Pakistan’s Strategic Depth Collapses: Taliban Shifts from Ally to Threat
DID Press: Islamabad had expected that the Afghan Taliban, due to historical and ideological ties, would cooperate in restraining Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). However, this did not happen. Instead, overlapping interests and ideological alignment between the groups have effectively returned the threat inside Pakistan.
Pakistan’s strategic depth policy toward Afghanistan has been a cornerstone of its security thinking for decades—a strategy aimed at establishing influence in Afghanistan to safeguard geopolitical interests, particularly in competition with India. Supporting actors such as the Taliban was not merely a tactical choice but part of a broader security doctrine. However, developments following the Taliban’s return to power show that this policy has not only lost effectiveness but is now emerging as a threat to Pakistan itself.
After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Islamabad became one of the most active international supporters of the Taliban, attempting to legitimize the group to the world. This approach continued Pakistan’s traditional view of Afghanistan as a “security backyard”—a space that must remain within its influence and short of full strategic independence. Within this framework, distinguishing “good Taliban” (Afghan) from “bad Taliban” (Pakistani) served as both an analytical and operational tool.
In practice, however, this distinction proved fragile. The increasing attacks by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and their apparent use of Afghan territory gradually revealed the illusory nature of this dichotomy. Islamabad had anticipated cooperation from the Afghan Taliban in controlling TTP activities, but this expectation was unmet. Instead, shared interests and ideological alignment effectively sent the threat back into Pakistan.
This highlights a fundamental contradiction: Pakistan continues to define Afghanistan within its sphere of influence and distrusts Kabul’s full independence, while simultaneously facing growing challenges in managing its own internal security. Rising insecurity, weak control in certain regions, and political and economic crises demonstrate the government’s limited capacity to contain domestic threats. In this context, attributing part of the crisis to Afghan developments serves a dual purpose: reflecting cross-border threat realities while also projecting internal weaknesses.
Yet, reducing the issue to mere projection oversimplifies the situation. Armed networks in the region operate transnationally, sustained on both sides of the border. The key point is that Pakistan’s prior policies—based on instrumentalizing these groups—are now functioning inversely. In other words, the very tools intended to provide strategic depth have become sources of insecurity.
This outcome stems from several strategic miscalculations: first, an exaggerated perception of control over the Afghan Taliban; second, ignoring ideological ties between various groups; and third, insisting on a hierarchical approach toward Afghanistan instead of recognizing it as an independent actor. Collectively, these errors have turned the goal of “strategic depth” into a “depth of crisis.”
Ultimately, Pakistan faces a difficult choice: either revise its security doctrine to acknowledge an independent Afghanistan or persist with a policy whose costs are increasingly unsustainable. Recent experiences suggest that continuing to instrumentalize non-state actors and attempt indirect control over the surrounding environment is no longer effective and risks sustained instability both within and around Pakistan.
By Sayed Baqer Waezi – DID News Agency