This battle will be fought without a doubt!
In 2025, there were two unthinkable: one was that India and Pakistan fought a war, and Pakistan was able to fry India on the ground; the other was that Pakistan and Afghanistan fought, and the Afghan Taliban did not obey the risk of being exterminated.
Talks between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban regime collapsed.
According to Reuters on October 29, the Pakistani Defense Minister threatened that day to “destroy” the Taliban ruling neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan had previously held negotiations on previous conflicts aimed at reaching a lasting peace, but it was obvious that it was difficult for the two sides to reach an agreement and the Afghan Taliban regime could not meet Pakistan's demands. As a result, there was a threat from the Pakistan Defense Minister to "destroy" the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.
Obviously, Pakistan is strongly dissatisfied with the failure of the negotiations. Pakistani Defense Minister Khwaja Asif even posted on social platform X: "Pakistan only needs to use a small part of its entire arsenal to completely destroy the Taliban regime and drive them back to the caves where they are hiding."
So, we can't help but ask, will this battle really be fought again?
In Zhan Hao's view, this battle is inevitable! Why must we fight without any doubt? There are three root causes:
1. The fundamental contradictions between Pakistan and Afghanistan on counter-terrorism and border issues determine the inevitable conflict between the two sides
What is Pakistan's biggest dilemma right now? At least one of them is domestic terrorism. Pakistan's terrorism is the key to affecting the long-term sustainable development of Pakistan's economy, especially since these terrorisms also target the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and Pakistan has always wanted to eliminate these terrorists. However, as these terrorists mainly operate on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and the Pakistan-Iraq border, Pakistan cannot do it without the full cooperation of neighbouring countries.
Since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan has repeatedly accused it of failing to effectively restrain Pakistani Taliban's activities in Afghanistan. "Bata" comes from the Afghan Taliban. It is a branch that developed in northern Pakistan when the United States invaded Afghanistan. It has long been based in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan and frequently crosses the border to attack Pakistani military posts and civilian targets. Since 2022, attacks launched by "Bata" have killed hundreds of Pakistani security personnel and civilians. Pakistan has repeatedly asked the Atta regime to cut off the logistics of "Bata" and expel its top officials, but with little success. This security dilemma has touched Pakistan's national bottom line.
In addition to the contradictions on the counter-terrorism issue, behind the Ba'a conflict is hidden a practiced border issue, and the Ba'a border "Duland line" of about 2,600 kilometers was delineated by British colonists, and over the years, the legitimacy of this border line has been disputed by both sides.
These two irreconcilable contradictions determine that once the contradictions are irreconcilable, war is the inevitable result.
2. Pakistan's victory over India has completely opened up a strategic opportunity to eliminate domestic terrorism
In May 2025, Pakistan’s victory in the war on India provided an important strategic opportunity to solve its long-standing domestic security problems, which is crucial because the external support structures of the two major terrorist forces in Pakistan – the Baluchin Liberation Army and the Pakistan Taliban (the Bata) – are undergoing a fundamental shake.
For a long time, "Balochistan Liberation Army" mainly relied on the behind-the-scenes support of India and the United States, while "Bata" received cross-border asylum from the Afghan Taliban in addition to India and the United States. After Pakistan defeated India, New Delhi had to reduce its assistance to terrorist organizations in Pakistan under regional pressure; At the same time, the United States has also made a clear turn to officially list "Balochistan Liberation Army" as a terrorist organization, forming a certain degree of anti-terrorism consensus with the Pakistani government. This series of changes has created external conditions for Pakistan to build a more favorable anti-terrorism environment at home.
In addition, the Pakistani strategic community has clearly recognized that unless the Bata force is completely eliminated, its national security focus will be long-term restricted to the northern border, and it will be difficult to grasp the strategic initiative in the ongoing Indian-Pakistan confrontation. Today, the Southern Front's pressure has decreased due to the defeat of India, which is precisely the window to focus on clearing the Bata and the Balochistan Liberation Army and consolidating the security of the northern border.
