Dr. Muhammad Akram Zaheer

Russia’s approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan under the shadow of sustained US and NATO presence reveals a deeply ingrained mindset that echoes Keir Giles’s discourse on deterrence and strategic behaviour. Following the 2001 invasion, the United States established military bases not only in Afghanistan but also in nearby Uzbekistan. In Giles’s framework, Russia perceives this as a critical escalation — a shift in the balance of power so intolerable that it overrides Western constraints and compels a robust response. Moscow regards NATO’s Afghanistan deployment as more than a temporary counter‑terrorism; it is a strategic encroachment on Russia’s periphery, necessitating calibrated countermeasures to reassert influence. Russia’s historical pattern — countering Western encroachment first with discourse, then with action — manifests clearly in its support for Taliban resurgence and its role in Pakistan‑backed diplomatic realignments across Central Asia.

Within this context, Russia’s tacit facilitation of Afghan Taliban ascendancy in 2021 can be read as a strategic denial strategy informed by Giles’s thesis: to deter further Western presence in Eurasia by reshaping on‑the‑ground realities. By reducing Kabul to Moscow’s sphere of influence through back‑channel support, Russia forced the US and NATO into retreat, effectively neutralising their forward bases in Afghanistan. In Giles’s view, deterrence need not be kinetic; it can also manifest as a psychological reordering of regional norms, whereby Western military infrastructure is made politically untenable. Thus, Russia’s Afghan gambit mirrored its Ukraine playbook: provoke Western withdrawal by escalating costs and creating a fait accompli.

Pakistan represents another axis in this calculus. Russia’s strategy under Putin has quietly aligned with Islamabad since around 2018, a shift Giles would attribute to mutual interest in countering both US influence and ethnic separatism in Central Asia. The specter of a “United Badakhshan” or an Agha Khan-influenced enclave in the Gorno-Badakhshan mountains triggers Russian anxiety over cross-border destabilization affecting Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Moscow perceives that such separatism, if unaddressed, could fragment Central Asia’s security lattice — an outcome Russia must pre-empt through security cooperation with Pakistan. This aligns with Giles’s principle that deterrence demands clarity about interests and the credible willingness to defend them.

Moreover, Beijing’s heavy‑handed suppression of Uyghur dissent invites criticism from the West, yet garners tacit assent from Moscow due to mutual interest in controlling internal dissent and preserving multi-ethnic state cohesion. Reflecting Giles’s argument that Russia’s hostility stems from an inseparable worldview rather than contingent events, Putin views Western moralising on Uyghurs as a Trojan‑horse challenge to autocracy itself. As a consequence, Russia collaborates with China on strategic messaging and political cover to rebuff Western condemnation — a quiet mutual reinforcement that underscores their shared resistance to liberal intrusion.

Energy and nuclear diplomacy emerge in Giles’s model as another bridge between Russia and regional states like Iran and Pakistan. Putin’s backing of Tehran’s nuclear programme, under the rubric of “peaceful” development, functions as a strategic anti-Western lever. In Giles’s eyes, Russian statecraft uses non-military hedges — assisted proliferation, pipelines through Pakistan and Iran — as elements of an extended deterrence framework that challenges US hegemony in the region.

Finally, Giles’s portrayal of Russia’s doctrine as psychological and bureaucratic — as much about framing threats as deploying arms — finds fertile ground in Moscow’s posture toward NATO in Ukraine and beyond. Putin’s aggressive rhetoric, the revival of Soviet-era missile systems, and the moves in Central Asia together signal a worldview premised not on the absence of weakness but on shaping adversary perceptions. This layered deterrence, mixing ostentatious threat with covert accommodation, underpins Russia’s approach to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Eurasia generally.

In summary, through the lens of Keir Giles, Russia’s Afghanistan–Pakistan strategy emerges not as reactive aggression but as proactive deterrence. It utilises discursive framing, proxy diplomacy, regional pipelines, and psychological signalling — all woven together to exclude Western military permanence from Russia’s near abroad. Giles’s enduring principle: you cannot change Russia’s fundamental orientation, but you can shape its actions — if you define clear interests and demonstrate credible resolve.