How Islamabad Turned Instability into Its Main Export Product
By Abdul Naser Noorzad, security and geopolitics researcher, exclusively for Sangar
The drama of the Taliban-Pakistan confrontation quickly drew attention because this conflict, despite its local appearance, is in fact part of a larger geopolitical and security game involving both regional and extra-regional actors.
From its founding to the present day, Pakistan has remained an executor of strategic and destabilizing programs in the region. Due to its longstanding influence over extremist groups, dating back to the Cold War, the country has become one of the pillars of the proxy policies of global powers. In essence, Islamabad views security not as a benefit for the region but as a tool for extortion and bargaining with major powers.
To solve its internal structural problems, Pakistan has always relied on external sources of support. Today, Islamabad has two key lifelines: the United States and Saudi Arabia. Washington, in direct competition with the Eastern bloc (China, Russia, Iran), requires a tested and loyal executor in zones of instability — and Pakistan fits this role perfectly. Its mission is to create threats and obstacles for Chinese projects in the region, particularly within the framework of the "Belt and Road" initiative.
Under the pretext of fighting fabricated terrorism, Pakistan dutifully carries out this mission in Washington’s interest.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, competing with Iran for influence in the region, relies on close cooperation with Islamabad in security and intelligence. Riyadh, leveraging Pakistan’s experience and nuclear capabilities, as well as its ability to mobilize radical groups, seeks to direct the “army of ignorance and fanaticism” against Iran’s “axis of resistance.”
This cooperation is neither new nor limited in time — it has continued for decades, varying in intensity. Islamabad has always skillfully played between Washington and Riyadh, extracting benefits from both sides.
In this noisy and complex environment, Pakistan seeks to use Afghanistan’s instability as a tool of pressure on India.
Achieving “strategic depth” in Afghanistan for Pakistan means destabilizing India’s psychological security. In this context, the interests of the US and Saudi Arabia converge — both countries have provided Pakistan with the space to advance its projects under the guise of fighting terrorism, using structures such as the Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The United States, seeking to undermine China’s ambitious projects, needs a field in which instability can be reproduced, and that field is Afghanistan. This destabilization is carried out through intervention, conflict, and the creation of “security threats” — a role that Pakistan performs most effectively.
Saudi Arabia, in turn, relying on Pakistan’s nuclear potential and extremist networks, seeks to redirect radical groups from the Middle East to Afghanistan to secure its domestic stability and pursue its geopolitical goals in the region calmly.
Alongside these two centers of influence, Turkey also plays the role of NATO’s “soft power” in the Sunni world. Within the framework of neo-Ottoman policy and relying on religious and cultural ties, Ankara seeks to establish a foothold in the Afghan equation. Turkey’s active participation in negotiations between the Taliban and Pakistan in Istanbul, as well as its mediation in intelligence matters, indicates that Ankara has become an additional instrument for Washington in managing regional processes.
Turkey does not act as an independent power but as a mediator between NATO and the Sunni world, aiming to strengthen its geopolitical position in Central and South Asia through “controlled extremism.”
Thus, Ankara operates on the same field where Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, with U.S. support, are arranging their strategies — at a table whose ultimate goal is to contain the Eastern bloc and maintain instability around Iran, Russia, and China.
In this situation, the TTP has become a tool performing two functions simultaneously: advancing Washington’s interests by undermining Chinese security, and safeguarding Riyadh’s interests by curbing Iran’s influence. Pakistan, dissatisfied with the Taliban’s defiance and India’s growing influence in Afghanistan, now uses the TTP as a new pretext to justify its military actions and restore its role in the regional balance of power.
By advancing fabricated pretexts, Islamabad seeks, under the guise of counter-terrorism, to gain financial, political, and military benefits from both powers — the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
In reality, Pakistan’s security policy is nothing more than the continuation of the mission assigned to it since its founding: managing terrorist and proxy groups on behalf of great powers, undermining regional stability, and sabotaging any development projects initiated by the Eastern bloc.
If China considers Pakistan a strategic ally due to a shared hostility toward India, it should be understood that Islamabad’s intentions toward Beijing have never been sincere. Pakistan has repeatedly demonstrated that it is loyal neither to China nor to the U.S., but is guided solely by immediate interests and the pursuit of self-preservation.
Thus, Pakistan’s new role, centered on the security issue and the figure of the TTP, fits into a hidden coordination between Washington, Riyadh, and Ankara — a coordination whose ultimate goal is the continuous reproduction of instability in Afghanistan and, consequently, the control of the entire geopolitics of South and Central Asia.
In this context, the Taliban are not independent actors, but part of a carefully planned scenario turning Afghanistan into a testing ground for the multi-layered strategies of regional and external powers.
The prominence of the conflict between the Taliban and Pakistan is explained by a simple truth: this confrontation is not a local dispute between two parties, but a component of the global security puzzle.
By utilizing the TTP, Pakistan effectively pursues three objectives simultaneously: it gains benefits from Washington, serves Riyadh’s security interests, and coordinates with Ankara’s soft power strategy. This country, like a geopolitical mercenary, has turned instability into its main export product.
Afghanistan has once again become the arena of great power competition — a space where terrorism, geopolitics, and intelligence intersect in a new drama called “The Conflict between the Taliban and Pakistan.”
