Afghanistan–Pakistan Tensions: Beyond Defensive Narratives

Recent airstrikes in the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar Province, Paktia Province, and Paktika Province have generated significant international concern following confirmation by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan that at least 28 civilians were killed and 49 others injured. The strikes,  across districts including Chamkani in Paktia, Gyan in Paktika, and Marawara in Kunar, have intensified scrutiny over Pakistan’s actual objectives in Afghanistan, beyond the official narratives and justifications advanced by Pakistani authorities.

Neglecting the official justifications routinely advanced by Pakistani authorities, these military strikes raise fundamental questions about the true nature of Pakistan’s policy toward Afghanistan. While apparently framed as counterterrorism operations, the timing, scale, and geographical spread of these strikes suggest that they may carry broader strategic implications extending beyond immediate security concerns.

Viewed in a wider regional context, such actions can be interpreted as part of a coercive strategy aimed not only at addressing militant threats but also at shaping Afghanistan’s political and security environment through pressure and controlled escalation. This reflects a familiar pattern in Pakistan’s regional policy, where military force has often been employed as an instrument to influence political dynamics across the border.

What makes this development particularly significant is its convergence with the broader US strategic outlook on Afghanistan, an outlook that similarly framed the use of force as defensive measures while prioritizing containment and strategic leverage over political accommodation. More significantly, this convergence has been reinforced by Washington’s recent endorsement of Pakistan’s strikes as legitimate defensive action. Whether deliberate or circumstantial, such alignment risks reproducing the same cycles of instability and violence that decades of intervention in Afghanistan have repeatedly failed to resolve.

History offers a cautionary precedent. External military interventions in Afghanistan, from the Soviet–Afghan War to the US War on Terror in Afghanistan, have consistently demonstrated a pattern in which tactical military actions produced outcomes contrary to their intended strategic objectives.

Rather than achieving deterrence or long-term stabilization, civilian harm and perceptions of disproportionate force strengthened resistance narratives, facilitated militant recruitment, and undermined the legitimacy presented by external actors. In this context, Pakistan’s recent actions risk generating similarly counterproductive effects by deepening anti-Pakistan sentiment, complicating diplomatic engagement with Kabul, and reinforcing cycles of retaliatory violence.

A broader reading of Pakistan’s Afghan policy also suggests that these developments are not isolated, but part of a longstanding strategic pattern. Historically, Pakistan’s approach has reflected a tendency to view governments consolidated in Kabul as pro India while simultaneously cultivating relations with non-state armed actors or opposition forces capable of challenging the existing order.

This pattern became visible again on 15 August 2021, when the Taliban entered Kabul and moved to take control of the Presidential Palace. In the immediate aftermath, reports suggested that Pakistan simultaneously sought to establish contacts with former Afghan warlords.

The dispatch of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft to Kabul on that day,  carrying figures linked to the former warlords has been interpreted as indicative of a persistent strategic doctrine centered on proxy-based engagement: maintaining limited ties with those in formal power while simultaneously cultivating relationships with potentially armed groups outside state structures who may serve as alternative instruments of influence. This approach reflects a broader tendency in which non-state or opposition actors are treated as strategic hedges within Afghanistan’s evolving political landscape.

If Pakistan’s motives are genuinely rooted in security concerns, sustainable security cannot be achieved through airstrikes, violations of sovereignty, or the externalization of internal security challenges. Afghanistan, for its part, must cooperate in addressing shared threats and avoid replicating Pakistan’s historical patterns of denial and rejection. At the same time, Pakistan must engage Afghanistan on the basis of sovereign equality, approaching it as an independent neighboring state rather than through dictation or unilateral coercive measures.

The only durable resolution to shared security challenges lies in dialogue rather than dictation, mutual recognition of legitimate concerns rather than violations of sovereignty, and a sustained commitment to political engagement over the use of force.

Beyond their contradictory consequences and potential implications for Pakistan’s own internal security, these developments risk exacerbating political tensions, deepening mistrust between Kabul and Islamabad, and further destabilizing an already fragile regional security environment. Unless both sides move toward a framework of cooperation and political realism, the continuation of such strategies would ultimately reinforce the very insecurities they claim to address.

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