Strategic Siege: Is Pakistan Being Surrounded |
Geopolitics has never been governed by sentiment. Not religion, not shared history, not cultural brotherhood—only interests. The unfolding realignments across South Asia and the Middle East illustrate this truth with striking clarity. Alliances are shifting, rivalries are recalibrating, and Pakistan finds itself increasingly positioned at the intersection of competing strategic designs.
The roots of today’s complexity stretch back to 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Pakistan became the frontline state in a U.S.-backed campaign to counter Moscow. Billions of dollars in American and Saudi assistance flowed through intelligence networks to arm and train Afghan fighters. The mobilization of religious ideology was not incidental—it was strategic. Fighters from across the Muslim world converged in Afghanistan. By 1989, the Soviet withdrawal marked a Cold War victory for Washington and its partners.
But militant infrastructures rarely dissolve once their immediate utility ends. The Taliban emerged in the 1990s from the ashes of war, establishing control over Kabul in 1996. Pakistan was among the few nations to recognize their regime. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, however, the same Taliban became the primary target of American military intervention. The subsequent 20-year war cost over $2 trillion and claimed more than 170,000 lives before the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021.
The Taliban’s return to power reshaped the region yet again. Instead of ushering in stability for Pakistan, however, cross-border militancy intensified. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), operating from Afghan soil, escalated attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Islamabad responded with cross-border airstrikes against militant sanctuaries. While tactically decisive, these actions strained relations with Kabul and risked civilian backlash.
Instead, Pakistan with its deep intelligence roots in Afghanistan, had the option to adopt the same tactics which Afghanistan is using by infiltrating Pakistani Taliban in Pakistan and killing innocent people mostly by detonating human bombs in Mosque. This could have been a more........