Paralysing the State: Taliban's strategy of controlled chaos

Defense & Security

Paralysing the State: Taliban's strategy of controlled chaos

Image Source : Wikimedia Commons

First Published in: Nov.03,2025

Nov.03, 2025

The fall of Kabul with the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 was not an end to the long standing Afghan crisis but rather turned into a more complex challenge for Afghans at large & for Taliban leaders alike. The Taliban had to transform from a nimble insurgency to a functioning state. Nearly three years on, it is clear that the group’s strategy for maximizing relevance is not based on building a prosperous nation but on a dangerous and calculated paralysis. Both internally, through draconian social policies and externally through provocative engagements, the current regime is placing its ideology above the interests of the general populace. This approach, recently highlighted by a deadly skirmish with nuclear-armed Pakistan, threatens to freeze Afghanistan in a state of perpetual crisis, sacrificing its people’s future for the regime’s ideological purity and survival.

The Pakistan Conundrum: A Calculated Maneuvering.

The recent escalation along the Durand Line with Pakistan served as a stark reminder of the Taliban’s precarious external posture. The exchange of fire, which included airstrikes within mainland Afghanistan and mortar shelling, resulting in casualties on both sides, was not a fight among equals. Pakistan possesses one of the world's largest and most battle-hardened militaries, backed by a nuclear arsenal. Its conventional military capabilities from a modern air force to sophisticated artillery and armour can not be compared with the Taliban’s minimal and largely infantry-based forces, who possess no air force, limited air defence, and very basic command and control structures. For the Taliban to engage in such a conflict, even briefly, seems suicidal. However, this is where their insurgency mindset becomes apparent. Their power does not lie in matching Pakistan’s might but in leveraging asymmetry. A direct, conventional war is unwinnable, but a low-intensity conflict along the border, leveraging their ideological kinship with Tehreek i Taliban Pakistan (TTP) factions is a tool of influence. The subsequent ceasefire agreement, brokered through backchannel dialogues involving Turkiye & Qatar was a tactical retreat, not a strategic surrender. Immediately after the truce, the Taliban leadership felt compelled to issue clarifications to its own population. This narrative management is crucial. It underscores the regime’s primary audience, its own hardline base and the wider Afghan populace, which remains afraid of foreign domination. The entire episode was a high-stakes performance, demonstrating defiance to solidify internal legitimacy while avoiding a full-scale war that would be catastrophic for the fledgling regime. The costs of such a war for Pakistan would be significant—economic disruption, a massive refugee crisis, and further destabilisation of its own restive western regions. For Afghanistan, it would be existential, leading to immediate state collapse and humanitarian catastrophe.

Internal Paralysis: The War on Half the Population

The Taliban’s internal policy is catastrophically self-sabotaging too. The most glaring example of state paralysis is the systematic eradication of women’s rights, particularly the access to education. By banning girls from secondary school and university, the Taliban are not just enforcing a brutal societal code, they are actively paralysing the state’s potential. This policy effectively keeps away half of the nation’s human capital. It ensures a future with fewer doctors, engineers, teachers, and administrators, crippling almost all long-term economic development or social progress. The health system, already on life support, cannot function without female staff in a gender-segregated society. This is not merely repression, it is institutionalised crime against humanity. The regime, by its own decree, is preventing itself from building the skilled workforce necessary for society to function smoothly. This creates a controlled, paralysed society where the regime’s ideological control is prioritised over the state’s functional capacity.

The Geopolitical Tightrope: Beijing and Moscow’s Cautious Gaze

The Taliban’s isolation is not absolute. Its relationships with China and Russia are pragmatic alliances of convenience, yet they are tied with unspoken conditions. Beijing is primarily interested in stability which eventually leads to integrating Afghanistan into its Belt and Road Initiative, particularly as an extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). China values the Taliban’s promise to not host Uyghur separatists and offers economic and diplomatic engagement in return. However, the ongoing internal instability which has already cost a huge oil extraction deal, & ties to groups like TTP, which threaten Pakistan, makes Beijing stay on alert. Similarly, Russia seeks to use the Taliban as a barricade against the spread of ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), which it sees as a threat to its interests in Central Asian allies. It engages with the Taliban for intelligence sharing but like China, it withholds full diplomatic recognition. Both powers are playing a long game, providing just enough engagement to keep the Taliban engaged and prevent complete state failure, but not enough to legitimize its worst excesses. They are investing in the idea of a stable Afghanistan, not necessarily in the Taliban’s model of governance.

