The Return of Kabul

Afghanistan is back on every major power’s map—not as alliance, but as attention. Why Kabul is becoming a strategic junction again.

Over the past year, Afghanistan has begun appearing in strategic conversations where, at first glance, it does not seem to belong.

Russia formally recognised the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government in July 2025 — the first and only country to do so — and followed that recognition with a military cooperation agreement signed on 27 May 2026 by Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Taliban defence minister Mohammad Yaqub at an international security forum in Moscow. India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval travelled to Moscow in August 2025, meeting both Putin and Shoigu. Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi made a six-day visit to New Delhi in October 2025 — the first senior Taliban minister to visit India since the group took power — after which India upgraded its Kabul mission to a full embassy and raised its development assistance to Afghanistan by 27 percent in the 2026-27 Union Budget. By January 2026, a Taliban-appointed diplomat was heading the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi for the first time. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi received Muttaqi in Beijing in May 2025 on the 70th anniversary of Sino-Afghan diplomatic relations. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, arrived in Islamabad on 1 June 2026 for the 8th EU-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue, her first visit since 2019, and publicly addressed Afghanistan’s security situation. And throughout this period, Pakistan and Afghanistan moved from border skirmishes in October 2025 to an exchange of airstrikes and cross-border ground operations in February 2026 — with Pakistan’s defence minister declaring “open war.”

Viewed individually, each development tells a different story.

Viewed together, they suggest something else.

The conventional response is to interpret such developments through the language of alliances. Are Russia, China, and India converging? Is a new regional bloc forming? Is this another Great Game?

Those questions may be asking the wrong thing.

Convergence implies common objectives.

Attention merely requires common relevance.

The striking feature of recent developments is not that major powers are pursuing the same strategy toward Afghanistan. They are not.

Russia’s interests are not India’s. India’s are not China’s. Europe’s interests are not those of the Gulf states. The United States continues to view Afghanistan differently from almost every regional actor. Yet despite these differences, Afghanistan keeps reappearing in strategic calculations.

This is not a story about strategic convergence.

It is a story about strategic attention.

The question is not why these actors agree.

The question is why so many of them have independently concluded that Afghanistan matters.

And more importantly: why now?

An Object of Policy, Not a Subject of It

For much of the past two decades, Afghanistan was rarely discussed as a country in its own right.

It was discussed as a problem.

A terrorism problem. A state-building problem. A counterinsurgency problem. A humanitarian problem.

Afghanistan was often treated less as a political actor than as a political project. International debates focused on what should be done to Afghanistan rather than what Afghanistan itself represented within the wider region. Even after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, much of the conversation remained centred on sanctions, recognition, aid, women’s rights, refugee flows and humanitarian crises. These issues are real and important. But they also reflected a deeper habit of analysis: Afghanistan was frequently treated as an object to be managed rather than a political society capable of shaping its own outcomes.

That framing increasingly appears inadequate.

Regional powers are engaging Afghanistan not because they have suddenly resolved their disagreements with the Taliban, but because they have reached a simpler conclusion. The authorities in Kabul govern Afghanistan. They control territory. They influence regional security outcomes. They sit astride major geographic corridors. Whether one approves of them or not does not alter those realities. And, the country’s strategic importance cannot be suspended until a more comfortable political reality emerges.

In that sense, engagement is not endorsement.

It is recognition that geography continues to matter regardless of ideology.

There is a tendency in Western commentary to view Afghanistan primarily through the lens of institutional transformation: what Afghanistan should become, what reforms it should adopt, what social outcomes external actors should encourage. Yet Afghanistan’s modern history offers repeated reminders that societies with strong civilisational identities rarely respond well to prolonged external social engineering.

The result is not necessarily transformation.

Often, it is the opposite.

The stronger the external pressure, the stronger the internal attachment to identity, tradition and autonomy.

That does not mean Afghanistan is static. It means that understanding Afghanistan requires engaging with the country that exists rather than the country outside actors would prefer to see.

