Contradictions in Afghanistan Pakistan Ties

Afghanistan’s relationship with Pakistan is the outcome of a cumulative and structural interplay of unresolved historical questions: the contested Durand Line, ethnic and social ties that do not conform to state boundaries, proxy politics, competing strategic calculations, and a deep mutual suspicion that has hardened over generations into something approaching structural hostility.

At the centre of this relationship is the Durand Line, a late-nineteenth-century demarcation that Pakistan regards as a settled international boundary, while successive Afghan governments have refused to recognize it as a permanent international boundary, viewing it instead as an externally imposed division of historically interconnected communities. The dispute has become intertwined with national identity, sovereignty, geography, fencing, recurring violence along the Durand Line, and Pakistan’s longstanding and controversial efforts to influence political developments in Afghanistan.

Underlying much of Islamabad’s policy has been the perceived and historically unrealistic fear that Afghanistan could align with India, leaving Pakistan vulnerable to a perceived two-front strategic challenge. This perception contributed to the emergence of the doctrine of “strategic depth”.

Yet the experience since 2021 has exposed a fundamental contradiction in this logic. The authorities that returned to power in Kabul were viewed in Pakistan as exceptionally close to Islamabad and, according to conventional strategic calculations, should have represented the kind of government Pakistan had long sought in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, relations deteriorated rapidly, with Pakistan increasingly portraying the same authorities as hostile. The shift from viewing Kabul as a strategic partner to treating it as a security threat illustrates the failure of a strategy built primarily around securing a friendly government in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Afghan dilemma, therefore, cannot be explained simply by the political orientation of the government in Kabul or by the fear of Indian influence. Even a government that Islamabad once regarded as exceptionally close and strategically favourable could not satisfy Pakistan’s broader expectations regarding security, the Durand Line, Afghanistan’s relations with India, and Islamabad’s desired influence over Kabul. The deterioration in relations despite these initial affinities exposes a deeper contradiction: Pakistan has repeatedly sought an Afghanistan that accommodates its strategic preferences, while Afghanistan, regardless of who governs it, has its own sovereignty, interests, and foreign-policy choices. The failure of the “friendly Kabul” assumption therefore suggests that the underlying problem lies less in the identity of the government in Kabul than in Pakistan’s expectation that a friendly Afghanistan should also be a strategically compliant one.

Pakistan’s threat perception has also always been at odds with the historical evidence on which it is based. Afghanistan has usually pursued relations with India in accordance with its own diplomatic, economic, and strategic interests rather than as part of a coordinated effort to pressure Pakistan. Kabul’s conduct during the 1965 and 1971 India–Pakistan wars also suggests that Afghanistan did not seek to exploit the rivalry between its two neighbours as an instrument against Islamabad. This historical record therefore complicates the assumption that closer Afghan–Indian relations represented a coordinated strategic threat to Pakistan.

Paradoxically, Pakistan’s effort to prevent Afghan–Indian strategic convergence has helped produce the very outcome it seeks to prevent. The more Islamabad has sought to constrain Afghanistan’s external relationships, the stronger the Afghan attraction toward India as an alternative source of diplomatic space, economic opportunity, and independent foreign-policy choice. India, therefore, has acquired a significance in Afghan perceptions that extends beyond bilateral relations: for many Afghans, it represents an alternative to the insecurity and constraints associated with Pakistan’s approach.

This has created a dilemma in which Pakistan views Afghan non-recognition of the Durand Line and relations with India through an existential security lens, while Afghanistan views demands for recognition, unilateral fencing, proxy calculations, and political interference as instruments of coercion and control and resist to Pakistan’s superiority. Each side consequently interprets the other’s  behaviour as offensive intent.

The deeper contradiction is that both countries expect from each other forms of cooperation and accommodation that neither side is fully willing, able, or politically prepared to provide. Pakistan expects Afghanistan to address its security concerns that Kabul cannot fully control or afford to meet on Islamabad’s terms, while Afghanistan expects Pakistan to provide political trust, economic access, a cooperative approach to the Durand Line, and greater freedom for Afghan trade with India.

In other words, each side is asking the other to fulfil expectations that often exceed its capacity, political space, or willingness to act. A more realistic relationship therefore requires both countries to moderate their expectations and acknowledge each other’s limitations. Instead of demanding solutions from the other side that neither can deliver, they should focus on reciprocal commitments that are practical, affordable, and achievable.

The significant problem, therefore, is not India’s role in Afghanistan itself, but Pakistan’s longstanding perception of Afghanistan as a strategic space that must be controlled. That assumption has become increasingly self-defeating. Efforts to keep Afghanistan away from India have encouraged Kabul to diversify its political and economic relationships while deepening Afghan distrust of Pakistan. At the same time, Afghanistan’s expectations of unrestricted economic access and political accommodation from Pakistan have often overlooked Islamabad’s own constraints.

The unresolved dispute over the Durand Line further reinforces this contradiction. Pakistan expects its permanent recognition, while successive Afghan governments have refused to accept it as an international boundary. The result is a cycle of mistrust in which each side demands from the other what it cannot realistically deliver itself.

Breaking this cycle requires a fundamental shift from control to coexistence. Pakistan must accept Afghanistan’s sovereign right to pursue independent foreign relations and recognize that its relations with India cannot be subordinated to threat perceptions shaped by Islamabad’s own strategic assumptions. Afghanistan, in turn, should provide credible assurances that its territory will not be used against Pakistan. Both sides should pursue mutual non-interference, reciprocal security commitments, and practical cooperation on the Durand Line, crossings, trade, and security.

Ultimately, lasting stability will not come from forcing the other side to satisfy demands it cannot accept or fulfil. It will come when Afghanistan and Pakistan recognize that neither can secure its interests by controlling the other. Their relationship needs fewer unrealistic expectations, fewer coercive calculations, and more reciprocal commitments grounded in political reality.

A Realistic Path for Two Difficult Neighbours

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