Pakistan's ongoing military pressure on Afghanistan's Taliban government over the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is unlikely to produce the security cooperation Islamabad seeks — and may instead drive Kabul closer to India, according to an analysis published ahead of the Moscow Format talks on Monday, 6 October 2026. The assessment, carried in Middle East Monitor, arrives at a moment of acute strain in Pakistan-Taliban relations.

The Limits of Coercion

The analysis argues that Pakistan's strategy of border pressure and military strikes inside Afghan territory has a structural ceiling. 'This exposes the limits of coercion. Pakistan can raise the price of non-compliance through border pressure and military force, as its latest strikes inside Afghanistan demonstrate. But if the obstacle is partly structural, greater pressure will not necessarily produce proportionately greater cooperation. It can also increase Kabul's incentive to reduce its vulnerability to Islamabad,' the Middle East Monitor analysis stated.

In other words, the harder Islamabad pushes, the stronger the Taliban's motivation becomes to seek alternative partners — and India is positioned to fill that role.

India's Quiet Inroads with Kabul

India has steadily rebuilt ties with the Taliban administration since the latter's takeover in 2021, without extending it formal diplomatic recognition. That careful calibration has given Kabul both economic and diplomatic options that do not run through Islamabad. The analysis notes that 'for India, deterioration in Pakistan–Taliban relations offers an opportunity to recover strategic space' — a development Pakistan has historically worked to prevent.

Notably, the analysis frames this as an uncomfortable reversal for Islamabad: 'Pressure intended to make the Taliban more responsive to its security demands can encourage Kabul to deepen precisely the relationship Islamabad has historically sought to constrain.'

The TTP at the Heart of the Dispute

The Taliban administration has accused Pakistan of providing support to armed opposition groups — including former Afghan security personnel — who have clashed with Taliban forces in the provinces of Badakhshan and Nuristan. Islamabad denies the charges, but the accusations have deepened mutual distrust.

The analysis also flags an alternative Pakistani calculation: 'Opposition forces capable of contesting parts of Afghanistan could erode the Taliban's monopoly of force, compel it to divert military resources internally and create pressure that cross-border coercion has failed to generate.' This suggests Islamabad may be weighing destabilisation as a lever — a high-risk strategy with unpredictable regional spillover.

What the Moscow Format Talks Can and Cannot Fix

The Moscow Format meeting will bring Afghanistan and Pakistan to the same table alongside China, India, Iran, Russia, and the Central Asian states. The analysis is cautious about expectations: the talks may produce a temporary de-escalation, but Pakistan's underlying problem — reconciling its security requirements with the Taliban-controlled Afghan order that emerged after 2021 — will persist.

'The question after Moscow will therefore not simply be whether Pakistan and the Taliban can stop their latest confrontation. It will be whether Islamabad still believes the Afghan order created after 2021 can be made compatible with its security requirements through changes in Taliban behaviour alone,' the report concluded.

How that question is answered will shape the trajectory of one of South Asia's most consequential — and least-discussed — geopolitical fault lines.