Increasingly, regional powers appear to be doing exactly that.

A Relationship That Never Disappeared

This recognition is most visible — and most misunderstood — in India’s case.

The assumption that India has turned toward Afghanistan primarily because relations with Pakistan have deteriorated misses a longer history.

India’s relationship with Afghanistan predates both the Taliban and Pakistan itself.

Civilisational links between the two societies stretch across centuries of trade, migration, scholarship, language and culture. Modern diplomatic ties have survived monarchies, communist governments, civil wars, the first Taliban government, the American intervention and the Taliban’s return.

One of the more revealing aspects is how much of the relationship exists outside formal politics.

Long before cricket became a bridge between the two societies, Afghanistan was one of the largest foreign consumers of Indian cinema. Bollywood films became part of everyday Afghan life. Stories such as Kabuliwala embedded Afghanistan within India’s cultural imagination, while Khuda Gawah film became one of the most enduring cultural symbols of Indo-Afghan friendship.

Culture rarely appears in geopolitical analysis. It should. Relationships built through culture often outlast governments, regimes and political transitions. The same pattern appears in sport.

Afghanistan’s cricket team effectively grew supported by the ecosystem of India’s influence in cricket. Afghan players became familiar figures to Indian audiences through the IPL and international tournaments. When Afghanistan achieved its remarkable performances during recent ICC tournaments, the support from Indian crowds was not manufactured, and vice versa. The support was not strategic. It was social.

That distinction matters. This is not sentimentality. It is context. Because unlike transactional relationships, social relationships tend to survive political disruption.

The same continuity is visible in development cooperation.

After 2001, India made a deliberate choice that Washington pressed it repeatedly to reconsider: civilian engagement only. Roads, transmission lines, dams, scholarships, institutional capacity — but no troops. When President Trump unveiled his new Afghanistan strategy in 2017 and US Defence Secretary James Mattis visited New Delhi expecting movement on military contribution, Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was unambiguous: “There shall not be boots from India on the ground in Afghanistan.” India would expand infrastructure, training and humanitarian assistance — and it did — but it would not enter the military architecture of the intervention. That position held consistently across every US administration that asked. That choice became one of the defining features of India’s Afghan policy and remains a core memory in both societies.

It is one reason why Afghan perceptions of India have remained unusually positive across political transitions. Surveys conducted over multiple years have repeatedly shown India receiving exceptionally favourable ratings among Afghans. Trade has continued despite the absence of direct overland access and persistent geopolitical disruptions. Air cargo corridors emerged precisely because both sides sought alternatives to geographic constraints. Chabahar became important because it reduced dependence on routes controlled elsewhere.

These relationships did not need to be rebuilt after 2021. They simply adapted to a new political reality.

This is also why India’s engagement with the Taliban cannot be reduced to worsening relations with Pakistan.

In fact, New Delhi initially approached the Taliban’s return with considerable caution. Pakistani officials had long described the Taliban as a strategic asset, creating concerns that Afghanistan could once again become a platform for anti-India militancy.

Yet developments unfolded differently.

Taliban officials repeatedly described Kashmir as India’s internal matter. Kabul consistently signalled that Afghan territory would not be used against India. The Taliban publicly condemned the Pahalgam terrorist attack and indicated a willingness to cooperate on counterterrorism concerns.

None of this means India recognises the Taliban government formally. It does not.

India continues to avoid formal recognition and retains symbolic distance on issues of legitimacy. But diplomacy often begins before recognition. And increasingly, both sides appear willing to engage the reality that exists rather than the reality they might prefer.

The End of the Indispensable Intermediary

For decades, Pakistan occupied a unique position in discussions about Afghanistan. Geography, logistics, intelligence networks, and ethnic linkages combined to give Islamabad a role that few others could replicate. Access to Afghanistan often meant access through Pakistan. The arrangement created extraordinary leverage — with Kabul, with Washington, with Beijing, with New Delhi, and with Riyadh. It also encouraged a widespread assumption: that Pakistan was Afghanistan’s indispensable intermediary.

