ACCORDING to Pakistan’s defence minister, “Peaceful relations with our neighbour are only possible if all support for the TTP is completely ended”. It is difficult, he said, to trust the Afghan side without firm guarantees against cross-border attacks. The truth is, the Afghan Taliban did not give ironclad guarantees to America in the Doha Agreement, and are not likely to give them to Islamabad either. I hold no brief for the Taliban but would still like to understand their policies.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have a shared but contentious history, overlapping identities, a border dispute, and bifurcated tribes. The two have been dependent on external powers, subordinate to their security and strategic interests and victims of their wars. All this provided them with an opportunity to interfere in the other’s affairs.

It all began with Kabul’s open interference in Pakistan with its ‘Pakhtunistan’ claims. Pakistan successfully blunted the Afghan overreach but allowed itself to be drawn into Afghanistan’s political process. First, it attempted to undermine the Saur Revolution of April 1978, with the help of Afghanistan’s Islamist parties. Later, it let the Afghans find shelter in our tribal areas and beyond as refugees, the Mujahideen and finally as the Taliban.

Instead of fully countering the irredentist claims of the neighbouring country, we allowed the Afghans to become embedded as a sociopolitical force, especially in territories where they felt at home. This situation allowed both sides to exploit the other’s internal dynamics, but the Taliban had the advantage. Since their inception, they have had a substantial presence in (former) Fata and Balochistan, and used madressahs here, which many of them had attended, to recruit fighters. The tribal areas became a ‘hinterland’ of sorts for the Taliban’s fight in Afghanistan, which has left behind a trail of radicalisation and terrorist allies who are now trying to replicate in these areas and beyond what the Afghan Taliban had done in Afghanistan with their help.

Dealing with the Taliban is a complex task.

Both the Afghan people, who were let down first by the Mujahideen and later by a corrupt ruling elite tied to America’s wars, and Pakistan, where the state’s security apparatus was convinced it alone knew what was best for the country, have lost the Afghanistan we once knew. The Taliban are no liberators. Their treatment of women alone is a crime against humanity. And they are also a menace to Pakistan, with their strengths and weaknesses both.

A factionalised Taliban preside over a divided population, an unravelling economy and a worsening humanitarian crisis. And the space given by the Taliban to many jihadist, separatist and terrorist groups with whom they have formed links over the years creates ungoverned spaces, which compromise Afghanistan’s own security.

In this fragile security situation, the Taliban lack both the political will and capacity to act against the TTP with whom they have ideological links. The Taliban treat the TTP and other terrorist groups operating on Afghanistan soil as allies to meet potential aggression from IS-K and the National Resistance Front, or from any external effort at regime change. These groups are also seen as a leverage to obtain concessions — recognition, commercial ties, etc — from regional states.

That makes the task of dealing with the Taliban, especially asking them to do something that compromises their security, a complex one. Islamabad needs to convince them that their survival depends on good relations with Pakistan. If military ac­­tion becomes necessary to convey this message it should carefully reflect Pakistan’s capacity, not the intent, to destabilise the Taliban. A threatened Taliban will cling to the TTP. And a destabilised Afghanistan would be an unmanageable challenge.

Basically, we are stuck with the Taliban, having to ‘protect’ them and ‘protect’ ourselves from them. Pakistan needs patience and negotiations mixed with varying degrees of pressure relating to border control, refugees, and trade. There is no military solution to Pak-Afghan problems unless we’re prepared for a blowback.

Rather than overreact to the Taliban’s outreach to India, Pakistan needs to assure Kabul that they have a sovereign right to have ties with India, but that along with that right is the obligation to behave like a sovereign government and disallow its territory from being used by the TTP and Baloch insurgents. Simul­taneously, Pakistan must degrade these outfits at home, incentivising the Taliban to act against weakened, less useful proxies. The Taliban alone cannot solve this problem for Pakistan, even if they wanted to. The bottom line is: Afghanistan is not a military challenge; it is a political challenge with a military dimension.

The writer, a former ambassador, is adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2025