Was Pakistan’s navy gambit throughout the Durand Line a intelligent maneuver or a spectacular miscalculation? The query hangs heavy over the risky and still-contested Afghan-Pakistani border as a harmful cycle of escalation unfolds. In December 2024, Pakistan launched airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces, concentrating on suspected Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan strongholds. The ruling Afghan Taliban’s aggressive rhetoric — threatening retaliation — was adopted by border skirmishes as Taliban forces fired throughout the Durand line. The Tehrik-e-Taliban answered with a brazen escalation of its personal: the abduction of a number of Pakistan Atomic Vitality Fee civilian staff, elevating the stakes in a harmful cycle of motion and response. Pakistan’s cross-border strikes — its second operation in 2024 — raised widespread considerations about Pakistan’s pivot to a extra aggressive posture, deteriorating Pakistani-Taliban relations, and the potential for outbreak of struggle. Why would Pakistan threat such navy escalation at this precarious second — amid overlapping political, socioeconomic, and safety crises — and the way ought to we interpret its seemingly contradictory sample of alternating between negotiations, navy motion, and diplomatic overtures?
What Went Mistaken?
The Taliban’s return to energy was welcomed by Pakistani leaders. As Pakistan’s closest strategic ally, the Taliban benefitted from Islamabad’s materials and logistical help together with sanctuaries throughout its two-decade battle towards the Western-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. One would possibly suppose, as Pakistani management did, that the Afghan Taliban would return the favor by being aware of Pakistan’s safety considerations about cross-border militant assaults. This expectation, nonetheless, proved to be mistaken. Submit-2021, the Afghan Taliban’s reluctance to get entangled was on full show, after they framed the issue as an inner safety matter for Pakistan. The Taliban’s help for the Tehrik-e-Taliban, which was based in 2007, is rooted not solely of their shared Pashtun id and beliefs, however crucially of their years of joint battlefield expertise in Afghanistan. For years, Tehrik-e-Taliban militants served as a pressure multiplier for the Afghan Taliban, taking part in fight operations towards Afghan authorities forces, lending manpower, tactical experience, and logistical help. This alliance has created a safety conundrum for Pakistan: its Afghan ally now shelters its most deadly home menace. It is a wealthy irony, given Pakistan supported the Afghan Taliban largely to supply itself with “strategic depth.”
A New Bargaining Place
Recognizing that each the Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban’s strategic calculus has basically shifted after the U.S. withdrawal — with the Taliban asserting higher autonomy and the Tehrik-e-Taliban exploiting its Afghan sanctuary — Pakistan has recalibrated its bargaining place aligned with its new geopolitical realities. Pakistan’s airstrikes represent a type of strategic signaling, geared toward each the Tehrik-e-Taliban and Afghan Taliban, inside a broader framework of hybrid coercion that mixes navy pressure with financial and diplomatic stress. By using calculated, expensive signaling that dangers retaliation, Pakistan seeks to probe strategic boundaries, extract details about resolve from elicited responses, and redefine the bargaining panorama.
Nevertheless, each the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban have countered Pakistani coercion with their very own sources of leverage, limiting its effectiveness. Pakistan’s incapacity to extract significant concessions has launched a cycle of retaliatory violence, heightening the danger of miscalculations between distrustful events. The true threat right here is {that a} protracted battle between an intransigent Taliban, violent Tehrik-e-Taliban, and the Pakistani state will inflict extreme socioeconomic and human prices on Pakistan, triggering cascading results — from deeper political instability to a surge in militancy and illicit cross-border actions. This might plunge Pakistan deeper into its crises, with destabilizing spillover results for the broader area. For the USA and regional actors, understanding Pakistan’s evolving technique is vital — particularly as Washington considers counter-terrorism engagement with both the Taliban or Pakistan. Whereas the success of Pakistan’s method relies on sustaining stress with out depleting assets or triggering escalation, any worldwide intervention might considerably reshape these actors’ strategic calculations.
Why Strike Now?
The precipitating set off for the December strikes seemed to be a Tehrik-e-Taliban assault that killed 16 Pakistani troopers. Nevertheless, the broader strategic context is vital to understanding these developments. The December strikes occurred throughout what has been Pakistan’s bloodiest 12 months in over a decade, compounded by extreme political instability, protests, and financial woes. In 2024 alone, Pakistan recorded 685 safety personnel and over 900 civilian fatalities, underscoring the nation’s ongoing battle towards a three-pronged militant menace: the more and more aggressive Tehrik-e-Taliban, Baloch insurgents, and the comparatively weakened but operational Islamic State Khorasan Province.
