The Erosion of Traditional Leverage

In the changing regional environment, the mechanisms that once enabled Islamabad to shape developments in Afghanistan no longer produce the outcomes they were designed to achieve. This is not the result of a single event, but of a gradual transformation driven by the long term internal changes in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s own domestic constraints, the emergence of a more competitive regional order, and the declining effectiveness of proxy-based strategies as instruments of influence.

Among the most significant changes has been the erosion of Pakistan’s traditional sources of leverage. For decades, Islamabad drew influence from geographical proximity, intelligence networks, relationships with selected Afghan actors, control over trade and transit routes, the presence of millions of Afghan refugees, and its relationships with major international stakeholders. These advantages have not disappeared, but their relative effectiveness has diminished considerably. Afghanistan has become more resistant to external political pressure, while alternative regional partnerships and economic routes have gradually expanded its strategic options.

The deterioration of Afghanistan–Pakistan relations following the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 therefore cannot be explained simply by the argument that the Taliban failed to meet Pakistan’s security demands. Such an interpretation reduces a complex bilateral crisis to a single cause and overlooks the constraints confronting both governments.

Pakistan has repeatedly cited the TTP as a major security concern and placed substantial demands on Afghanistan’s comparatively weaker government, while insufficiently accounting for the historical record and the need to engage Afghanistan as a sovereign state with its own interests, constraints and security considerations. The more important question, however, is not whether Pakistan’s stated concerns should simply be accepted or rejected, but whether the expectations placed on Kabul were realistic under the circumstances and whether the measures adopted by Islamabad produced the security outcomes they were intended to achieve.

Despite escalating military pressure, TTP violence has persisted, with no clear evidence of a sustained improvement in Pakistan’s security environment. Instead, the policy has been accompanied by increasingly counterproductive outcomes, including heightened tensions, weakened cooperation and a cycle of mutual accusation and retaliation.

The historical record provides an important parallel. For decades, successive Afghan governments made security-related demands of Pakistan and called on Islamabad to address threats they believed were emanating from its territory. Those demands were neither met in a manner that satisfied Afghanistan’s expectations nor did Pakistan’s responses produce a positive outcome in Afghanistan. Instead, unresolved disputes contributed to a recurring cycle of mistrust, confrontation and instability. The comparison demonstrates the ineffectiveness and the limitations of expecting one government to resolve another government’s deeply rooted security concerns through pressure alone.

Pakistan, despite possessing a substantially larger and better-equipped military, extensive intelligence capabilities, and far greater institutional capacity, has itself failed to eliminate the TTP threat permanently. It is therefore reasonable to question whether Afghanistan’s new authorities, operating with considerably fewer resources and weaker state institutions while simultaneously confronting severe economic, political and institutional constraints, could realistically be expected to resolve such a deeply embedded security challenge rapidly and comprehensively.

The experience of recent decades suggests that militant networks cannot be treated solely as a conventional military problem. Their persistence is shaped by a combination of political, social, ideological and regional dynamics, while the TTP itself has never been exclusively an Afghanistan-based phenomenon. Its history, networks and operational environment are connected to developments within Pakistan. This makes the expectation that a newly established government in Kabul could resolve the problem through unilateral action particularly difficult to sustain.

Pakistan’s post-2021 policy appears to have rested either on a misjudgment of the Taliban authorities’ capacity to meet Islamabad’s expectations or on a deliberate strategy of early coercion to shape their behaviour. Regardless of the objective, the approach produced greater mistrust and escalating confrontation rather than the security cooperation Pakistan sought.

Pakistan’s coercive instruments have also generated diminishing strategic returns. Airstrikes, restrictions at the Durand Line crossings, disruptions to trade and the mass deportation of Afghan refugees have imposed substantial economic and humanitarian costs on Afghanistan. At the same time, however, they have generated resentment, strengthened perceptions of external pressure, encouraged Afghanistan to diversify its trade and transit routes, and attracted criticism from humanitarian organizations and parts of the international community. Thus, measures intended to increase leverage have, in some respects, encouraged precisely the search for alternatives that reduces that leverage.

Economic leverage has also become less decisive. While Pakistan remains an important trading partner, Afghanistan has diversified its commercial and transit routes, reducing its dependence on Pakistani channels. At the same time, repeated disruptions to cross-Durand Line trade have imposed significant costs on Pakistani businesses and border communities. The economic relationship is therefore increasingly interdependent, making sustained economic pressure costly for both countries.

The wider regional environment has changed in parallel. China, Russia, Iran, the Central Asian republics, the Gulf states and India have all expanded their engagement with Afghanistan in different forms and for different strategic purposes. This has contributed to a more competitive and multidimensional regional setting in which Afghanistan has greater opportunity to diversify its external relationships. No single neighbouring state can therefore expect to exercise the same degree of influence over Afghanistan’s strategic choices that may have been possible under earlier regional conditions.

Pakistan’s domestic challenges have further complicated its ability to sustain an expansive external strategy. Economic pressures, political instability, fiscal constraints and persistent internal security challenges, including violence associated with the TTP and the Baloch insurgency, have increasingly demanded attention and resources. These pressures do not eliminate Pakistan’s regional influence, but they constrain its strategic flexibility and make prolonged confrontation with Afghanistan more costly.

Geography, shared history, economic interdependence, social ties, culture and security concerns ensure that the two countries will continue to shape each other’s strategic environment. The more consequential question is whether the traditional methods through which Islamabad sought to exercise influence remain effective under present conditions. The evidence suggests that coercion, economic pressure and strategic competition cannot provide durable influence or security.

A more sustainable framework would require a shift from leverage to engagement: dialogue, cooperation, reciprocal commitments, managed migration, expanded economic cooperation, regional connectivity and sustained diplomatic engagement. Such an approach would recognize the legitimate interests of both states without assuming that either can impose unilateral solutions on the other. Ultimately, durable stability will depend less on one side’s ability to pressure the other than on their capacity to build arrangements in which cooperation becomes more beneficial than confrontation.

When the Pursuit of Security Produces Insecurity

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