Burden of proximity

The latest round of cross-border strikes 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 militarisation.

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 characterisation.

No state can indefinitely absorb violence that originates beyond its formal jurisdiction while relying solely on diplomatic assurances. Pakistan’s security establishment operates under domestic pressure. Civilian casualties from militant attacks do not register as abstract policy debates but as institutional demands for response. In such an environment, cross-border strikes become a tool of signaling as much as of disruption, showing that tolerance thresholds have been reached.

This does not imply that air power alone can neutralise sanctuary dynamics. Militant networks that straddle borders are sustained 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 that is still consolidating itself 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 commerce, kinship and militancy have flowed in equal measure. Expecting strategic patience in the face of repeated attacks misunderstands how states prioritise internal order.

International commentary often frames such strikes as escalatory by default, as though restraint were a neutral baseline. That assumption overlooks the asymmetry of cost. Afghanistan does not experience the same volume of attacks originating from Pakistani soil. The burden of spillover has, in recent years, 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 frequently invoke international law in isolation, detached from the persistent failure to neutralise armed groups operating in ungoverned or under-governed spaces. Legal principles cannot substitute for effective territorial control.

There are risks embedded in this approach. Repetition without resolution can normalise cross-border action as a routine policy instrument. Each episode narrows 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 durable solution would require intelligence sharing, verifiable commitments and a political understanding that militant groups targeting one state cannot be compartmentalised as peripheral concerns by the other.

Such coordination remains elusive, in part because the broader diplomatic relationship is unsettled. Questions 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 manage cross-border threats more effectively.

Pakistan cannot relocate itself away from Afghanistan, nor can it insulate its western provinces from developments across the frontier. In security terms, adjacency compresses reaction time and magnifies perceived threat. When militant attacks accumulate, strategic restraint is weighed against domestic expectations of response, and the balance shifts accordingly.

Whether the current cycle stabilises or intensifies will depend less on rhetorical condemnation and more on demonstrable action against groups operating in border regions. Without credible steps to address sanctuary concerns, episodic military measures are likely to recur. They are imperfect instruments, but they reflect a state confronting a security environment in which passivity 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 being curtailed in measurable ways. Until such evidence materialises, Islamabad’s actions will continue to be shaped by the logic of proximity and the imperative of internal security rather than by external preference for restraint.

The writer is a non-resident fellow at the Consortium for Asia Pacific & Eurasian Studies. He tweets/posts @umarwrites

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer's own and don't necessarily reflect Geo.tv's editorial policy.

Originally published in The News