Afghanistan/Pakistan war (what if)

[Officer of Engineers]

They didn't have a free hand on how to spend the money with Soviet advisors looking over their shoulders which included bribing one enemy Mujahadeen against another.

Soviet generals have thing against paying someone not to attack them.

[Double Edge]

My sense is post pullout after U.S. leaves there will be either a fracture among ethnic lines and regionalism or re-consolidation of national power along sustainable lines. If it is the latter the outward conflicts with Pakistan will heat up since then it would put impetus on the Afghan gov't to push for Pushtun rights outside the country to build up prestige and political capital.

That underlined bit is something i'd like you to explain further.

How does 're-consolidation of national power along sustainable lines' lead to 'impetus on the Afghan gov't to push for Pushtun rights outside the country' ? Does A necessarily have to lead to B and why.

How about if they want to bring the pushtuns in they will have to give the pushtuns a bigger say in power sharing. Until that point the pushtuns will continue to remain restive and open to the Taliban.

Pak army has not contained it, merely enforced borders that are fluid ergo people could move through them. If people move through them are they really borders? what are they really containing? it isn't violence? a semblance of political pride I guess but not really pragmatic or useful.

I think the fluidity of the borders is key to keeping the area relatively calm. The last thing the Paks want to do is enforce a strict border as that would just enflame sentiments on either side and increase the push to permanently erase any border that exists. This realisation has had to have played a major role in their reluctance to effectively stop militants crossing over in either direction during the Afghan war. Ergo the drone strikes.

The way it is now the people on either side are oblivious that a border even exists.

[Agnostic Muslim]

If the Taliban took over completely they could only look outward and slowly infiltrate lands they would think are theirs, which the tribal areas similarity wise are to a degree. Once they would go into full force infiltration it would be very likely that there would be a semi-hot civil insurrection going on.

The Taliban movement, especially in Pakistan, is an expansionist movement and not tied to Pashtun nationalism. I cannot recall a single Pakistani Taliban leader trying to utilize Pashtun nationalism as a rallying cry to garner support. The ideology of 'Caliphate' that is prevalent in many Islamist movements seeks to amalgamate various Muslim majority States into one, rather than break them up further along ethnic lines.

The dynamics, in terms of a Taliban push into Pakistan, would not be as simple as a mere 'deflection of pan-Pashtun aspirations into Pakistan'.

[cataphract]

If anything, the taliban are the anti-thesis of pashtun nationalism, which was secular. I wonder what the chances of a nationalist separatist movement's resurgence are, similar to what the BLA is. After all, ANP is already a political force in KP. Perhaps it could be created as a response to the fundamentalist TTP?