: What Pakistan Stands to Gain From the Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan #WorldNEWS We need to recognize that the single most important factor in Taliban victory was their own commitment, courage and

What Pakistan Stands to Gain From the Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan #WorldNEWS
We need to recognize that the single most important factor in Taliban victory was their own commitment, courage and sheer grit. Nevertheless without Pakistan’s shelter and support they might not be marching through the streets of Kabul right now. How grateful they will be remains to be seen. But Pakistan wasn’t doing it for them. Pakistan’s strategy of helping the Taliban stemmed from long fears concerning Afghanistan, some of which have existed since Pakistan became a state in 1947.
These fears were of Afghan alliance with India and Afghan support for rebellion inside Pakistan, and have therefore been considerably reduced by the Taliban victory. India is bitterly hostile to the Taliban and very unlikely to be able to ally with them; and if the Taliban support Islamist rebellion against Pakistan, they will cut off Afghanistan’s trade routes to the sea; quite apart from the fact that the Pakistan Army has demonstrated in recent years (after some delay) that it can successfully crush any rebellion. The strong Pakistani alliance with a China that is vastly richer than it was 20 years ago also gives Pakistan the hope that Chinese investment in Afghanistan may help to keep the Taliban government aligned with Pakistani interests. Pakistan can therefore afford to be quite confident about the positive consequences of the Talibans victory.
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But there is a complicated history that is worth exploring. The older story of Afghan-Pakistani hostility over the past 74 years was a legacy of the British Empire. In the 1890s, the British drew a frontier between Afghanistan and their Indian Empire which came to be known as the “Durand Line,” after the British colonel who surveyed it. Drawn purely for British strategic reasons, this border cuts through the middle of the Pashtun ethnicity, and even through the middle of several Pashtun tribes like the Afridis.
Afghanistan, a state founded by Pashtuns in the mid-18th century, has never accepted this border. When the British Raj ended in 1947, the Afghan government initially refused to recognize Pakistani independence unless Pakistan tore up the Durand Line and handed its Pashtun territories to Afghanistan. This not surprisingly Pakistan refused to do.
As a result, a succession of Afghan governments continued to refuse to recognize the Durand Line as a legal frontier, aligned Afghanistan with India against Pakistan, and periodically attempted to stir up Pashtun ethnic separatism in Pakistan. In response, for almost 70 years Pakistan tried either to influence or to weaken Afghanistan through a combination of economic pressure and inducements with support for rebellions within Afghanistan.