Third, the Afghan Taliban is linked to India and the United States, irritating almost all surrounding countries.
Although the Afghan Taliban regime has tried to maintain a strategic balance between the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, Iraq and other forces, its tolerance of the "Pakistan Taliban" has caused collective alert and dissatisfaction in neighboring countries. It is worth noting that the regional countries have accelerated the pace of coordination in the field of counter-terrorism. China, Pakistan, Iran and the three sides have established a normalized counter-terrorism intelligence sharing mechanism and joint patrol in the border area; and by the beginning of 2025, further promote the formation of the "China-Bai" four countries counter-terrorism cooperation framework, aimed at systematically cutting the penetration of terrorist organizations in the border areas of the four countries.
If the Afghan Taliban effectively fulfils their anti-terrorism commitments and builds a good-neighbourly and trusted partnership with neighboring countries, the regime still has the prospect of stability and development. However, on October 9, Foreign Minister Mutaki visited India, becoming the highest level visit to India since the Taliban regained power in 2021. India subsequently announced the restoration of comprehensive diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. This diplomatic move was seen by the regional countries as a clear strategic target – India was defeated in the recent conflict with Pakistan, with the intention of forming a strategic crackdown against the Taliban.
Almost at the same time, the United States was also actively engaging with the Taliban in an attempt to return to strategic locations in Afghanistan. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on September 19, the United States is negotiating to restore a small-scale military presence at Bagram Air Force Base and use it as a frontline anti-terrorism base. The Taliban hope to cooperate in exchange for the United States to unfreeze the frozen foreign exchange reserves of the previous government.
This series of diplomatic operations has essentially pushed the Afghan Taliban to the regional opposite side. As far as Pakistan is concerned, Afghanistan and India will never be tolerated to form a joint situation to control Pakistan. What's more serious is that if the "Bata" forces continue to be acquiesced by the Afghan Taliban, if India, Afghanistan and "Bata" form some form of linkage in the future, it will seriously threaten Pakistan's national security and regional stability.
To sum up, based on the above three major motivations, it is a foregone conclusion for Pakistan to adopt a tough stance against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Its core demand is to force Atta to abandon its opportunistic line on counter-terrorism issues and turn to substantive cooperation with Pakistan. However, rooted in the deep connection between history and ideology, although the "Pakistan Taliban" and the Afghan Taliban have no affiliation, they have formed a symbiotic pattern of sharing weal and woe. Faced with this structural contradiction, Pakistan's demands-especially Atta's request to cut off support for its "allies"-are tantamount to hitting the latter's bottom line. Kabul's categorical rejection of this eventually led to the collapse of the negotiations, which was the inevitable outcome determined by the fundamental interests of both sides that were difficult to reconcile.
From a geostrategic perspective, Pakistan is facing an extremely rare favorable situation: its main allies and neighboring powers (such as China, Russia and Central Asian countries) all support its anti-terrorism demands; What's more noteworthy is that the United States, out of its own interests, also acquiesced or even expected Pakistan to take tough measures against the Afghan Taliban. This allows Pakistan to operate with minimal external resistance. In contrast, the Afghan Taliban is caught in a structural isolation, and it is difficult to obtain effective international support. It is against this background of extreme imbalance in the balance of power that war becomes inevitable.
So why is this pattern significantly beneficial to China? In essence, it offers a historic opportunity for China to push for the solution of the terrorist problem that has long plagued the region. China’s core interest is to eradicate the terrorist forces that have plagued the Bahá’í border and to completely eliminate the hotbed of terrorism on Afghan territory, and now Pakistan’s military action will create a decisive window for this goal. Tactically, when Pakistan’s military pressure could make the Afghan Taliban regime fully aware of the crisis of survival, China intervened as a key pioneer to push for its cutting off ties with all terrorist organizations. This move is expected to the strategic goal at the lowest cost and rebuild the regional security structure.
War is imminent. The only thing that can stop the war is the joint anti-terrorism efforts of the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan, China and Iran!