
Prelude
With the US Presidential election over, and Donald Trump about to be sworn in for the second time, many of the wars in the Middle East, as well as the war in Ukraine, seem to have paused for a moment, waiting to see what Trump will do. With the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, and the resulting complete re-shape of the power dynamics in the region, the world seems to be waiting to see if peace will break out.
With a possible ceasefire in Gaza, this may seem likely. However, there is another theater to the Middle East, and that conflict may very well be the next explosion from the region…and, while it may sound like hyperbole, this burgeoning conflict could potentially result in a real nuclear nightmare.
That place is a familiar spot on the map: Afghanistan.
With the disastrous collapse of the United States presence in the country in the summer of 2021, the Taliban returned to power in the country, and quickly tried to assume the mantle of a legitimate government. Of course, being the Taliban, that was not in the cards, as the Taliban continue with their deranged policies in governance, and are increasingly being undermined by “ISIS-K“, who quickly entrenched in the post-US Afghanistan after their initial teething troubles in the region, and now use their territories as a base to launch international attacks on nations it considers itself to be at war with.
Aside from the Taliban’s shift in income – destroying opium poppy fields, while moving heaven and earth to step up the production of methamphetamines and fentanyl (which both require less processing than opium-into-heroin, and is cheaper to make per kilo) – they are starting to try and play the “Galtieri Card” to increase their support by dredging up Afghanistan’s long-standing ax to grind: the Durand Line.
Old Wounds
The Durand Line, which established the current Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 1893, through an agreement between British India and Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, has remained a source of tension and conflict in the region for over a century. This arbitrary border, drawn by British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand – in an era when the opiate Laudanum use was rampant among European elites – cut through traditional Pashtun tribal territories, effectively dividing the Pashtun people between what would become Afghanistan and Pakistan. This status makes the Durand Line the local equivalent to the hated Sykes-Picot Agreement that created the 20th Century borders farther west, carving up the corpse of the Ottoman Empire.

From its inception, the legitimacy of the Durand Line has been contested. Successive Afghan governments have historically argued that the agreement was signed under duress and was meant to be temporary, lasting only 100 years. The Pashtun tribes, who had historically moved freely across these territories, never accepted the border’s legitimacy, viewing it as an artificial division of their ancestral lands.
Following the partition of India in 1947, Afghanistan became the only country to vote against Pakistan’s admission to the United Nations, citing the Durand Line dispute. Afghanistan’s position has consistently been that the agreement was with British India, not its successor state, Pakistan, and thus was voided after partition. This led to several border clashes in the 1950s and 1960s.
The rise of the Taliban, which is predominantly Pashtun in composition, added new complexity to the dispute. During their first period of rule (1996-2001), the Taliban, while focused on internal control, never officially recognized the Durand Line. Their perspective was influenced by both Pashtun nationalism and their vision of an Islamic emirate that transcended colonial-era borders.
The porous nature of the border has had significant strategic implications. During the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989), the border’s ambiguity allowed mujahideen fighters to move between Afghanistan and safe havens in Pakistan. This pattern repeated during the U.S.-led intervention (2001-2021), with Taliban fighters utilizing the same cross-border mobility.
After returning to power in 2021, the Taliban maintained their historical opposition to the Durand Line. Tensions escalated when Pakistan attempted to fence parts of the border, leading to several armed confrontations between Taliban and Pakistani forces. The Taliban’s position reflects both Pashtun nationalist sentiments and practical considerations – the border’s porosity benefits their strategic interests and traditional trading routes.
The dispute has broader implications for regional stability. The unresolved border issue complicates counter-terrorism efforts, enables cross-border militant movements, and affects economic development in the border regions. For the Pashtun communities living along both sides of the line, the border remains largely theoretical, with daily life involving regular cross-border movement for trade, family connections, and seasonal migration.
Recent years have seen periodic skirmishes along the border, with both Taliban forces and Pakistani military engaging in limited conflicts over fencing attempts and border control measures. These tensions are growing, and if left unchecked, threaten the safety of the globe itself.
Unstable Nukes
Pakistan, however, is an animal of a completely different stripe. While a Sunni-Islamic state like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Pakistan remains unique, as the only Muslim nation in the world with a nuclear arsenal, including the capability to launch that arsenal. What has been worrying every nation in the world with any ounce of sense, is that Pakistan has spent most of the last fifteen years on the razor’s edge of civil war.
The Taliban’s territorial claims in dispute of the Durand Line would carve out a significant chunk of Pakistan, and it is open to question how loyal much of the Pakistani Army might remain to Islamabad, given their reportedly Assad-Syria levels of morale (at the 4 minute mark).
Clearly then, this is a worry, as a collapse of the government of Pakistan throws open the question of the nation’s nuclear arsenal…but then, another player is at this particular table:
India
Thinking About The Unthinkable
When British India was partitioned, what is now modern India came into being, along with Pakistan. As a majority-Hindu state, religiously speaking, with an estimated 80% of the population being of the Hindu faith. And – as Hindus and Muslims have a long history of violent clashes, so too have India and Pakistan in the modern day.
While that may seem to be a simple historical note, the situation is complicated by the fact that India, too, is a nuclear power, equally capable of launching nuclear weapons, and – given its post-partition conflicts with its Muslim neighbor to the north – is not about to stand by and watch Pakistan’s nuclear force fall into the hands of a group like the Taliban – or ISIS-K – which views nuclear weapons as essentially VERY large hand grenades…
If that sounds like me saying that India has a plan to secure that foreign arsenal, that’s because that is exactly what I am saying: after Pakistani intelligence’s almost-certain collusion in the 2008 terror attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, India would be absolute fools to have not created and staged a plan to secure Pakistani nuclear weapons…and that, post-2008 India certainly is not.
Conclusion
In this context, it should not be too difficult to see the potential disaster looming. While Trump may, indeed, have plans in place to solve the Gaza and Ukraine wars on Day 1, Afghanistan and Pakistani unrest is another matter, entirely. In addition to our reporting on the potential of a war between Morocco and Algeria of the Western Sahara (a subscriber exclusive), Afghanistan trying desperately to “war” their way out of failed-state status could well lead to a nuclear disaster of the first order…and the repercussions of that, no one can legitimately predict with any accuracy.
Look to your personal safety and security.
