Why do crises between Afghanistan and Pakistan repeatedly defy resolution, and who truly speaks for Islamabad? In this episode of the Afghan Eye Podcast, retired Major Adil Raja offers an unvarnished account of power, patronage, and policy from inside Pakistan’s security state.
Pakistan’s “Hybrid” System: Civilian Façade, Military Core
One of the interview’s anchoring themes is Raja’s description of Pakistan as a “hybrid regime”—a system in which elected governments exist, but decisive authority remains concentrated within the military high command. According to Raja, this arrangement is not an aberration but a structural constant that has survived coups, constitutions, and elections alike.
Civilian leaders, he argues, are tolerated insofar as civil affairs are delegated to them on the two conditions of their administrative usefulness and, crucially, their political compliance. Strategic decisions such as foreign policy and internal security, with Afghanistan sitting squarely between both, are formulated elsewhere. The result is a polity in which accountability is blurred and responsibility endlessly deflected. In this status quo, the military becomes exalted almost to a providential level. When security fails, more often than not, civilian politicians absorb the blame. When there are successes on the security front especially, the security establishment claims credit. This was starkly on display in the case of Asim Munir following a brief conflict with India in May. Pakistan’s successful defence springboarded Munir to an unprecedented status in Pakistan’s history. Munir was first made Field Marshall and, after a recent and controversial 27th Amendment, promoted to the newly created post of Chief of Defence Forces as well as granted lifetime immunity from prosecution. The latter was a marked display of insecurity blended with his megalomania.
Raja situates this system historically, tracing it back to Cold War alliances and the militarisation of Pakistan’s state institutions. The contemporary iteration, he suggests, is merely more sophisticated: coercion is supplemented by courts, compliant media, and selective legality.
Who Negotiates with Afghanistan?
A natural extension of this critique emerges in the discussion on Afghanistan. Raja is explicit: Afghan–Pakistani relations are not conducted by Pakistan’s foreign ministry or parliament, but by the military and its intelligence apparatus. This, he contends, explains why agreements reached in public forums often unravel quietly, and why Afghan interlocutors struggle to identify credible negotiating partners.
For Kabul, the problem is not simply mistrust but opacity. Without clarity on who holds authority in Islamabad, diplomacy becomes an exercise in guesswork. Raja suggests this dynamic has repeatedly sabotaged confidence-building measures, border mechanisms, and security cooperation.
Strategic Depth Revisited
The interview revisits Pakistan’s long-standing pursuit of ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan: a doctrine born of rivalry with India and sustained through decades of intervention. Whilst the language has softened, Raja argues that its instinct endures: Afghanistan is still viewed less as a sovereign neighbour and more as strategic real estate.
In this context, he discusses persistent rumours of back-channel assurances to Washington, including exaggerated claims of leverage over Kabul and even references to facilities such as Bagram. Whether factual or aspirational, Raja believes such narratives reveal how the military establishment markets Afghanistan to external powers as a bargaining chip rather than a partner.
The Gulf Factor: Imported Rivalries
A striking portion of the conversation focuses on the Gulf states. Raja argues that Pakistan’s military leadership has effectively outsourced elements of its financial and political survival to patrons in the Middle East. This dependency, he claims, has consequences.
He highlights the curious hostility of Pakistani military-aligned commentators toward Qatar and Al Jazeera, interpreting it as spillover from Gulf rivalries. This is particularly pertinent given the influence of Qatar’s rivals in the UAE and Saudi Arabia within Pakistan’s power structure. Afghanistan, in his telling, becomes collateral damage, caught between regional patrons and their competing agendas.
Turkey: A Strategic Constant
In contrast, Raja presents Pakistan–Turkey relations as unusually resilient. Defence cooperation, arms procurement, intelligence ties, and shared ideological symbolism bind the two states beyond temporary diplomatic tensions. Ankara, he notes, also serves as Pakistan’s bridge to Europe and a source of political legitimacy in Western forums.
Importantly, Raja suggests Afghanistan has learned to engage Turkey pragmatically, recognising its influence in Islamabad and leveraging it to soften Pakistani positions. This triangular diplomacy, he argues, reflects Kabul’s growing sophistication despite severe constraints.
Militancy, Narratives, and the Blame Game
Security dominates much of the interview, particularly Pakistan’s insistence that militancy emanates from Afghan territory. Raja challenges this narrative head-on. He notes that most arrests, attacks, and logistical networks linked to militant groups occur inside Pakistan, not across the Durand Line.
He is particularly sceptical of official claims regarding the Islamic State’s regional affiliate. Whilst careful to frame his remarks as allegations rather than proven facts, Raja argues that militant labels are often instrumentalised and used selectively to demonstrate relevance to Western partners or to deflect scrutiny from internal failures.
Signalling Washington
One arrest discussed at length becomes emblematic of this dynamic. Raja argues that high-profile counterterrorism actions are frequently less about neutralising threats and more about signalling utility to Washington. In a geopolitical environment where Pakistan fears marginalisation, such gestures serve as evidence of continued indispensability.
This theme underscores a broader anxiety: Pakistan’s strategic value is no longer guaranteed. As global priorities shift, the military establishment scrambles to remain indispensable, sometimes at the expense of regional stability.
The Realities of the Durand Line
The interview repeatedly returns to the Durand Line, not as an abstract geopolitical concept, but as lived reality. Raja emphasises that fencing, surveillance, and force cannot erase the social fabric of the borderlands, where tribes, trade, and kinship predate modern states.
Attempts to impose a rigid border regime, he argues, misunderstand the problem and exacerbate tensions. Security, in this view, cannot be engineered solely through infrastructure; it requires political imagination and regional cooperation.
Afghanistan’s Unexpected Agency
Despite Afghanistan’s landlocked geography and economic isolation, Raja credits Kabul with a degree of diplomatic agency often underestimated by its critics. By diversifying relationships, engaging Gulf states, and refusing to internalise blame at regional forums, Afghanistan has resisted being cast solely as a source of instability.
This, he suggests, unsettles Islamabad, which has long relied on asymmetry in its relationship with Kabul. A more assertive Afghanistan complicates old playbooks.
Connectivity or Confrontation?
Zooming out, Raja situates Afghanistan and Pakistan within a larger Eurasian contest over trade corridors, resources, and influence. He argues that both states could benefit immensely from connectivity that links Central and South Asia. Yet entrenched interests, he warns, profit from perpetual insecurity.
The tragedy, in his telling, is not inevitability but choice: elites repeatedly select confrontation over cooperation because conflict sustains their power.
Politics, Imran Khan, and the Question of Accountability
Domestically, the interview reflects Pakistan’s polarised political landscape. Raja positions himself within a broader accountability movement associated with Imran Khan, framing the former prime minister as a challenge, flaws notwithstanding, to military dominance.
Regardless of where listeners stand, the point is analytical rather than partisan: Pakistani politics, Raja argues, now revolves around the question of whether the military can be subjected to civilian oversight at all.
Speaking Out and Paying the Price
The interview closes on a personal note. Raja describes exile, legal pressure, and what he characterises as transnational intimidation since becoming a vocal critic of the military establishment. These experiences, he argues, illustrate the cost of dissent in and beyond Pakistan.
For listeners of The Afghan Eye, this segment reframes the conversation: the interview is not merely about geopolitics, but about the risks inherent in challenging entrenched power.