When the foreign policy of a nation is oriented around doctrinal rigidities and dangerous illusions, the ruling class comes to grief sooner or later. In the case of Pakistan, the time frame has been four years. When the US troops left Afghanistan in August 2021, there was jubilation in both Islamabad, the political capital, and Rawalpindi, the military (and real) capital. Afghans have broken “shackles of slavery,” the then-prime minister Imran Khan said. Pakistan, its military and political leaders thought, has achieved ‘strategic depth.’ ‘Strategic depth’ is a nebulous doctrine, articulated by General Mirza Aslam Beg when he was the army chief. It basically meant dominance over Afghanistan. When the Taliban took over Kabul four years ago, it was not an unusual surmise for the Pakistani generals and politicians to make; after all, the new regime was suitably retrograde; besides, it owed its birth and nurturing to Pakistanis.

But that was not to be, for in geopolitics what seems obvious may end up as a mirage. The proud Afghans have fought imperial and great powers like the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the US; they could suddenly become docile to a foreign power just because they shared their religion with them. Hence, the escalating skirmishes between the armed forces of the two neighbours. Fifteen Pakistani soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan’s Helmand province after the Taliban forces retaliated to Pakistani airstrikes in Afghan territory, including the capital Kabul, Mawlawi Mohammad Qasim Riaz, spokesperson for the Helmand provincial government, told the media. Around the same time, Taliban spokesperson Zabeehullah Mujahid Islamabad sought to expel ISIS terrorists “hiding on their soil” as they retaliated to Pakistani airstrikes in Afghan territory. At least 58 Pakistani soldiers have been killed and 30 others wounded in the retaliatory strikes, Mujahid said. It is not just that the bonhomie between the coreligionists of the two countries has vanished; worse, one of them, Afghanistan, is warming up to a non-Muslim nation—India. Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is in India for a week of talks—the Taliban’s highest-level visit to the country since it seized power in 2021. He has already met his Indian counterpart, S. Jaishankar. This must be galling Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

But then, the Pakistani generals and politicians themselves are responsible for the mess they find themselves in. They only chose their ill-defined and stupid policy goals like strategic depth. Instead of chalking out and working on some plan to improve relations with India, Pakistan chose the path of, in the words of its former PM Z.A. Bhutto, “a thousand-year war” with us; too attain which objective? Neither Bhutto nor any of his successors has bothered to explain. This policy of permanent confrontation has drained Pakistan economically, fractured its polity, and stunted its development. Its military establishment has thrived on hostility with India, using it to justify bloated defence budgets, suppress democratic institutions, and nurture extremist proxies. If Pakistan wishes to emerge from the morass it finds itself in, it must abandon the delusion of eternal enmity and strive to normalise relations with India. Dialogue, trade, and people-to-people contact are not signs of weakness but of maturity. The subcontinent’s future cannot be held hostage to the insecurities of generals or the ambitions of demagogues. Pakistan must begin to behave like a normal, civilised nation.