PAKISTAN and Afghanistan are at war. Neither government wants to use the word. The international community prefers not to hear it. But words cannot change reality. When armed forces cross borders, when fighter aircraft strike targets on the territory of another state, when military positions are attacked in retaliation, when soldiers are killed and civilians are buried, the language of ‘tensions’ begins to sound less like diplomacy and more like denial.
For Pakistan, this war did not begin with a desire to attack Afghanistan. It began with a security threat that Kabul repeatedly failed to stop. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has used Afghan territory to organise and launch attacks inside Pakistan, while Islamabad has repeatedly presented evidence, issued diplomatic warnings and demanded action against TTP commanders and networks. When those efforts failed, Pakistan had to defend its people and territory. A country cannot be expected to remain passive while armed groups attack it from a neighbouring state. Pakistan did not create this conflict. It was pushed into it by a threat that Afghanistan failed to eliminate.
Pakistan’s right to defend its people cannot, however, be separated from the responsibility to protect civilians. Every military operation must comply with international law, and credible allegations of civilian casualties should be investigated. But that principle must apply to the entire conflict, not only to Pakistani military action. Pakistan’s civilian victims deserve the same attention as Afghan civilians. Every Pakistani village attacked by militants, every policeman ambushed, every soldier killed along the frontier and every family that loses a loved one to a TTP attack is also a human tragedy. Yet international discussion often begins with Pakistan’s response while giving far less attention to the violence that made that response necessary.
Pakistan has lived with terrorism for decades and paid an enormous human price. It has repeatedly asked Afghanistan to prevent its territory from being used against Pakistan. If Kabul wants normal relations with Islamabad, the starting point cannot be another denial or another appeal for restraint. It must be action against the militants operating from Afghan soil. The Afghan Taliban government cannot claim full sovereignty over its territory while denying responsibility for armed groups operating from it. Sovereignty brings responsibilities as well as rights. If Kabul cannot or will not prevent its territory from being used against a neighbouring country, it cannot expect Pakistan to remain passive indefinitely.
Nor can Pakistan be expected to absorb attacks forever in the hope that another diplomatic appeal will finally produce results. Pakistan has talked, warned, presented evidence and sought cooperation. When diplomacy repeatedly fails to change the behaviour creating the threat, a state will eventually turn to other means of protecting its people. That is not a choice Pakistan should have been forced to make, but it is a choice no responsible government can permanently avoid.
This is where the international community has also fallen short. Calls for restraint, dialogue and protection of civilians are necessary, but they address the symptoms rather than the source of the confrontation. If the TTP is at the centre of Pakistan’s security concerns, then any serious mediation must address the organisation’s presence and operations from Afghan territory. A ceasefire that merely pauses the fighting without dealing with the cause of the fighting is not a settlement. It is simply a pause before the next round.
Afghanistan itself has much to lose from allowing this confrontation to continue. Its economy is fragile, its people have endured decades of war and its trade and connectivity depend heavily on stable relations with its neighbours. A prolonged conflict with Pakistan will only deepen those difficulties. Kabul therefore has a clear interest in ending the problem at its source: preventing Afghan territory from being used to attack Pakistan.
Pakistan has little to gain from war, but much to protect. The two countries share a long border, intertwined communities, commerce, history, religion and family ties, and instability on one side inevitably affects the other. Pakistan did not choose this confrontation, but it cannot ignore threats from across the border. Any lasting settlement must guarantee that Afghan territory will not be used against Pakistan, with the TTP issue at its centre, backed by stronger border management, intelligence cooperation and action against militant networks. China, Saudi Arabia, the United States and other influential states should help make that possible rather than merely call for restraint.
Pakistan has every right to defend its people. But defence cannot become an endless cycle of strike, retaliation and counter-retaliation. Afghanistan cannot expect stable relations with Pakistan while militant networks operate from its territory. And the international community cannot keep responding to each new exchange of fire with another call for restraint. This is no longer a border dispute that can be managed with statements.
We are at war. And no one said so. Perhaps that is precisely the danger. By refusing to name what is happening, the causes become blurred, responsibility becomes easier to evade and diplomacy becomes easier to postpone. Pakistan did not need this war. Afghanistan did not need it either. But pretending that the conflict is merely another episode of border tensions will not stop the killing. The war nobody named will continue to grow unless someone finds the courage to end it.
—The writer is PhD in Political Science, and visiting faculty at QAU Islamabad.
