The latest round of cross-border attacks between Pakistan and Afghanistan have quickly been absorbed into a familiar vocabulary of sovereignty violations and regional instability.
These descriptions are incomplete and inaccurate. For Pakistan, the militancy emanating from Afghanistan is not a distant geopolitical abstraction. It is an immediate exposure to security determined by geography, history and a border that remains porous despite decades of militarization.
In recent years, Islamabad has repeatedly stated that anti-Pakistan groups, most notably the TTP, have found room to regroup across the border. Afghan authorities have rejected the characterization.
No State can indefinitely absorb violence originating beyond its formal jurisdiction based solely on diplomatic guarantees. Pakistan’s security system operates under internal pressure. Civilian victims of militant attacks do not register as abstract political debates but as institutional demands for response. In such an environment, cross-border strikes become a tool of both signaling and disruption, showing that tolerance thresholds have been reached.
This does not imply that air power alone can neutralize the dynamics of the sanctuary. Militant networks that straddle borders are sustained by terrain, local alliances, and ideological overlap. The Afghan authorities, for their part, face internal limitations. Dismantling groups with shared histories or intertwined loyalties risks fragmenting within a political order that is still consolidating after decades of war.
Pakistan’s calculus, however, is determined less by Kabul’s internal difficulties than by the immediacy of its own exposure. The Durand Line has long been more than a demarcation; it is a corridor through which commerce, kinship and militancy have flowed in equal measure. To expect strategic patience in the face of repeated attacks is to misunderstand how states prioritize internal order.
International commentary often frames these attacks as escalation by default, as if restraint were a neutral basis. That assumption ignores the cost asymmetry. Afghanistan does not suffer the same volume of attacks coming from Pakistani soil. In recent years, the burden of fallout has fallen disproportionately on Pakistan. In that context, Islamabad’s calibrated use of force is an assertion that territorial lines cannot serve as shields for non-state actors.
Critics often invoke international law in isolation, detached from the persistent failure to neutralize armed groups operating in ungoverned or insufficiently governed spaces. Legal principles cannot replace effective territorial control.
There are risks inherent in this approach. Repetition without resolution can normalize cross-border action as a routine political instrument. Each episode reduces diplomatic space and deepens distrust. It also reinforces a cycle in which militant actors benefit from the absence of sustained coordination between the two governments.
A lasting solution would require intelligence sharing, verifiable commitments, and a political understanding that militant groups attacking one state cannot be compartmentalized as peripheral concerns by the other.
That coordination remains elusive, in part because the broader diplomatic relationship is unstable. Issues of recognition, sanctions and international legitimacy continue to shape Kabul’s foreign posture. Pakistan’s engagement has oscillated between cautious accommodation and visible frustration.
The resulting ambiguity has limited the development of institutional mechanisms to manage cross-border threats more effectively.
Pakistan cannot distance itself from Afghanistan or isolate its western provinces from developments across the border. In terms of security, adjacency compresses reaction time and magnifies the perceived threat. As militant attacks mount, strategic restraint is weighed against domestic expectations of response, and the balance shifts accordingly.
Whether the current cycle stabilizes or intensifies will depend less on rhetorical condemnation and more on demonstrable actions against groups operating in border regions. Without credible measures to address sanctuary concerns, a repeat of episodic military measures is likely. They are imperfect instruments, but they reflect a State that faces a security environment in which passivity carries its own risks.
For Pakistan, the issue is practical containment. The sustainability of any alternative approach will depend on evidence that cross-border militancy is being measurably restricted. Until such evidence materializes, Islamabad’s actions will continue to be determined by the logic of proximity and the imperative of internal security rather than by an external preference for moderation.
The author is a non-resident member of the Asia Pacific and Eurasian Studies Consortium. He tweets/posts @umarwrites
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of PakGazette.tv.
Originally published in The News