This deteriorating safety surroundings coincides with a disaster of financial stability and institutional legitimacy. The Pakistani military is dealing with unprecedented ranges of public discontent. Broadly perceived as increasing its financial dominance whereas concurrently clashing with Imran Khan — who stays behind bars — the navy can be accused of suppressing civilians and journalists, and fascinating in censorship underneath the guise of counter-terrorism. This erosion of legitimacy additional complicates Pakistan’s dealings with the Afghan Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban, as each events are conscious about Pakistan’s vulnerabilities, making a conundrum: Pakistan should counter this notion of fragility and assert its authority — however doing so with out additional escalation presents a fragile and complicated problem.
In any strategic multi-party negotiation, the “bargaining vary” refers back to the spectrum of phrases every get together is prepared to just accept in a deal — or agreements which can be perceived as preferable to the prices of struggle. Nevertheless, in actuality, this vary is commonly opaque and fraught with complexities, as events conceal hidden agendas, harbor misperceptions, or function with deep distrust. These challenges make negotiated agreements not solely troublesome but additionally inherently fragile. Within the post-2021 period, Pakistan’s kinetic actions serve to relay its resolve by way of credible threats — positioning itself to discount from a place of power subsequently.
Pakistan’s Hybrid Coercion
Pakistan’s method to coping with the Taliban and the Tehrik-e-Taliban has shifted to mix kinetic and non-kinetic instruments designed to attain two interconnected goals: degrading Tehrik-e-Taliban’s capabilities whereas elevating the prices for the Afghan Taliban’s continued help of the group. This technique is reminiscent of hybrid coercion, the place states mix navy, financial, and diplomatic devices to govern adversaries’ cost-benefit calculations. Not like “most stress” campaigns that apply overwhelming pressure throughout all domains, hybrid coercion represents a extra adaptive and intentionally ambiguous method, coercing opponents into concessions whereas avoiding outright battle.
Precision Strikes as Coercive Signaling
Pakistan’s focused airstrikes in Afghanistan exemplify the usage of restricted pressure to compel change in each Tehrik-e-Taliban and the Afghan Taliban’s conduct by way of the specter of punishment whereas avoiding full-scale battle. Past their tactical impression on Tehrik-e-Taliban’s infrastructure, the December airstrikes embodied strategic signaling. To the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani strikes relayed details about the implications of continued help for Tehrik-e-Taliban. Demonstration of Pakistan’s willingness to behave unilaterally pressures the Taliban to reassess their tolerance for Tehrik-e-Taliban’s actions — with their response revealing the depth of their dedication to defending the group or willingness to threat Pakistani angst. To the Tehrik-e-Taliban, the strikes constituted a credible menace, reinforcing Pakistan’s willpower and functionality to counter the group — with the Tehrik-e-Taliban’s retaliation selections indicating their threshold for absorbing prices. To home audiences, these strikes function a reassurance of the navy’s dedication to safeguarding nationwide safety and civilians, buffering the federal government and armed forces’s legitimacy.
Leveraging Structural Financial Dependence
Pakistan’s management of vital border crossings (e.g., Torkham and Chaman) supplies uneven leverage, with about 40 p.c of Afghanistan’s customs income flowing by way of these nodes — an important supply of Taliban funding. By weaponizing these financial dependencies by way of new financial institution ensures, import restrictions, and tariffs, the Pakistani state has sought to leverage financial statecraft to undermine the Taliban’s income, thereby growing the prices of the their intransigence. The ten p.c obligation on Afghan transit items instantly impacts the Taliban’s income, however has additionally triggered protests amongst Afghan merchants, creating one other supply of stress level for the Taliban.
Diplomatic Engagement and Stress
Pakistan pursues a dual-track method of partaking the Taliban diplomatically whereas concurrently naming and shaming their help for the Tehrik-e-Taliban in worldwide boards. In August 2024, Pakistan’s former particular consultant to Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, publicly said that the Taliban “should come clear about their picture as ideological cousins of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. That is the minimal for a sturdy [bilateral] relationship that [they] can do,” he careworn. But alongside this, the Pakistanis have at all times circled again to negotiations, working by way of conventional again channels.
Border Administration and Migration Statecraft
States usually manipulate cross-border flows for political targets, additionally known as “migration statecraft.” Pakistan’s tighter controls and compelled repatriation of hundreds of Afghan refugees is designed stress the Taliban not directly, once more elevating the prices of supporting the Tehrik-e-Taliban. Different measures have included enhanced surveillance to watch cross-border actions, stricter journey documentation necessities, together with a serving of accusations that parts of the Afghan diaspora are actively concerned in anti-Pakistan actions.
Whereas Pakistan’s actions have drawn worldwide scrutiny with respect to the remedy of Afghans and widespread abuse, these efforts collectively sign a transparent message to the Taliban: cooperation comes with advantages, however non-compliance has tangible penalties. The effectiveness of those instruments in the end relies on how each the Afghan Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban interpret and reply to them. As mentioned beneath, their reactions reveal advanced calculations formed by their very own capabilities, constraints, and strategic priorities within the post-2021 surroundings.
