Pakistan’s Geopolitical Miscalculation: Why Afghanistan Cannot Be Contained
Kabul Times News | Analysis
For more than seven decades, Pakistan’s policy toward Afghanistan has rested on a fundamental assumption: Pakistan’s security depends on managing, containing, or exerting influence over Afghanistan. This perception is not limited to a particular government or historical period; rather, it has become one of the central pillars of Pakistan’s security doctrine. Within this framework, Afghanistan is viewed not as an independent neighbor but as part of Pakistan’s “strategic depth” in its rivalry with India. This perspective has driven Islamabad’s foreign and security policies toward intervention in Afghan affairs, control of its surrounding environment, and efforts to prevent the expansion of rival regional influence—particularly that of India. Historical experience, however, demonstrates that this approach has not produced lasting security for Pakistan. Instead, it has become one of the principal sources of instability on both sides of the border.

The root of this strategic miscalculation lies in Pakistan’s tendency to view Afghanistan less through the realities of regional geography and history than through the prism of its competition with India. In the minds of Pakistan’s security elites, any rapprochement between Kabul and New Delhi is interpreted as the opening of a new strategic front against Pakistan. Consequently, Afghanistan is often treated not as an autonomous actor but as an arena for Indian influence. The inevitable result has been the securitization of bilateral relations, whereby virtually every domestic development in Afghanistan is perceived as a potential threat to Pakistan.

Successive Afghan governments, for their part, have also failed to address these concerns in ways that could reduce mutual distrust. Close relations with external powers—including the Soviet Union, the United States, and India—combined with emotionally charged anti-Pakistan rhetoric, have frequently reinforced Pakistan’s security anxieties. As a result, actions taken by one side have consistently been interpreted as hostile by the other, creating a cycle of suspicion, reciprocal responses, and deepening mistrust from which neither country has benefited.

The central problem, however, lies not merely in Pakistan’s implementation of its policies but in its underlying conception of security itself. Pakistan’s security doctrine is based on a model that equates security with rigid borders, control of the surrounding environment, and the containment of external threats—a model largely derived from the historical experience of modern Western states. Yet the geography of Afghanistan and Pakistan does not conform to such assumptions. The borders of this region are more the product of political developments than natural divisions, while extensive ethnic, religious, social, and historical ties across the frontier make any clear separation between the “domestic” and the “foreign” practically impossible. Consequently, imposing an imported security doctrine upon this interconnected landscape has repeatedly generated instability rather than stability.

Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot be understood as two entirely separate geopolitical entities. Tribal regions, cross-border family networks, cultural affinities, and centuries-old historical routes have bound the two societies together within a shared geographical space. Under such conditions, insecurity on one side of the border inevitably spills over to the other. Any strategy based on unilateral containment is therefore likely to evolve into a domestic security crisis for Pakistan itself. The emergence and expansion of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) illustrates this reality. Rooted in the same interconnected social and geographical environment, the group demonstrates that instability in this region cannot be geographically confined.

Another factor complicating this equation has been the role of major powers. From the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to the post-9/11 War on Terror, Pakistan became one of the United States’ principal security partners in the region. Although this position brought strategic and economic benefits at certain moments, it also increasingly aligned Pakistan’s security outlook with the priorities of external powers. Afghanistan gradually ceased to be merely a neighboring country and instead became an arena of global geopolitical competition. Pakistan attempted to manage this arena with external backing, yet the costs of those geopolitical rivalries ultimately spilled back into Pakistan itself.

Pakistan has consistently sought to capitalize on its geopolitical position by balancing relations with major powers—first the United States and later China—in order to strengthen its influence over developments in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the experiences of the Cold War, the War on Terror, and the transformations of the past two decades reveal a recurring pattern: whenever Pakistan became deeply involved in the security projects of great powers, it also absorbed many of the crises generated by those very projects. This is the structural contradiction at the heart of Pakistan’s security doctrine—a doctrine designed to produce security but which has repeatedly generated greater insecurity.

Moreover, a significant gap exists between the policies of the Pakistani state and the perceptions of much of Pakistani society. Many Pakistanis do not regard Afghanistan as a historic enemy but rather as a fellow Muslim country and a close neighbor. Within the broader public imagination, India—not Afghanistan—has traditionally been perceived as the principal security challenge. This divergence between state policy and public perception is another reason why hard-line policies toward Afghanistan have never enjoyed complete social legitimacy.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, has at times pursued policies driven more by reaction than by geopolitical realities. Efforts to reduce dependence on Pakistan by developing alternative transit routes are both rational and necessary, yet they cannot alter geography. As a landlocked country, Afghanistan continues to rely on Pakistan as one of its shortest and most economically viable gateways to the sea. Expanding transit links through Iran and Central Asia is strategically important, but these alternatives cannot entirely replace Pakistan’s geographical significance. Likewise, Pakistan cannot ignore its own historical, social, and geographical interconnectedness with Afghanistan.

From this perspective, tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan are not merely a bilateral dispute but part of a broader regional and international geopolitical competition. The deeper the divide between Kabul and Islamabad becomes, the greater the opportunities for external powers—including the United States and India—to advance their interests. Yet the fundamental source of the crisis lies not primarily in the actions of these external actors but in the mutual perceptions of Afghanistan and Pakistan themselves: perceptions rooted in suspicion, rivalry, and the securitization of bilateral relations.

Ultimately, Pakistan’s principal challenge is not Afghanistan itself but its flawed conception of security toward Afghanistan. As long as Afghanistan is viewed as “strategic depth,” a “backyard,” or simply a theater of competition with India, every strategy aimed at containing it will eventually produce the same outcome: greater instability. Conversely, whenever Afghanistan uses its foreign relations primarily as a means of exerting pressure on Pakistan or fueling anti-Pakistan sentiment, it inadvertently reinforces this destructive cycle.

The fundamental reality is that geography cannot be reshaped by imported strategic doctrines. Whether they wish it or not, Afghanistan and Pakistan share an interconnected geography and a common strategic destiny. Lasting security will not emerge through domination, containment, or geopolitical rivalry. Rather, it requires acknowledging this geographical reality and redefining bilateral relations on the basis of shared interests, historical interconnectedness, and their common Islamic identity. Any strategy that ignores these enduring realities, regardless of its short-term gains, is ultimately destined to fail.