor does it control all of its military power.

So we are working with elements inside Pakistan friendly to us:

Now there is a section of the Pakistani Special Service Group that specializes in U.S. counter-terrorism methods. Exactly how they will operate, how many of them there are and how they will work with foreign counter-terror operators, is all classified. But they are out there now, doing something.

Post-Westphalian diplomacy and warfare requires this kind of effort.