Afghanistan today projects the outward symbols of sovereignty while lacking its substance. Flags fly, decrees are issued, and authority is enforced at gunpoint, yet the core functions of an independent state remain absent. The post-2021 Afghan order has not produced autonomy. It has produced dependency wrapped in ideological rhetoric. The Taliban rule territory, but they do not control their economic lifelines, diplomatic relevance, or strategic trajectory. Power exists, sovereignty does not. True sovereignty is not declared. It is exercised through independent decision making, institutional depth, and financial self reliance. Afghanistan under Taliban control possesses none of these. The state survives…
Author: Web Desk2
For decades, the 2,640-kilometer stretch of the Durand Line was treated as a “no man’s land,” a historical relic where neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan fully enforced state authority. Militants, traffickers, and ideological extremists exploited this vacuum, turning the tribal belts into a launchpad for cross-border insurgency. Yet today, the narrative is shifting. Pakistan is not just reacting to decades of frontier lawlessness, it is asserting control over its sovereignty with strategic precision, dismantling the very geography that nurtured jihadism. From Frontier to State Control The “frontier myth,” the idea that the tribal belt is naturally ungovernable, has long been a…
For much of the past three years, the Taliban have sustained the claim that Afghanistan’s war is over. The fall of the previous republic and the rapid collapse of organized opposition were presented as proof that armed resistance had been permanently extinguished. That narrative is now increasingly detached from reality. The recent surge in coordinated attacks by the National Resistance Front and the Afghanistan Freedom Front signals not merely a revival of violence, but a structural shift in the nature and geography of the conflict itself. The defining feature of this new phase is spatial expansion. Resistance activity was once…
The mistreatment of resistance fighters’ bodies in Baghlan is not an isolated act of cruelty. It is a political signal. When regimes begin to desecrate the dead, they are no longer communicating strength to their opponents. They are broadcasting fear to their own ranks. History is unambiguous on this point. States confident in their authority do not need symbolic violence. They rely on institutions, law, and legitimacy. The Taliban rely on intimidation because they increasingly lack all three. Since seizing power, the Taliban have framed themselves as the guarantors of stability after decades of war. Yet the resurgence of armed…
The reported willingness of the Taliban to barter Bagram Airbase for continued dollar inflows decisively shatters the carefully cultivated illusion that the movement has transitioned from insurgency to responsible governance. States govern through institutions, policy coherence, and public accountability. Insurgent groups survive through transactional bargains, asset trading, and coercive leverage. The Taliban’s alleged proposal belongs unmistakably to the latter category. A governing authority confident in its legitimacy does not auction strategic infrastructure to secure weekly cash disbursements. It builds fiscal systems, diversifies revenue, and delivers services through stable administrative frameworks. The Taliban, by contrast, remain dependent on external financial lifelines…
The global order that once promised security through alignment is quietly collapsing. In its place has emerged a harsher reality where supply chains are weaponized, alliances are conditional, and sovereignty is measured not by diplomatic proximity to power but by industrial independence from it. For middle powers, the choice is no longer ideological. It is existential. Pakistan’s recent defense trajectory reflects an understanding of this shift and offers what can best be described as a third way in a weaponized world. This third way rejects the false binary between Western dependency and adversarial isolation. Pakistan is not attempting to replicate…
The persistent tendency to treat the Islamic State Khorasan Province as a distinct and emergent threat separate from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan reflects a dangerous analytical failure. From Pakistan’s security standpoint, ISKP does not represent a new militant phenomenon. It is a tactical rebranding of an existing insurgent infrastructure that has long targeted the Pakistani state, its society, and its religious fabric. The difference lies not in fighters or objectives, but in flags and narrative utility. The operational behavior of ISKP exposes this continuity. Attacks attributed to ISKP mirror TTP’s historical targeting patterns, religious scholars, tribal elders, security personnel, and symbols…
The linkage between undocumented migration and domestic security is not a matter of prejudice or scapegoating, but of administrative visibility. No state can distinguish between civilians, criminal networks, or militant facilitators when millions reside outside any legal or biometric framework. Documentation is not repression. It is the minimum condition for governance. Pakistan’s security challenge is uniquely acute. The country has absorbed one of the largest and longest refugee populations in modern history while simultaneously confronting cross-border terrorism, arms smuggling, and narcotics trafficking. In such an environment, unmanaged populations do not merely strain public services; they create blind spots that no…
What is unfolding in Takhar Province is not an insurgency in the conventional sense. It is territorial enforcement. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), long viewed through the narrow lens of cross-border militancy, is now operating as an armed force tasked with controlling land, emptying it of its original inhabitants, and making that displacement irreversible. This shift matters because it marks a transition from episodic violence to spatial governance, a far more durable and destabilizing form of power. Takhar’s significance is not ideological but geographic. As a predominantly Tajik province bordering Tajikistan, it occupies a sensitive frontier in Afghanistan’s ethnic and strategic…
Pakistan’s fight against terrorism has entered a decisive phase one defined not by confusion, expediency, or selective morality, but by clarity, resolve, and institutional consensus. At the heart of this shift lies what can rightly be described as The Asim Munir Doctrine: an apolitical, uncompromising, and zero-tolerance approach to terrorism in all its forms. This doctrine is not articulated through rhetoric alone. It is visible in policy, operations, strategic communication, and most importantly—in the refusal to differentiate between so-called “good” and “bad” militants. Terrorism, under this doctrine, is terrorism regardless of geography, ethnicity, or the slogans it cloaks itself in.…