A modest agreement in Moscow has had ripples that extend well outside the realm of diplomatic relations, from the unstable city of Kabul to the frontier regions of Pakistan, and even to the broader geopolitical chessboard of Eurasia. The newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Taliban and Russia for security cooperation may be seen by some as a move towards stability. However, below the surface is another, more difficult question: is Afghanistan stabilizing, or simply being drawn back into the crosshairs of other regional interests?
The MoU, signed on May 27, is still secret in its contents, thus mirroring a wider trend in Afghanistan’s present-day relations with external powers, namely, a tendency towards opaqueness rather than transparency and securing their own security interests through quick-fix measures rather than institutionalizing their presence for the long run. Strategically speaking, there are not many objectives that Russia can pursue in Afghanistan. These include the need to avoid militant threats across borders, control illegal drug traffic and prevent chaos from spreading beyond Afghanistan’s borders into Central Asia. These are defensive priorities, not transformative commitments. For the Afghan population, however, the stakes are existential, jobs, governance, education, and basic security, areas where no major breakthrough is visible.
The problem here is that these kinds of deals are being struck with a regime which does not fully have legitimacy both internally and internationally. Sanctions against important Taliban figures are maintained within the framework of the UN system, and most countries do not recognize the government that has formed in Kabul. This means that despite the expanding horizons of diplomacy, which could involve not only Moscow or Beijing but other centers of power, there is a gray area of partial recognition. That limits not only their legal weight but also their practical ability to deliver sustained economic or developmental dividends.
Afghanistan is more of a security issue to both Russia and to China than an economic opportunity. Their preoccupation with extremism and drug trafficking defines their approach to the region. However, security-oriented diplomacy does not usually lead to effective state-building. The economic void that exists in Afghanistan still persists, without any capital being injected in order to change its development path.
Complicating this landscape is Afghanistan’s deteriorating internal military capacity. The legacy equipment left behind after the withdrawal of foreign forces, a mix of US and Soviet-era systems, is non-operational. Without access to spare parts, maintenance ecosystems, or structured defense cooperation, much of this arsenal is effectively symbolic. Expectations that a new security MoU with Russia will materially change this reality appear optimistic at best.
At the same time, the cost of isolation for Afghans is becoming more apparent through its effect on people. As noted by recent assessments by UN Women, up to 50,000 Afghan women and girls living in conflict-affected regions are exposed to the risk of gender-based violence. While such figures do not say much per se, they also indicate a larger trend whereby protection mechanisms, mobility, and service availability have been increasingly difficult to secure for half of the Afghan population.
The issue of human rights has also become a major factor in the latest rounds of international deliberations. In one recent statement by a UN committee, criticism was leveled against a directive in Afghanistan that actually sanctions the practice of child marriage through its provision equating silence to consent on the part of a child. Such occurrences help build the impression that as doors to diplomacy are slowly being reopened, government frameworks are heading in the opposite direction.
At the regional level, the issue of security externalities is becoming more relevant to understanding Afghanistan. A declaration issued by Pakistan and the European Union after their strategic talks in Islamabad pointed to their worries about the emergence of terrorists who have a base in Afghanistan. According to the declaration, Afghan soil cannot be allowed to pose threats to any country and must be made free of militants by implementing measures that can be verified.
The core problem that is involved within this changing scenario stems from this inherent structural dilemma. Afghanistan, in its current state, is trying to balance itself with all of these different powers, namely, Russia, China, its neighboring countries, as well as indirectly the West, but does not possess the political capital to consolidate any of these relations on a deeper, strategic level.
History provides a lesson in caution. In other words, history shows that Afghanistan has always been more of an arena for outside competition than internal consensus building. There is now the added threat that instead of seeing a repetition of the same problem, it might be a modernized way where influence is exercised not through occupation, but through fragmented security agreements, selective recognition, and issue-based cooperation.
The core issue, however, remains internal. Without a political framework that commands broad domestic legitimacy, ensures inclusion, and rebuilds institutional trust, external agreements, however numerous, will remain transactional. Legitimacy cannot be imported through MoUs; it must be constructed through governance that is accountable to the governed.
For the Afghan populace, it is not a matter of choosing between alliances. Instead, stability, respect, and return to normalcy are the objectives. For any realistic foreign policy approach to emerge, it needs to be grounded in this very reality. Otherwise, there is a strong possibility that Afghanistan will be left where it has all too often found itself in recent decades: a strategically significant area for other nations.