Considered chaos: Revisiting Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan

Pakistan’s historical insecurity towards India and the Islamisation of its military raises a curious question of strategy and identity rooted in Pakistan’s political genesis. This article examines the social and geostrategic factors underpinning Pakistan’s Afghanistan approach between its inheritance of security principles from colonial administration after Partition, and the Taliban’s capture of Kabul in 1996 and beyond. This article also critically analyses the existing link between the Taliban and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). Accepting the historically contingent inheritance of realist colonial security construct, this article privileges culture as a primary variable in the evolution of Pakistan’s geostrategic thought.