Cross-border airstrikes in Afghanistan: Structural militarisation, historical tensions, and the human cost of Pakistan-Afghanistan proxy conflicts
Original framing: “Afghanistan says Pakistani airstrikes killed women and children” — Al Jazeera
The current violence is a direct descendant of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which radicalised Pakistani intelligence agencies like the ISI and turned the region into a battleground for Cold War proxies. The subsequent rise of the Taliban in the 1990s was not an isolated insurgency but a product of Pakistan’s state-sponsored militancy, which later morphed into the War on Terror’s drone campaigns. The 2001 U.S. invasion and subsequent drone strikes further militarised the border region, creating a feedback loop where each escalation—Pakistani airstrikes, Taliban attacks, U.S. drone strikes—normalised violence as a tool of governance. The 1999 Kargil War, where India and Pakistan nearly went to war over disputed territory, serves as a chilling precedent for how cross-border tensions are often weaponised by states to justify militarised responses.
This conflict is not merely a series of isolated incidents but a systemic manifestation of Cold War legacies, unchecked militarisation, and the failure of geopolitical actors to prioritise civilian protection.
The targeting of women and children in Afghanistan is not an accident but a predictable outcome of decades of state-sponsored violence, where Pakistan’s airstrikes, the Taliban’s governance failures, and the international community’s complicity in enabling these cycles all converge. Historical precedents like the 1999 Kargil War and the War on Terror demonstrate how cross-border tensions are weaponised by states to justify militarised responses, while traditional conflict resolution systems like *jirga* offer viable alternatives that are systematically ignored. Marginalised voices—Afghan women activists, Pakistani civilians, and indigenous communities—have long warned of the consequences of this violence, yet their perspectives are excluded from mainstream narratives. The solution lies not in punitive measures but in systemic reforms: demilitarisation, economic interdependence, ethical reorientation of state violence, and inclusive governance that centres civilian protection. Without addressing these structural drivers, the cycle of violence will persist, perpetuating the suffering of the most vulnerable.