Pakistan is simultaneously projecting itself as a diplomatic peacemaker while deploying coercion and pressure against Afghanistan, according to a detailed analysis published in Eurasia Review on 5 May. The report, authored by Zarif Aminyar, a former Senior Economic Advisor to the Administrative Office of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, argues that Islamabad's dual-track approach has produced not strategic leverage but a deepening credibility deficit.

The Two-Track Strategy

According to the report, Pakistan presents itself publicly as a committed diplomatic actor — participating in formal and informal negotiations, backing Track 1.5 processes in Istanbul, and signalling openness to de-escalation. Yet simultaneously, it reportedly relies on coercion and pressure as primary instruments of influence in Afghanistan. "These two tracks do not reinforce each other; they cancel each other out. The result is not leverage, but a credibility deficit," Aminyar wrote.

The analysis describes this duality as a structural pattern rather than a tactical manoeuvre. "When the gap between rhetoric and behaviour becomes structural, it ceases to be strategy and becomes doctrine. Pakistan's approach to Afghanistan increasingly fits this pattern — a sustained policy of talking peace while waging war," Aminyar stated.

Strategic Depth and Its Consequences

The report links Pakistan's contradictory behaviour to its longstanding pursuit of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan — the doctrine that influence over Kabul is essential to securing Pakistan's position in a competitive regional environment. This orientation has, according to the analysis, led Islamabad to tolerate and at times actively support non-state actors as instruments of policy. The consequences, the report argues, have been profound: a chronic cycle of instability across Afghanistan that has ultimately entrenched insecurity on both sides of the border.

A Pattern Beyond Afghanistan

Aminyar notes that Pakistan's contradictions are not confined to its western neighbour. He points to Islamabad's recent positioning as a potential mediator between the United States and Iran, portraying itself as a stabilising interlocutor. "It demonstrates that Pakistan's foreign policy includes peacemaking in one theatre and destabilisation in another," the report states. The analysis also invokes the 2011 discovery of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad as a crystallising moment that exposed how parallel policies — partnership and contradiction, alignment and divergence — can coexist within a single state apparatus.

Warning to Washington

The report carries an explicit caution for the White House. Aminyar argues that the temptation to once again rely on Pakistan as a regional intermediary risks repeating a familiar miscalculation. "Partnerships built on partial alignment and managed contradictions are inherently fragile. They may deliver short-term tactical gains, but they rarely sustain long-term strategic outcomes," he wrote. Treating Pakistan as a fully reliable partner without addressing these underlying inconsistencies, he contends, is to privilege expediency over realism.

Credibility as Currency

At the core of the analysis is a realist argument about state credibility. While acknowledging that hedging — maintaining multiple channels of influence including ties with non-state actors — is a recognised geopolitical strategy, Aminyar draws a clear limit: when hedging systematically undermines regional stability, it generates negative externalities that eventually rebound on the state itself. In Pakistan's case, the report concludes, the persistence of instability in Afghanistan has not produced durable strategic advantage but has instead eroded trust with partners and entrenched cross-border insecurity. How Islamabad chooses to reconcile its diplomatic posture with its on-ground behaviour will likely define its regional standing in the years ahead.