The Afghan Boomerang: How Pakistan’s Taliban Strategy Turned Against It

Five years ago when the Taliban’s white-and-black flag was hoisted over the presidential palace in Afghanistan’s capital, the conclusion in most capitals of the region was straightforward that Pakistan had won. The security establishment in Islamabad had been the chief supporter of the movement during its troubled years and the fruits of their labour seemed to be in sight when a friendly regime had taken over Kabul. Islamabad believed that Pakistan’s western flank was secured along with ‘strategic depth’ against India and a client regime in Kabul would remain beholden to Pakistan.

It has been five years since then, and what Pakistan has got is entirely different from what its ruling class had imagined. Pakistan is no longer the patron of Kabul; rather it has become an enemy which has not shied away from conducting airstrikes in Afghanistan. Pakistan has not yet officially recognised the Taliban regime as Russia is the first and only country to do so. China has developed the most intimate economic ties with Kabul, but has avoided any political ownership. Ironically it is India which has found itself in a space where Pakistan has left a vacuum. This is the true account of the past five years in Afghanistan. Nobody can gloss over what the Taliban has inflicted on their own people, a record which is horrifying to most. The regional chessboard has definitely been redrawn, but the game has brought neither security nor relief for ordinary Afghans.

The irony of Pakistan’s Afghan policy has been impossible to miss. For more than a generation, Pakistan’s Afghan policy was built on a simple theory that shared ideology and two decades of militant sanctuary would ensure a pliant Taliban-led Kabul. Rather, the group installed by Pakistan has grown sufficiently independent to turn into a security hazard in its own right. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban, who are ideologically affiliated but are different in some respects, have been operating from Afghan soil to mount daily assaults on the Pakistani state, and Kabul has not been very enthusiastic about curbing them. This has created a situation of patron-client relationship that has turned to open hostility. The cooperation has given way to cross-border airstrikes, repeated border closures which choke trade communities on both sides, and mass deportation of Afghan people from Pakistani territory.

Diplomatic relations have reverted to a dramatic downward trend in the context of escalating insecurity. Pakistan now finds itself in a position it once considered almost unthinkable: treating Kabul as an adversary rather than an ally, much as it has long treated New Delhi. This is especially annoying for Islamabad. The ‘strategic depth’ concept had always been based on blocking India’s influence in Afghanistan. Rather, Pakistan’s separation from Kabul has given India precisely what it had tried to avoid as per the doctrine and just in time when Pakistan’s security establishment is already overburdened with the management of the very group that it had cultivated.

Since 2021, India has been attempting a delicate balancing act between humanity and ambiguity; between extending enough aid to win over the Afghan people and enough distance to stay out of any complicity with a regime that has received international condemnation for its treatment of women and minorities. That ambiguity has slowly been replaced with a more commanding tone, and it is no coincidence that this happened at this crucial juncture. In light of deteriorating Pakistan-Taliban relations, India has been systematically increasing its presence, upgrading its mission in Kabul to full embassy status, hosting top-ranking Taliban ministers for talks on trade and connectivity, and providing autonomy to Taliban diplomats for running the Afghan embassy in New Delhi without formal recognition.

India has a channel to the decision-makers in Kabul as it keeps its development projects in Afghanistan alive, and ensures that it is not cornered by Pakistan, China and Russia. It is a policy which capitalises on India’s actual strengths in Afghanistan, namely, the goodwill acquired over 20 years of providing infrastructure and development assistance which ordinary Afghans still remember and the absence of any baggage that comes with Pakistan’s history of supporting the movement or Russia’s history of opposing it. Unlike Islamabad, who senses fear in Kabul, or Moscow, which has a security relationship with an authoritarian edge, India has struck a balance and is perceived as the pragmatic, non-threatening partner who is willing to engage in dialogue for trade, medicine and connectivity. This is a tricky equation to master, and New Delhi seems to be navigating it with increasing confidence than its competitors.

Beijing’s strategy to the new Afghanistan is the most pragmatic. China has eschewed the kind of explicit political embrace which would lead to questions at home about its own dealings with Muslim minorities. Instead, China has built one of Kabul’s most consequential diplomatic relationships, which is driven almost entirely by hard interests: guarantees against the actions of militant groups that could destabilise its western periphery; access to its mineral wealth; quiet assurances that Afghan territory will not be a launching pad for instability that finds its way into the Chinese infrastructure projects around the region. However, Beijing’s desire has decreased over time as the realities of conducting business in Afghanistan have become increasingly apparent, including the threat of security, a cash strapped regime and weak governing institutions. China’s involvement reached its peak several years ago and is now back at a more moderate level, indicating Beijing’s decision that Afghanistan offers too many risks to justify a major investment push. It is a sort of relationship that is not based on ambition, but rather on hedging.

Moscow’s decision to formally recognise the Taliban reveals a lot about the overall international system. Generations back, a regime such as the Taliban would have faced broad international consensus on diplomatic isolation. But in today’s polarised world, a single determined power, wielding its own authority, can grant a pariah movement diplomatic legitimacy by deciding that the strategic gains outweigh the reputational costs. For Russia, the calculation is simple: it has regained access to the southern approaches to Central Asia, a buffer against instability bubbling towards its own sphere of influence, and a symbolic gesture of defiance against a Western order it has long sought to puncture at every opportunity. The military-technical cooperation agreement that Moscow reached with Kabul and the fact that the Taliban are being perceived as an acknowledged member of Russian-organised regional consultations indicate that a symbiotic relationship is transforming into an institutional one.

While these regional dynamics have been unfolding, Western governments have virtually been pushed to the sidelines of Afghan diplomacy. Aid sanctions, deep scepticism over any meaningful progress on women’s rights and donor fatigue have all reduced the West’s influence in Kabul to a fraction of what it was in the first year after the Taliban takeover.

It can be reasonably claimed that the Taliban rule has not made Afghanistan a satellite of any single power. It has instead come to be seen as a challenge to which regional strategies – Pakistan’s old model of patronage, Russia’s opportunistic recognition, China’s transactional patience or India’s calibrated pragmatism – is effective in the long-term without assuming full cost of engagement. However, Pakistan’s model is the most discredited five years later as it has been undermined by the very religious movement it once sought to cultivate. But the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has deepened regardless of any diplomatic game being played on the outside.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Statecraft Institute.