Pakistan and Afghanistan Go To War: What Next?

Late on Thursday evening, after months of escalating tensions, the Taliban

announced that they were carrying out large-scale military operations against

Pakistani army positions along the Pakistan Afghanistan border. Not in need

of much encouragement, Pakistan duly announced quote open war against the

Taliban and launched a series of massive air strikes on Afghanistan's two largest

cities, Kabul and Kandahar. So, in this video, we're going to explain why

Pakistan and Afghanistan are going to war and why it's hard to see a good

outcome here.

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Now, we've gone through this many times in previous videos, but it's worth

reminding viewers that until recently, the Taliban and Pakistan were actually

pretty good mates. Pakistan supported the Taliban and the wider Mujahedin in

their fight against the Soviets in the 80s and was one of just three countries

to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan

when they conquered Kabul in 1996 along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Pakistan

even maintained relations with the Taliban during the US occupation of

Afghanistan which began in 2001. This irritated the US, but Pakistan was

unwilling to cut ties with the Taliban, largely because Pakistan always

suspected the Taliban might eventually return to power and wanted to keep them

on side to prevent the Taliban from hosting terror groups that might attack

Pakistan, including most notably the Pakistani Taliban or TTP, who've waged a

violent insurgency against the Pakistani state since 2007. Unfortunately for

Pakistan, when the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they made basically no

effort to stop terror groups, including not just the TTP, but also other groups

like the Balok Liberation Front, a Balok separatist group that has staged a

number of attacks inside Pakistan recently and terror attacks inside

Pakistan restarted with increasing frequency. In response, Pakistan carried

out intermittent strikes on TTP targets inside Afghanistan. There was an

escalation in October when after a spate of terror attacks by the TTP and other

terror groups, Pakistan launched a series of air strikes on targets in

Kabul and Kandahar, signaling that they would hold the Taliban directly

responsible for attacks by terror groups operating out of Afghanistan. Throughout

there have been intermittent attempts at a negotiated settlement, but talks

haven't really gone anywhere. The fundamental issue is that even if they

wanted to, and it's not clear that they do, the Taliban just cannot actually

stop the various terror groups operating inside Afghanistan. Not only do they

lack the state capacity, a 2023 UN report, for instance, estimate that more

than 20 terrorist groups operate in Afghanistan, which puts quite a lot on

the Taliban's proverbial plate. The Taliban itself has lots of factions

within it. And even if the main faction agreed to Pakistan's demand, other

factions would probably continue to cooperate with their favored terror

groups. Only last month, the BBC reported on a rift between the Taliban

Supreme Leader Hibta Akundada, who's based in Kandahar, and wants to continue

with their antagonistic and isolationist foreign policy versus another faction

based in Kabul, which wants to engage more with other countries and pursue a

slightly less hardline version of Islamic governance domestically. Anyway,

you get the point. Tensions have been running high, but negotiations haven't

really gone anywhere because for a variety of reasons, the Taliban just

cannot guarantee that terror groups operating from inside Afghanistan won't

carry out further attacks in Pakistan. The two countries have thus been stuck

in a sort of escalatory cycle for the past year or so. A terror attack happens

in Pakistan. Pakistan demands Afghanistan crack down on the relevant

terror groups. Afghanistan says no. Pakistan escalates in a futile attempt

to get the Taliban to take their concern more seriously. And the cycle repeats

and well, it looks like things finally spilled over into a full-on war this

week. This all started on Sunday when a couple of days after yet another suicide

bombing. This time in Pakistan's Kaiba Paktungwa province, Pakistan carried out

a series of air strikes against what it said were terrorist training camps in

Nangahar and Paktika, Afghan provinces that sit aside the Pakistan border.

Pakistan state media claimed that more than 70 militants were killed, but both

the Taliban and the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said that at

least 10 civilians had been killed in the strikes. A few hours later, the

Taliban put out an ominous statement warning that protecting Afghanistan's

territory was their quote Sharia responsibility. And on Thursday, we

found out what that meant in practice when the Taliban announced that they'd

launched a large-scale offensive operation against Pakistani military

centers and military installations along the Durand line, which is basically the

Taliban's way of referring to the Afghanistan Pakistan border, whilst

casting doubt on its legitimacy by reminding everyone that it was drawn by

a British diplomat called Mortima Durand during the so-called great game in the

late 1800s. Anyway, in response, Pakistan's defense minister declared,

quote, "Open war with the Taliban and launched Operation Gazab Ilhack against

the Taliban. Pakistani forces were deployed to fight back along the border

and the Pakistani Air Force launched strikes on Taliban strongholds in both

Kabul and Kandahar. According to their own governments, as of Friday morning,

two Pakistani soldiers had been killed and eight Taliban fighters had been

killed. According to the other side's estimates, Pakistan claimed 133 Taliban

fighters had been killed while the Taliban claimed that 55 Pakistani

soldiers had been killed. While the intensity has dropped, fighting

continued on into Friday with shelling reported near the Torque border

crossing. So what happens next? Well, it's hard to see a good outcome here.

The Taliban obviously can't win against the Pakistani army, which is both larger

and infinitely better equipped. For context, according to recent estimates,

Pakistan has some 660,000 troops to the Taliban's 170,000, as well as hundreds

of combat aircraft, armored vehicles, and of course, its own nuclear weapons.

Nonetheless, even if they've got superior firepower, it's hard to imagine

this latest round of fighting is going to help Pakistan convince the Taliban to

take their security concerns more seriously. And obviously recent history

suggests that occupying Afghanistan in order to force policy change isn't a

viable option either. In the short term, perhaps the best hope is that some

outside power steps in to mediate a temporary ceasefire. Potentially China,

which has functional relations with both sides and has recently signaled a

willingness to mediate, or Turkey and Qatar, who mediated a ceasefire back in

October. In the longer term, perhaps the best plausible outcome would be for this

skirmish to somehow tip the balance of power within the Taliban away from what

we might call the Kandahar faction towards the more moderate Kabell faction

who would probably take Pakistan security concerns more seriously.

However, even if this does happen, it wouldn't be a silver bullet and tamping

out Afghanistan's terror problem would require continuous regional cooperation

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