The Afghan Taliban’s Calculated Ambiguity
The Taliban’s reactions to Pakistan’s hybrid coercion technique reveal a posh calculus formed by competing home and worldwide imperatives. Their responses have ranged from denial and aggressive rhetoric, together with cross-border shelling, to makes an attempt at pacifying Pakistan by way of facilitating negotiations and relocating Tehrik-e-Taliban members away from the border. The current determination to relocate the group’s operatives to Ghazni province illustrates this calculated ambiguity — a symbolic gesture geared toward appeasing Pakistan with out basically severing ties with the Tehrik-e-Taliban. On the identical time, the Taliban proceed to accuse Pakistan of sponsoring anti-Taliban parts.
This obvious inconsistency displays the Taliban’s broader technique of maximizing leverage whereas minimizing dangers. Regardless of their triumphant stance following the U.S. withdrawal, the Afghan authorities’s collapse, and rising worldwide engagement — together with overtures from China, India, and Russia — the Taliban stay cautious of escalation with Pakistan. Nevertheless, the Taliban additionally possess their very own hybrid coercion instruments. Their management over commerce routes, ties to militant networks, and rising financial relationships — notably with China — allow them to push again towards coercion whereas sustaining strategic ambiguity.
Their responses to the Pakistan-Tehrik-e-Taliban battle relay particular indicators to a number of audiences. To Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban search to sign a willingness to cooperate with out conceding an excessive amount of, asserting their autonomy and independence. To inner factions and allies just like the Tehrik-e-Taliban, they ship a message that whereas symbolic gestures could also be made to placate exterior powers, the ideological alignment and goals of the motion stay intact. To regional powers, they intention to sign their potential as an financial associate and a want for funding, whereas subtly asserting that they’re not beholden to Pakistani affect.
Nevertheless, the Taliban’s bargaining place has key vulnerabilities. Whereas not reliant on Pakistani sanctuaries, they continue to be weak to Pakistan’s capability to impose substantial financial and political prices — at the very least within the brief time period till they discover different financial companions. This vulnerability was laid naked in March 2024, when a senior Taliban official reportedly said, “Relying on a rustic that has been closely concerned in Afghanistan’s affairs in such a vital space was not the precise factor for Afghanistan.”
Moreover, the Taliban face important inner constraints: any decisive crackdown on the Tehrik-e-Taliban dangers alienating key factions inside their very own motion, probably driving disaffected fighters into the arms of their home rival, Islamic State Khorasan. Finally, the Taliban’s cautious balancing act between appeasing Pakistan and sustaining ties with the Tehrik-e-Taliban displays their recognition that mismanaging both relationship might undermine their home authority and worldwide legitimacy. Satirically, Pakistan now finds itself on the receiving finish of the identical strategic ambiguity it as soon as employed — tolerating or supporting choose militant teams whereas claiming believable deniability. Pakistan should now navigate a Taliban that’s using related techniques to protect its personal strategic flexibility.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban’s Strategic Calculus: Maximizing Leverage by way of Violence
Understanding the Tehrik-e-Taliban’s strategic calculations supplies the ultimate piece on this bargaining dynamic. The group’s conduct supplies insights into its intent, priorities, and self-perception as a key participant within the area. Regardless of many years of stress, the group has not solely endured however expanded its affect, positioning itself as a resilient and formidable adversary. Its capability to rebuild its basis, consolidate energy by way of mergers with different militant factions has strengthened its picture as a unified and enduring pressure. Via a deliberate technique of alternating between excessive violence, short-lived ceasefires, and negotiations, the group constantly exams the resolve and limitations of the Pakistani state.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban employs a number of techniques to bolster its bargaining place. By sustaining hardline calls for — reminiscent of reversing the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or refusal to disarm — the group indicators its confidence in reaching long-term targets by way of violence quite than concessions. This stance can be indicative of the Tehrik-e-Taliban’s perception {that a} extended battle is much less damaging to the group than acquiescing to Pakistan’s phrases. The Tehrik-e-Taliban’s inflexible method to negotiations serves a number of functions: the group tasks power to its adversaries, maintains cohesion amongst rank-and-file members, and demonstrates to potential supporters that it stays dedicated to its ideological and territorial ambitions. Whereas partaking in talks permits the group to painting itself as a rational actor, its maximalist calls for and unwillingness to supply significant concessions recommend negotiations serve primarily tactical functions. The Tehrik-e-Taliban’s lack of real compromise possible stems from elementary dedication issues — the group could doubt the Pakistani navy’s willingness to credibly assure future guarantees, notably given the historical past of damaged agreements between the 2 sides. Whereas the Tehrik-e-Taliban is continuously blamed for breaching previous peace agreements, its leaders have additionally accused the Pakistani authorities and navy of failing to uphold sure commitments, resulting in mutual mistrust.
