The latest round of cross-border attacks between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been quickly absorbed into a familiar vocabulary of sovereignty violations and regional instability.
Such descriptions are incomplete and inaccurate. For Pakistan, militancy emanating from Afghanistan is not a distant geopolitical abstraction. It is an immediate security exposure shaped by geography, history and a border that remains porous despite decades of militarization.
Over the past several years, Islamabad has repeatedly stated that anti-Pakistan groups, most prominently the TTP, have found space to regroup across the border. Afghan authorities have rejected the characterization.
No state can indefinitely absorb violence originating outside its formal jurisdiction while relying solely on diplomatic assurances. Pakistan’s security establishment is operating under domestic pressure. Civilian casualties from militant attacks are not registered as abstract political debates, but as institutional demands for answers. In such an environment, cross-border strikes become a tool for signaling as much as for disruption, showing that the thresholds of tolerance have been reached.
This does not mean that air power alone can neutralize the sanctuary dynamic. Militant networks that span borders are supported by terrain, local alliances and ideological overlap. The Afghan authorities, for their part, face internal constraints. Dismantling groups with shared histories or intertwined loyalties risks fragmentation within a political order still consolidating after decades of war.
Yet Pakistan’s calculus is shaped 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 trade, kinship and militancy have flowed in equal measure. Expecting strategic patience in the face of repeated attacks misunderstands how states prioritize internal order.
International commentary often refers to such strikes as escalating by default, as if restraint were a neutral baseline. This assumption overlooks the cost asymmetry. Afghanistan does not experience the same amount of attacks originating from Pakistani soil. The burden of contagion has fallen disproportionately on Pakistan in recent years. In that context, Islamabad’s calibrated use of force is an assertion that territorial lines cannot serve as a shield for non-state actors.
Critics often invoke international law in isolation, detached from the persistent failure to neutralize armed groups operating in uncontrolled or under-governed spaces. Legal principles cannot replace effective territorial control.
There are risks associated with this approach. Repetition without resolution can normalize transboundary action as a routine political instrument. Each episode narrows the diplomatic space and deepens mistrust. It also reinforces a cycle in which militant actors benefit from the absence of sustained coordination between the two governments.
A viable solution would require intelligence sharing, verifiable commitments, and a political understanding that militant groups targeting one state cannot be compartmentalized as peripheral concerns of the other.
Such coordination remains elusive, in part because the broader diplomatic relationship is unclear. Issues of recognition, sanctions and international legitimacy continue to shape Kabul’s external posture. Pakistan’s engagement has oscillated between cautious accommodation and visible frustration.
The resulting ambiguity has limited the development of institutional mechanisms to deal more effectively with cross-border threats.
Pakistan cannot move away from Afghanistan, nor can it isolate its western provinces from developments across the border. In security terms, proximity compresses reaction time and magnifies the perceived threat. As militant attacks accumulate, 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 action against groups operating in border regions. Without credible steps to address concerns about the sanctuaries, episodic military measures are likely to recur. They are imperfect instruments, but they reflect a state facing a security environment where inaction carries its own risks.
For Pakistan, the issue is practical containment. The sustainability of any alternative approach will rest on evidence that cross-border militancy is curtailed in measurable ways. Until such evidence materializes, Islamabad’s actions will continue to be shaped by the logic of proximity and the necessity of internal security rather than by external preference for restraint.
The author is a non-resident fellow at the Consortium for Asia Pacific & Eurasian Studies. He tweets/posts @umarwrites
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pakinomist.tv’s editorial policy.
Originally published in The News
