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Pakistan’s narrow view of Afghanistan has cost it dearly

With a narrow focus on security and a desire to perpetuate Afghanistan’s dependence on Pakistan, Islamabad has failed to recognise the Taliban’s new regional ambitions and geopolitical strategy

By Salman Rafi Sheikh
Afghan refugee children wave at the camera from the back of a truck leaving from Pakistan to Afghanistan in April 2025.
Afghan refugees from Pakistan on a truck back to Afghanistan in April 2025. Tensions between the two countries over cross-border militancy resulted in Pakistan deporting thousands of Afghans as a punitive measure. As Afghanistan’s reliance on Pakistan diminishes, the efficacy of coercive measures weakens.
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FOR MORE THAN THREE YEARS, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been locked in a cycle of tension, cross-border strikes and fighting punctuated by sporadic attempts at de-escalation. Outside powers including China, Qatar and Turkey have periodically stepped in to facilitate talks, but none have yielded a durable settlement. Diplomatic engagements stall, confidence-building measures collapse and bilateral relations return to familiar patterns of mistrust and coercion.

Islamabad has consistently framed the impasse as a security problem, pointing to the Afghan Taliban’s alleged tolerance of, if not support for, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group based in Afghanistan that has claimed responsibility for numerous terror attacks in Pakistan. European Union envoys have characterised Pakistan’s demand that the Taliban act against TTP sanctuaries as “legitimate”. Kabul, in turn, has denied harbouring militant groups that target Pakistan – a claim the United Nations Security Council has rejected in a recent report. This security-centric framing, while consequential, does not fully explain why negotiations between the two countries repeatedly fail or why external mediation has proven ineffective.

At its core, the Afghanistan–Pakistan deadlock reflects a fundamental divergence in strategic orientation. The Taliban leadership in Kabul is pursuing a foreign policy aimed at reducing, and ultimately eliminating, strategic and economic dependence on Pakistan. Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, the regime has sought to reconfigure its external relations in ways that reduce reliance on any single neighbour, particularly Pakistan. This effort has unfolded along economic, diplomatic and regional lines. Islamabad, by contrast, has long viewed Afghanistan’s dependence as both natural and desirable, and has failed to recognise the country’s new regional ambitions or respond accordingly.  

FOR DECADES, Pakistan has viewed Afghanistan as so-called “strategic depth” against India – a compliant, if not friendly, regime on its western border to bolster its position in the event of hostilities with India to its east. There is no indication that Pakistan’s diplomatic or security policymakers have moved away from this view.