GPSF Strategic Outlook
Foresight-Driven Risk and Policy Analysis
Beyond Geography: A New Compact for Pakistan and Afghanistan
Purpose and Strategic Question
Afghanistan will remain Pakistan’s most consequential external security variable over the next decade because unresolved questions of territorial responsibility, border governance, and incentive misalignment are hardening into structural risks.
This GPSF Strategic Outlook examines what is likely to happen next in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations and how policy must adapt if the two are to move from recurring crisis management to durable frontier stability.
"The post-2021 Afghan order has stabilized neither the region nor Pakistan’s western frontier. Instead, it has compressed threat cycles."
Core Judgment
The post-2021 Afghan order has stabilized neither the region nor Pakistan’s western frontier. Instead, it has compressed threat cycles, reduced intermediaries, and exposed the limits of informal diplomacy. If Pakistan continues to rely on assumed goodwill, personalized engagement, and episodic coercion, instability will persist at rising security and economic cost. Policy adaptation is no longer optional.
1. The Emerging Risk Environment
Three converging trends define the medium-term outlook:
I. Persistent Militant Sanctuaries
The continued presence of anti-Pakistan militant groups on Afghan soil is not the result of isolated incidents or temporary lapses. It reflects a permissive environment where limited control and weak enforcement allow these groups to operate. Even without direct state support, geography and lack of oversight enable cross-border violence to continue.
II. Shrinking Tolerance for Ambiguity
Political, economic, and security pressures are reducing Pakistan’s patience to tolerate vague or unverifiable assurances. Managing repeated crises without lasting solutions is becoming too costly, both strategically and economically, to sustain.
III. Rising Regional Stakes
Major connectivity projects, such as energy corridors, transit railways, and trade routes, have made instability increasingly costly for Pakistan and regional stakeholders. As economic stakes grow, there is greater pressure to ensure enforceable stability rather than rely on informal or ad hoc arrangements.
Outlook: Without a tangible change in policy, these trends are likely to lead to repeated low- to medium-level confrontations, increased pressure along the border, and sustained economic costs over time.
2. Strategic Exhaustion and the End of Informality
Pakistan’s past engagement with Afghanistan relied significantly on real-time informal arrangements, factional linkages, and personalized channels, shaped in part by Afghan cultural and political realities. While this approach provided tactical flexibility and short-term leverage in a complex geopolitical environment, its ability to translate influence into consistent, enforceable accountability was limited by Afghan political rigidity, weak enforcement capacity, and resistance to formalized commitments. The costs have been substantial:
- More than 83,000 lives lost to terrorism since 2001
- Economic losses exceeding $150 billion
- Hosting around 4.4 million Afghans, according to UNHCR, placing sustained pressure on infrastructure and social cohesion
Beyond these material losses, the deeper failure was conceptual. Pakistan extended political, economic, and security benefits without tying them to enforceable obligations, while it consistently absorbed the security and economic costs when those obligations were not met. This model has reached strategic exhaustion.
3. Policy Adaptation: The Sovereign Accountability Compact
An institutional framework that links Afghan conduct with clear incentives and consequences is a must. The proposed Sovereign Accountability Compact (SAC) is built on three mutually reinforcing pillars.
Pillar I: Verification, Not Trust
Trust alone is no longer sufficient as the basis for security cooperation. Therefore, it is important to:
- Establish a joint verification mechanism, supported by credible neutral third parties such as the United Nations and the United States, as well as regional facilitators like China, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye, to verify the dismantling of militant infrastructure, particularly networks linked to the TTP. Such third-party involvement reflects historical precedent: major Afghan territorial and political understandings – from the Geneva Accords to more recent negotiations like Doha process – have rarely been resolved by Afghan parties alone, instead requiring external guarantors to provide credibility, balance interests, and ensure follow-through.
- Set benchmarks that are clear, observable, documented, and time bound.
Rationale: Only verifiable compliance can support durable engagement and reduce the risk of miscalculation or escalation.
Pillar II: Conditional Economic Interdependence
Pakistan remains Afghanistan’s principal transit corridor, handling over 60 per cent of Afghan trade, according to the World Bank. This position provides Pakistan with significant economic leverage that should be translated into a graduated incentive framework.
- Verified compliance with agreed security benchmarks should unlock successive tiers of economic cooperation.
- Expanded transit access, customs facilitation, and energy connectivity should be conditional and performance-based, not automatic entitlements.
Rationale: Stability must carry tangible economic rewards, while non-compliance should impose clear and predictable opportunity costs.
Pillar III: Border Formalization
The Durand Line does not need to be sealed to be effective, but it must transition from a largely porous frontier to a regulated and managed border through layered controls, technology, regulated crossings, and selective enforcement.
- Deploy modern border-management tools, including biometrics, smart crossings, cargo tracking, customs automation, integrated watchlists, advance passenger and cargo information systems, electronic transit tracking, mobile patrol units, and aerial surveillance.
- Facilitate legitimate movement through regulated crossings and simplified procedures, while constraining illicit flows through biometric checks, risk-based screening, targeted inspections, and technology-enabled surveillance.
Afghanistan’s opiate economy, estimated at $1.8-2.7 billion annually by the UNODC, directly finances instability. Effective border regulation will reduce these revenue streams and weaken militant networks.
Rationale: Effective border management reduces security risks and supports stability; it is not a hostile act.
4. Regionalizing Responsibility
Border stabilization should be treated as a regional public good rather than a bilateral burden. Only one country, such as Pakistan, cannot finance large-scale frontier modernization on its own. A multilateral investment consortium, bringing together Gulf partners, China, Central Asian states, and international financial institutions, would align with wider regional connectivity initiatives such as the CASA-1000 and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). For external stakeholders, such investment constitutes strategic insurance against terrorism spillover, narcotics trafficking, and unmanaged migration.
5. Short-Term Strategic Signals to Watch
Conclusion: From Absorption to Strategic Shaping
Sovereign accountability is a practical approach to stabilization in a difficult and enduring security environment. Any authority in Kabul, whether current or future, must recognize a basic operational reality, that effective control over territory includes preventing its use for cross-border violence. Without this, bilateral engagement cannot remain sustainable.
By putting verification in place, linking economic access to measurable security conduct, and sharing the burden of border stabilization with regional partners, Pakistan can reduce its exposure to recurring crises. This approach does not eliminate risk, but it helps manage it more predictably and at lower long-term cost. Geography will continue to shape Pakistan’s western frontier. Policy choices will determine whether that geography remains a source of recurring instability or becomes a manageable security boundary.