The Thirst for Recognition and the umbrella of sanctions

Taliban’s central quandary, the desperate thirst for international recognition to get away from sanctions. The frozen assets abroad, the collapse of the formal banking sector and the aid-dependent economy are a direct result of the regime’s policies. The international community’s conditions for recognition, forming an inclusive government, respecting human rights, and severing ties with terrorist groups are precisely what the Taliban’s base rejects. Therefore, they have chosen a path of managed paralysis, maintaining a firm grip on power through internal suppression and external defiance, hoping to wait out the international community and force a recognition on their own terms. They are betting that the world’s fear of a completely failed state, a haven for terrorists and a source of uncontrollable refugee flow will eventually outweigh its principled objections to their governance.

Conclusion

In an era defined by profound global realignment, sustainable statecraft necessitates avoiding international isolation, a burden no state can long bear. The Taliban’s current orientation however, blatantly violates this principle, presenting a multi layered threat to regional stability and global security. Central to this crisis is the regime’s unwavering prioritization of a rigid ideology over the sustainability of global security and the welfare of its own population. This doctrinal commitment manifests in a dangerously irresponsible foreign policy, including active support for transnational terrorist groups like the Tehrik i Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). By engaging in war-mongering with a nuclear-armed Pakistan, the Taliban not only invites an existential retaliatory war that could draw in global powers but also demonstrates a reckless disregard for regional security balance. This external belligerence is compounded by a foreign policy confined to the conditional alignment with only Russia and China only, a model not suitable for navigating the transitional nature of contemporary global power dynamics. The consequences of this ideological inflexibility are catastrophically domestic too. The Afghan people bear the harshest price, suffering under a reign of terror and a collapsing economy. A profound food security crisis has left millions malnourished and desperate. This immense internal suffering does not merely constitute a humanitarian tragedy, it actively generates a threat to global peace. A starving, disenfranchised, and radicalized population becomes a fertile recruiting ground for international terrorist networks. As misery deepens, the potential grows for Afghanistan to export not just ideological inspiration but also a desperate, battle-hardened cadre of extremists, who could destabilize far beyond its borders. Thus, the Taliban’s preference for ideology over pragmatic statecraft creates a vicious cycle. This path is unsustainable, promising only further devastation for Afghanistan and heightened peril for the world.

References

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE.(2023).

Russia’s Growing Ties With Afghanistan Are More Symbolism Than Substance

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2023/09/russias-growing-ties-with-afghanistan-are-more-symbolism-than-substance?lang=en

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH.(2024

Taliban’s Attack on Girls’ Education Harming Afghanistan’s Future

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/17/talibans-attack-girls-education-harming-afghanistans-future

LOWY INSTITUTE.(2025).

Afghanistan must tread a narrow path to stability

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/afghanistan-must-tread-narrow-path-stability

NiKKEI ASIA. (2025).

Taliban cancel oilfield deal with Chinese in Afghanistan's north

https://asia.nikkei.com/economy/taliban-cancel-oilfield-deal-with-chinese-in-afghanistan-s-north

SCIENCE DIRECT

Update on the state of food security and safety in Afghanistan: A review

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2949824425001545

WILSON CENTER.(2024)

Mining for Influence: China's Mineral Ambitions in Taliban-Led Afghanistan

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/mining-influence-chinas-mineral-ambitions-taliban-led-afghanistan

First published in :

World & New World Journal

Sajad Ahanger

Sajad Ahanger is an Occasional Writer, Poet and Political Analyst based in Kashmir. Currently He is pursuing Masters in Mass Communication & Journalism from University of Kashmir.

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