Finally, the Tehrik-e-Taliban exploits alternatives for dialogue to consolidate power and safe short-term good points like prisoner releases or operational reprieves, with out making substantive concessions. The group’s ideological rigidity additionally relays unwavering resolve to its followers, mitigating the prospect of defections to different teams such because the Islamic State or splintering. In the meantime, its increasing marketing campaign of violence towards Pakistani safety personnel and military-run companies function expensive indicators — risking retaliation to exhibit the group’s capabilities and Pakistan’s vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, the Tehrik-e-Taliban’s reliance on violence as its major bargaining instrument additionally exposes its key vulnerabilities. Most instantly, the group stays partially depending on cross-border sanctuaries in Afghanistan, making it vulnerable to shifts in Taliban help underneath worldwide stress. The group’s more and more deadly techniques, particularly the usage of suicide assaults, threat triggering widespread native backlash and alienating native populations. Whereas the group makes an attempt to justify collateral harm as unintentional, mounting civilian deaths might alienate tribal communities and undermine its narrative of combating for Islamic governance. And eventually, its technique of launching extremely provocative assaults on Pakistan’s safety forces might set off a extra aggressive Pakistani response that might elicit worldwide backing. Whereas the group has confirmed resilient, its heavy reliance on violence and maximalist calls for could in the end show self-defeating. The Tehrik-e-Taliban’s calculation that it will possibly maintain a struggle of attrition towards the Pakistani state whereas sustaining cross-border havens, native help, and organizational cohesion stays untested.
Strategic Implications and Dangers
Whereas Pakistan’s hybrid coercion technique goals to reshape each the Afghan Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban’s conduct, it introduces important dangers. Most critically, signaling resolve by way of navy pressure might result in miscalculations on both aspect, resulting in disproportionate retaliation, additional escalation of tensions, and a persistent cycle of tit-for-tat violence. The Taliban’s continued resistance to Pakistan’s coercion is prone to end in one other protracted and dear battle between the Tehrik-e-Taliban and Pakistan, which might entail devastating prices like earlier counter-terrorism campaigns. Extended navy engagements not solely impose important financial and human prices, fueling home unrest, however they’re prone to embolden different militant teams past the Tehrik-e-Taliban — reminiscent of Baloch separatists, the Islamic State, or sectarian outfits. Moreover, elevated battle alongside the border might drive a surge in illicit actions, together with arms trafficking and cross-border militancy, additional influencing safety dynamics.
Pakistan faces three key challenges that render its hybrid coercion technique high-risk and probably ineffective. First, escalating navy motion dangers prompting the Taliban to defect from their present posture of cautious engagement with Pakistan and realign with regional powers reminiscent of India, Russia, and Iran, additional undermining Pakistan’s leverage. Second, elevated Tehrik-e-Taliban assaults in response to Pakistani stress might set off home blowback, exacerbate home instability, and deepen the home inhabitants’s grievances with the state. Third, Pakistan’s coercion technique assumes the Taliban will prioritize financial pursuits over ideological and tribal bonds with the Tehrik-e-Taliban — an assumption that continues to be untested and will show expensive if unsuitable.
For the USA, understanding Pakistan’s strategic evolution is vital inside the context of a Taliban-governed Afghanistan and an emboldened Tehrik-e-Taliban. Via escalation, Pakistan is trying to reposition itself towards two actors whose strategic calculus has shifted basically after the U.S. withdrawal. Pakistan’s technique is to not pursue whole struggle, however to make it costlier for the Taliban to help the Tehrik-e-Taliban and exhibit adequate resolve to extract higher phrases in subsequent negotiations. The success of Pakistan’s method, nonetheless, is contingent upon its capability to maintain stress with out overextending its assets and managing escalation dangers. This precarious stability means that any exterior intervention — whether or not by way of direct help to Pakistan or counter-terrorism engagement with the Taliban — might considerably alter these actors’ strategic calculations and conduct. Any shift in U.S. coverage ought to rigorously weigh the danger of reinforcing adversarial alignments or inadvertently deepening Pakistan’s safety dilemma, which might additional entrench instability than mitigate it.
Amira Jadoon, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Clemson College, specializing in worldwide safety, counter-terrorism methods and political violence. She has printed extensively on militant teams survival methods in South and Central Asia and is the creator of the e book The Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Strategic Alliances and Rivalries (Lynne Rienner, 2023).
Picture: Colin Cooke through Wikimedia Commons
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