Pakistan’s coercive foreign policy is spilling over into Afghanistan, with threats ranging from strikes across the Durand Line to refugee expulsions. Kabul must respond assertively.
A Crisis Manufactured in Rawalpindi
On 4 April 2025, reports emerged of Pakistan’s covert planning for cross-border military strikes into Afghanistan. These revelations follow a period of mounting tension and increasingly provocative rhetoric. As Islamabad seeks to reframe Kabul as a source of instability, Afghanistan must reckon with the deeper question: what drives Pakistan’s renewed aggression—and how should it respond?
Pakistan’s Hybrid Regime and Strategic Paralysis
Since the ousting of Imran Khan in 2022, Pakistan’s political architecture has undergone profound transformation. General Asim Munir, the incumbent Chief of Army Staff (COAS), has consolidated military dominance over the country’s civil and foreign policy spheres. Civilian institutions have been reduced to ceremonial appendages, their autonomy overridden by Rawalpindi’s security-centric logic.
This militarisation is especially pronounced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan—regions intimately linked to Afghanistan by geography, ethnicity, and history. Rather than addressing local grievances, the state has opted for coercion and surveillance. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), formerly in power, has been systematically undermined, with key figures such as Gohar Khan and Ali Amin Gandapur subjected to backroom arm-twisting rather than reconciliation.
Former military officer and political analyst Adil Raja contends that this authoritarian drift has corroded Pakistan’s ability to respond to genuine security threats. ‘The security state has become so bloated it is now feeding on its own tail,’ he observed. A fixation on controlling political narratives has come at the expense of strategic clarity.
Afghanistan as a Convenient Scapegoat
Recent investigative work by Drop Site News, citing sources within Pakistan’s intelligence community and Western diplomatic circles, reveals the extent of Islamabad’s new regional posture. Military planning for strikes within Afghanistan—ostensibly targeting Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP)—represents not a tactical necessity, but a political distraction.
Rawalpindi appears to believe that such operations would simultaneously serve three goals:
- Reinforce Pakistan’s image as a counterterrorism partner to the United States;
- Justify internal crackdowns in PTI-stronghold provinces by linking dissent to Afghan-based militancy;
- Divert public attention from persistent insurgencies in Balochistan and socioeconomic malaise.
The logic, however, is self-defeating. For decades, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) cultivated relationships with Afghan Taliban factions, fuelling a regional proxy conflict that has now turned inward. To now claim moral authority in counter-extremism is, at best, disingenuous. A notable episode—the rendition of a supposed ISKP militant, Sharifullah, to U.S. custody—was intended as evidence of Islamabad’s commitment to counterterrorism. Yet, as journalists Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain u202ncovered, it was choreographed for optics.
Beijing, once a stalwart ally, is reportedly re-evaluating its support. China recently declined Pakistan’s request for access to a second-strike nuclear capability, despite offers of expanded military access to the Gwadar port. This refusal signals a growing discomfort with Islamabad’s unpredictable manoeuvres and its self-defeating strategy of playing Washington and Beijing against one another.
The Balochistan Conundrum
Nowhere is the military’s strategic incoherence more apparent than in Balochistan. The 2025 Jaffar Express bombing, carried out by Baloch insurgents, underscored the state’s failure to secure restive regions. Instead of addressing long-standing grievances—forced disappearances, resource exploitation, political exclusion—the military responded with a public relations campaign led by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
Adil Raja argues that intelligence assets have been diverted to suppress journalists, students, and political activists, leaving insurgent networks relatively unscathed. Pakistan’s increasing reliance on Huawei surveillance systems further compromises operational sovereignty and raises questions over the security of sensitive data. In effect, national resilience has been traded for technological dependency.
From Kabul’s perspective, a state that cannot manage its peripheries cannot credibly claim to be a stabilising force in the region. The contagion of internal instability is already seeping across the border.
Weaponising Refugees: A Diplomatic Red Line
Pakistan’s mass expulsions of Afghan refugees constitute the most egregious facet of its coercive policy. Since 2023, over one million Afghans have been forcibly deported, often under inhumane conditions. Islamabad cites national security and economic burden as justification. Yet these actions violate the principle of non-refoulement, enshrined in international law.
Beyond legality lies cultural betrayal. The expulsions contravene the Pashtun code of melmastia, the Islamic imperative of sanctuary, and the historic ethos of regional hospitality. Refugees have been reduced to bargaining chips in Islamabad’s strategic calculus—used to pressure the Afghan government, placate domestic discontent, and create an illusion of control.
Such tactics are not merely cynical. They erode bilateral trust and regional goodwill. Afghanistan must treat this not as a humanitarian oversight, but as a strategic assault on its sovereignty.
Afghan Options: From Defensive Posture to Proactive Strategy
Faced with Rawalpindi’s belligerence, Kabul must rethink its bilateral policy. A purely reactive stance will only cede ground. Instead, Afghanistan should pursue a multi-pronged response:
- Diplomatic Counteroffensive: Highlight refugee expulsions and cross-border threats as violations of international law at the United Nations and in multilateral forums.
- Regional Diversification: Deepen relations with Central Asian states, India, Iran, and Gulf actors increasingly wary of Islamabad’s duplicity.
- Narrative Control: Invest in media outreach to expose Pakistan’s military as the architect of regional instability, not its antidote.
These actions require clarity of purpose and national unity. Appeasement has failed. It is time to assert that Afghan sovereignty is not negotiable.
Conclusion: Confronting the Delusions of Rawalpindi
Pakistan’s military elite, ensnared in its own myths of indispensability, has emerged as the region’s principal source of instability. Its strategy—repress at home, provoke abroad, manipulate global powers—has led to deepening isolation and eroded its once-formidable leverage.
For Afghanistan, the imperative is clear. The time for deference is over. Kabul must craft a principled, assertive strategy that safeguards its sovereignty, defends its refugees, and fortifies its regional alliances.
The question is no longer whether Pakistan will reform. It is whether Afghanistan will act decisively—before it once again pays the price for its neighbour’s fantasies.