History suggests otherwise.

Afghanistan has never formally accepted the Durand Line as a permanent international border. Successive Afghan governments have all challenged the issue in different ways. Tensions over the border long predate the current crisis. And, the idea that Pakistan naturally served as Afghanistan’s political manager reflected a particular historical period rather than an enduring reality.

The post-2001 intervention amplified Islamabad’s importance because military logistics, intelligence cooperation and diplomatic engagement largely flowed through Pakistan. That era has ended.

India increasingly engages Kabul directly. Russia increasingly engages Kabul directly — and formalised that engagement by becoming the first country to recognise the Taliban government, removing the legal and institutional obstacles to deeper cooperation. China was the first to accept a Taliban-appointed ambassador, in December 2023. Iran maintains direct engagement to stabilise its eastern frontier. Even states with competing interests are choosing direct contact over reliance on a single gateway.

The common pattern is difficult to miss.

More actors are choosing direct access over mediated access.

Brokerage derives value from scarcity.

As alternative channels emerge, brokerage becomes less exclusive.

The Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict of 2025-26 has accelerated a shift that was already underway. Pakistani airstrikes on Kabul and Kandahar in February 2026, following escalating cross-border attacks by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Pakistan’s accusations that Kabul was harbouring anti-Pakistan militants, produced not resolution but a further fragmentation of the relationship. Chinese mediation efforts have struggled to produce durable results.

The Logic of Hedging

The temptation is to interpret these developments through alliance politics.

But something more nuanced is happening.

Major powers rarely hedge against enemies.

They hedge against uncertainty.

Consider BrahMos — the supersonic cruise missile produced by a joint Indian-Russian venture. The Philippines signed a $375 million acquisition deal in January 2022. Vietnam has since followed. Both countries have active territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. Both are acquiring a weapon developed through an India-Russia joint venture — and Russia approved both deals.

Viewed through rigid alliance logic, this makes little sense.

Viewed through hedging logic, it makes perfect sense.

It is four states — India, Russia, the Philippines, Vietnam — each preserving relationships across strategic lines because the future is uncertain and options are worth maintaining.

The same pattern runs through the region.

China maintains what it calls an iron-clad relationship with Pakistan while simultaneously deepening engagement with Afghanistan — the country Pakistan accuses of harbouring militants and acting as an Indian proxy. Russia deepens strategic alignment and cooperation with China while preserving one of its oldest strategic partnerships with India and signing a defence logistics agreement in February 2025 allowing mutual access to military facilities. India expands its partnership with Washington while maintaining close trusted ties with Moscow.

These relationships are not contradictions.

They are insurance policies.

The objective is not to commit to a single future.

It is to remain prepared for multiple futures.

Afghanistan increasingly fits into this logic. Not because every major power wants the same thing from Kabul. But because every major power sees value in maintaining access to a place where multiple strategic possibilities intersect.

Viewed through that lens, Afghanistan begins to look very different.

Not as an isolated post-conflict state.

Not as a humanitarian case study.

Not even primarily as a security challenge.

But as a strategic junction.

A place where questions about Central Asia, South Asia, connectivity, trade, terrorism, energy, borders, development, and influence intersect simultaneously.

Europe, Ukraine and the Expanding Eurasian Conversation

One of the more overlooked developments of the past two years has been the gradual merging of strategic conversations that were previously treated as separate.

Afghanistan is increasingly discussed alongside Pakistan.

Pakistan is increasingly discussed alongside Ukraine.

And Ukraine is increasingly discussed within a broader Eurasian framework.

This does not mean these theatres are identical. It means they are becoming connected through diplomacy, logistics and strategic calculation.

