For years, Pakistan was an influential supporter of the Afghan Taliban. How has Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban evolved over time since the group’s inception in the 1990s? What factors have contributed to these shifts in Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban, and do they reflect a fundamental rupture or a temporary divergence of interests?

Going back to the 1990s, Pakistan was a very important supporter of the Taliban. It didn't create the Taliban, as many people allege, but it certainly did support them. They brought them to prominence, and they enabled the Taliban to come to power. After 9/11, Pakistan supported, albeit problematically, the American war effort in Afghanistan. As a result, rifts developed amongst the Taliban as various factions had different opinions about Pakistan. In all the time that I spent in Afghanistan, when I asked Afghans who their existential enemy is, they all said Pakistan. There's just so much resentment at Pakistan's manipulation in Afghan affairs. I currently see a fundamental rift in Pakistan-Taliban relations. It's going to be really difficult to move on from this.

In October of 2025, clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the Tehrik-e Taliban (TTP) led to a ceasefire, which has been broken following Pakistan’s declaration of an ‘open war’ this past February. What explains the collapse of the ceasefire and Pakistan’s decision to escalate? What are the most realistic pathways to de-escalation? Is Pakistan’s main demand that the Taliban restrain the TTP either feasible or sufficient to reduce tensions?

At the crux of this, there would be no TTP had there not been an Afghan Taliban. Pakistan is eating the fruits of its own policies. With regards to the ceasefire breaking down, the Afghan Taliban is neither willing nor capable of expelling the TTP and denying them sanctuary in Afghanistan, which is principally what Pakistan is demanding. Pakistan is also demanding that the Islamic State – Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, be expelled from Afghanistan and made available to Pakistani reprisal. It is not just the TTP, but also ISIS-K, and since Afghanistan is neither capable nor willing to constrain both of these groups, I don't see Pakistan relenting anytime soon. China has offered to mediate, but Pakistan has rebuffed China's offer. So right now, there is no pathway to de-escalation. There was a brief ceasefire for Eid, but it wasn't a true ceasefire, rather a pause in hostilities. Now that Eid is over, I anticipate hostilities will resume.

Despite historically opposing the Taliban, India has reopened its embassy in Kabul and expanded engagement in recent months. What explains this shift? Is this realignment primarily about countering Pakistan, or does India see a strategic opportunity in cooperating with the Taliban government? How does India’s growing presence affect Pakistan’s threat perception, particularly in the context of renewed conflict, and does it increase the risk of broader regional involvement?

The Taliban have long felt they need to diversify their reliance on Pakistan, so they have an incentive to reach out to India. India's interests in engaging the Taliban are practical. When the Taliban were last in power, they gave sanctuary to militant groups that operated in India's contested territory under their control in Kashmir. India would like to have relations with the Taliban to ensure Afghanistan does not once again become a place where these anti-India groups enjoy sanctuary. Of course, it also brings the Indians great glee that they can give the Pakistanis considerable stomach pain by having this relationship with the Taliban. But it is ultimately strategic in nature.

I do not see this as a wider regional war. However, Pakistan's threat perception of an Afghanistan that is hospitable to India has always motivated Pakistan's manipulation of Afghan affairs. That Afghanistan could be a place where India could wage covert operations against Pakistani interests is Pakistan's worst nightmare. This is why it would heighten Pakistan's threat perception.

Pakistan has indiscriminately deported millions of Afghan refugees in recent months, including many who have lived in Pakistan since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. What explains this recent push, and how do these deportations fit into the larger context of Afghan-Pakistani relations?

We cannot really say that this is indiscriminate. When Pakistanis say that they have been so generous in opening the country to Afghan refugees, let's also remember that they were paid handsomely by the United Nations to accommodate them. I haven't been able to go back to Pakistan since my book on the army came out, but I was a very regular visitor from 1991 to 2013. As I already said, Pakistanis are generally very disdainful of Afghans. There is a lot of anti-Afghan racism and misperceptions amongst Pakistanis. Some of them are just perceptions, but some of the perceptions have the justification that Afghans are engaged in illegal activities in Afghanistan, such as smuggling and gun running. In my experience, your average Afghan man was always just a person trying to pay his bills and trying to live in a place of relative peace and safety. There's a lot of anti-Afghan sentiment in Pakistan, and with the war ending, there is a belief that it's time for those Afghans to go home.

Following the conflict in October, Pakistan closed its borders with Afghanistan, effectively halting trade between the two countries. While Afghanistan has attempted to reorient toward Iran, trade there has also been disrupted by the ongoing war. What economic impacts are these disruptions having on both sides? Given these simultaneous conflicts and the high volume of past trade between the two countries, will the ongoing trade disruption permanently reorient trade partners, or will dependence persist?

Even before this conflict, there was a lot of interest in Afghanistan diversifying its trade. For instance, the Indians built a port in Iran at Chabahar. The last thing I was able to do in Afghanistan before the pandemic and the return of the Taliban was going to the border. I went to Nimruz and interviewed truck drivers who were transporting products into Afghanistan from Chabahar. Even then, there was already an interest in trying to become less dependent on Pakistani ground lines of communication. I anticipate that the search for alternatives will continue. However, the current war between the United States and Israel on the one hand and Iran on the other has likely disrupted those transportation pathways.

How does ISIS-K factor into this dynamic, particularly after the Islamic State’s deadly bombing of a mosque in Islamabad on February 6th? Could current tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban unintentionally strengthen ISIS-K or reshape the broader militant landscape in the region?

ISIS – Khorasan Province is a reality in the region. It is also a spin-off of these various Pakistani groups that the Pakistani state had been nurturing. Many of them actually spun off from the Pakistani Taliban itself. I don't see this having a strengthening effect, but I do see ISIS-K continuing as a problem. As I said earlier, the Afghan Taliban have neither the interest nor the capability to deny them the sanctuary that they enjoy in Afghanistan.

Several regional actors have attempted to mediate between Kabul and Islamabad, particularly Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, who helped broker the ceasefire in October. What role should regional and international powers, such as China and the United States, play in resolving this conflict? Is there any external actor both sides would trust as a mediator?

The issue is not a lack of trustworthy mediators. China has offered to mediate. The issue is whether the Afghan Taliban can and will expel the TTP and ISIS-K from Afghanistan, and they simply lack both the ability and the willingness to do so. So, until Afghan interests and capabilities converge on expelling these groups, there's really nothing that a mediator can do to resolve the fundamentals of this dispute, which involve the presence of these groups in Afghanistan and their attacks on targets in Pakistan.