The sharp downturn in the AfPak relationship is a wonder of modern times. It is hard to remember when a friendship imploded as quickly and completely as the lovefest between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban. The nearest one can think of is the Ribbentrop Molotov Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. And yet, in hindsight, there appears an inevitability about the whole affair.

When America abandoned Afghanistan in 2021 Pakistan celebrated the Afghan victory as much as did the Taliban. Historically though, the friendship was an anomaly. More natural is a state of conflict between the territories that are now Pakistan, and Afghanistan. A shared religion encouraged for some time the notion of ‘strategic depth’ for Pakistan. The same religious reason is partly responsible for the collapse of the relationship.

As far as one can make out, Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) insists that the Shariah be promulgated in all of Pakistan. But also looming over the relationship is the old conflict over Afghan territories incorporated into British India through the Durand Line of 1893 which Afghanistan was forced to accept in the colonial era.

The dispute is older than the Durand Line, however. It begins when the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh crossed the Indus to take Afghan territories ruled by the Barakzai Sardars, relatives of the Barakzais of Kabul. When the British in turn defeated the Sikhs they inherited these territories, including those parts extending up to and beyond the Khyber pass, held by the Sikhs.

Afghan national feeling newly formed under the Father of the Afghans, Ahmad Shah Durrani did not for a moment accept this loss of Pathan homelands. Raids into what was now British territory continued through the second half of the nineteenth century. A strong irredentist sentiment continues to smoulder in Pakhtun political life.

In the 19th century Russia and Britain caught up in the ‘great game’ vied for influence in Afghanistan. The Russians were the more proactive lot seeking access to warm waters while the British feared loss of their empire in India. Both sides secretly manoeuvred for influence in Central Asia and even battled each other, as in Crimea in 1853. Eventually, at the turn of the century, with a European war looming the triple........

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