Walsh, D., Schmitt, E., & Myers, S. L. (April 27, 2012).

United states talks fails as Pakistanis seek apology. The New York Times. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/world/asia/talksbetween-us-and-pakistan-fail-over-airstrike-apology.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world>. Sarah Colegrove April News Report Recently, the United States and Pakistan have been in conversation with each other over an incident that occurred last fall where 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed when the United States had an airstrike along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Pakistan has been demanding for a formal apology for the soldiers who were killed in the airstrike. The United States has refused after attacks on April 15th took place towards forces in Afghanistan by a terrorist group within Pakistan. As result Pakistan and the United States are at a standoff Pakistan has closed NATO supply routes and the United States will not give Pakistan promised aid. This is just the culmination of Pakistani distrust of the United States since they see the U.S. as having repeatedly violated their sovereignty in the past several years. The United States, in turn, has little patience for Pakistan and distrusts their government. According to U.S. officials, the drone attacks in areas of where terrorist holdings are will continue to occur (even if they are in or very close to Pakistan) unless Pakistan takes action against these insurgents themself. Pakistan has not done so and as such the countries are at a stalemate (Walsh, Schmitt, & Myers 2012) This stalemate between Pakistan and the United States highlights the issues that countries have with each other. It also shows just how unstable the international relations and international cooperation can be. Pakistan is only looking for an apology for the attack that left twenty-four Pakistanis dead and for the U.S. to stop violating its sovereignty and hurting its people. The U.S. is looking to get rid of terrorists even if they have to use extreme measures. Pakistan has stated that they agree with the U.S. that terrorism needs to be gotten rid of. However, their issue comes about in the way that the U.S. goes about getting rid of terrorist groups in and around the

Pakistani border (Walsh 2012). This situation also seems to highlight the anarchical international system the system that is in place in the world because there is no overarching government or agency that can moderate countries. This whole situation could be avoided if there was such an institution in place that could control or moderate the actions that countries take. The chances of a country, such as the United States, killing soldiers of another country and relatively getting away with it, would be lessened. Restrictions would be in place to prevent this and sanctions would occur afterwards that might cause a country to think twice before doing something similar in the future. Another result of the anarchical system that can lead to tensions between countries is the stalemate that comes between countries, such as in this situation. There is not an overhead figure to mediate the situation and as such breakdowns between the countries can occur. Each country has stopped providing the other with a service or funds that the other desires (a NATO supply lane has been closed and promised aid has not been dispersed). This situation that has emerged between Pakistan and the United States has occurred, in part, because the international system is anarchical. If there were to be an overhead or overarching international actor, this situation and ones like it would more than likely be prevented. However this is not how the international system currently works. Instead, countries must work out the difference between them on their own. Hopefully, this situation can be taken care of quickly before the tensions escalate and something even worse happens.