Pakistan’s position has become even more increasingly complex within the wider Eurasian system. While Islamabad continues to deepen strategic ties with China, it has also emerged as an important—if often understated—partner in Western efforts surrounding Ukraine. Multiple reports and investigations since 2022 have reported on Pakistan’s role in supplying military material linked to Ukraine. At the same time, European engagement with Islamabad has expanded despite long-standing concerns about terrorism, human rights, governance, and regional instability.

Kaja Kallas’s June 2026 visit to Pakistan illustrates this shift.

Officially, the visit focused on EU-Pakistan relations, trade, security cooperation, and regional stability. Yet Afghanistan featured prominently in both public remarks and official discussions. Kallas explicitly addressed Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions, emphasised concerns about terrorist groups operating from Afghan territory and called on Kabul’s authorities to address these challenges.

What makes the episode notable is not simply that Europe discussed Afghanistan. Europe has discussed Afghanistan for decades. The significance is that Afghanistan appeared within a wider Eurasian conversation that increasingly includes Pakistan, Ukraine, regional security and strategic competition.

The boundaries between these issues are becoming less distinct.

And when strategic conversations expand, geography tends to reassert itself.

The Return of Geography

Beneath all of this lies something older than any diplomatic visit, military agreement or strategic dialogue.

Geography.

For much of the globalisation era, it became fashionable to assume that geography mattered less than it once did. Technology, finance and military reach appeared capable of overcoming physical constraints.

Recent events suggest those assumptions were overstated.

Trade routes remain geographic.

Transit corridors remain geographic.

Access to Central Asia — and the markets, energy reserves and mineral wealth it contains — remains geographic.

Security buffers remain geographic.

Afghanistan sits at the intersection of all of them.

It lies between South Asia and Central Asia, controlling the passes and routes that connect the two. It borders Iran, giving any actor with a presence in Afghanistan a vantage point on Eurasian energy flows. It sits adjacent to Pakistan, meaning that instability in Afghanistan has direct consequences for the state controlling the Khyber Pass. It touches China’s western security concerns — the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, carried out by IS-K, the Afghanistan-based network, made those concerns newly urgent for Moscow as well. It shapes India’s search for continental connectivity that does not depend on Pakistani territory. It remains relevant to Russia’s southern strategic calculations and the Gulf states’ interest in stable corridors for trade and labour migration.

Historically, Afghanistan has become important during periods when larger systems were being reconfigured. It mattered when the Silk Road shifted. It mattered when empires competed for Central Asian dominance. It mattered when Cold War alliances drew new lines across Eurasia.

Today, multiple regional systems are being reconfigured simultaneously.

The American withdrawal remains part of this story, but not in the way it is often presented. The withdrawal created the condition, not the trigger. For several years after 2021, many regional actors continued to wait and see whether Afghanistan would once again become the object of a major external project. Increasingly, that assumption appears to have faded. Even within the United States, Afghanistan has re-entered strategic discussion through debates over Bagram Air Base, with President Trump repeatedly arguing that the facility should never have been abandoned and suggesting that its location remains strategically important. Yet the broader regional response points in a different direction. States are no longer organising their Afghan policy around the expectation of an American return. They are building direct relationships with Kabul because they increasingly view Afghanistan as a regional reality to be managed, rather than a Western project that may one day resume.

The United States is reassessing its role across the broader Indo-Pacific and Middle East. China is managing friction on multiple fronts. Russia is fighting a war in Europe while trying to maintain its position as a Eurasian power. The India-Pakistan relationship has been transformed by the events of 2025. Europe is present in diplomacy stretching from Islamabad to Kyiv.

None of these reconfigurations are fundamentally about Afghanistan.

Yet Afghanistan sits close enough to all of them that it keeps reappearing in the calculation.

That is the real story.

Not that a new alliance has emerged.

Not that a new Great Game has begun.

But that multiple powers have independently reached the same conclusion: they can no longer afford to ignore the space where so many regional questions intersect.

The return of Kabul is not the story of a country rediscovering its importance.

It is the story of a region rediscovering the geography it once assumed it could look past.

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