The geopolitical consequences of the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan: A securitization analysis of terrorism resurgence in Pakistan through the Pak–Afghan nexus

Abstract

The withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the Taliban’s return to power precipitated a marked deterioration in Pakistan’s internal security environment. This article examines how the Pakistani state has represented the resulting resurgence of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) violence, asking not simply whether militant activity has increased, but how that increase has been constructed and acted upon as an existential threat. Rather than treating this resurgence solely as a consequence of a regional power vacuum, the study applies securitization theory (Buzan et al., 1998; Balzacq, 2011) to analyze the securitizing moves made by Pakistan’s military and civilian authorities, the referent objects invoked, the extraordinary measures adopted since 2021, and the extent of audience acceptance. The article combines qualitative documentary analysis of Pakistani security discourse with a quantitative comparison of recorded terrorist attacks before and after the withdrawal, using annual data from the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) for 2019–25, triangulated against the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) and the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Recorded attacks rose from an average of 187.5 per year in 2019–20 to 399.0 per year in 2021–25, an increase of 112.8%; a Mann-Kendall trend test confirms a statistically significant monotonic upward trend (Z = 2.40, p < 0.05). This evidence is treated descriptively rather than as proof of securitization: an observable rise in violence supplies raw material for securitizing actors but does not itself constitute securitization, which additionally requires discursive framing, a referent object, and audience acceptance of extraordinary measures. The findings show that Pakistan’s military establishment, principally through the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) directorate, has consistently framed TTP/ISKP violence as an existential threat to state sovereignty and border populations, and that this framing has secured broad elite acceptance, legitimizing expanded military operations and, most visibly, the October 2024 proscription of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. This measure illustrates the reach of securitized governance and its principal domestic cost: civil-society contestation itself treated as a security problem.