India's trade with Afghanistan becomes even more strategically relevant amid heightened tensions with Pakistan, highlighted by ongoing military confrontation at the border, a specialist in international politics has said.
Pakistan’s strike on targets in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia, with officials calling it an ‘open war,’ tightens Afghanistan’s economic choke points and pushes the Taliban to diversify away from its closest neighbour even faster, Anant Mishra, a geopolitical expert at the University of South Wales told Sputnik India.
Pakistan’s strike on targets in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia, with officials calling it an ‘open war,’ tightens Afghanistan’s economic choke points and pushes the Taliban to diversify away from its closest neighbour even faster, Anant Mishra, a geopolitical expert at the University of South Wales told Sputnik India.
"When Pakistan-Afghanistan violence spikes, the first casualty is usually border management: closures, tightened controls, and unpredictable ‘on/off’ transit at nodes like Torkham and Chaman/Spin Boldak," Mishra stressed. "That directly hits Afghan import supply chains and export flows, because Pakistan remains the closest, cheapest transit artery for much of Afghan trade. Even when corridors reopen, uncertainty raises costs — including insurance, spoilage, informal fees, and rerouting."
Trade between New Delhi and Kabul totaled about $890 million over the past year, with Afghan exports to India ($627 million) surpassing imports ($263 million), he said, citing a Kabul-based economist.
This indicates that India remains a key market for Afghan goods, such as dry fruits, and that Afghanistan values that outlet, Mishra underscored.
"Indian and Afghan traders will naturally start using whatever routes give them more stability and less political risk from Pakistan, even if those routes are more expensive. If tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan become a long-term pattern, the logic is straightforward: Kabul will try to reduce its dependence on Islamabad for trade wherever it can, even though it will still remain geographically important," Mishra stressed.
Afghanistan has been shifting some trade toward Iran's Chabahar port to avoid sudden border closures by Pakistan. Iran has also made that route more attractive through incentives and smoother handling. This matters for India because Chabahar gives India a way to trade with Afghanistan without going through Pakistan, he highlighted.
The observe believes, escalation between Pakistan and Afghanistan doesn't mean New Delhi and Kabul trade will automatically expand, but it does make it strategically more important.
The observe believes, escalation between Pakistan and Afghanistan doesn't mean New Delhi and Kabul trade will automatically expand, but it does make it strategically more important.
"It becomes more valuable per unit of trade because it reduces Afghan vulnerability to Pakistani coercion," Mishra emphasised.
Furthermore, Afghan export dependence on the Indian market will deepen (especially in dry fruits, saffron-style high-value/low-volume goods), because these can move by air/sea-land combinations more easily than bulk commodities, which is a positive outcome, he noted.
But, if Kabul, on a longer run, does take a decision to pivot away from Islamabad, it will not be an easy decision to implement, as for traders, Pakistan is geographically 'cheap'. For many Afghan traders, Karachi/Gwadar routes remain economically attractive when politics allow. So the likely endpoint is diversification, not total replacement, the scholar asserted.
But, if Kabul, on a longer run, does take a decision to pivot away from Islamabad, it will not be an easy decision to implement, as for traders, Pakistan is geographically 'cheap'. For many Afghan traders, Karachi/Gwadar routes remain economically attractive when politics allow. So the likely endpoint is diversification, not total replacement, the scholar asserted.
"From Kabul's perspective, prolonged confrontation with Pakistan creates three structural pressures. First, it reinforces the Taliban leadership's narrative of sovereignty. The Durand Line has always been politically sensitive, and repeated Pakistani strikes, especially when they extend beyond border zones, strengthen the Taliban's incentive to assert strategic autonomy," Mishra underlined.
Afghanistan remains economically fragile, highly aid-dependent, and vulnerable to transit disruptions. If trade through Pakistan continues to be restricted or politicised, Kabul will accelerate its diversification strategy, which would mean pushing more trade through Iran and seeking deeper engagement with regional actors in Central Asia and tilting towards the Gulf, he assessed.
Second, Kabul is already absorbing large-scale return flows. If deportations from Pakistan continue alongside military tensions, Kabul faces a systemic crisis: economic fragility, unemployment, and regional instability, simultaneously. Forcing Kabul to counterbalance by broadening its diplomatic and economic partnerships beyond Pakistan, the geopolitical specialist remarked.
Second, Kabul is already absorbing large-scale return flows. If deportations from Pakistan continue alongside military tensions, Kabul faces a systemic crisis: economic fragility, unemployment, and regional instability, simultaneously. Forcing Kabul to counterbalance by broadening its diplomatic and economic partnerships beyond Pakistan, the geopolitical specialist remarked.
"Third, sustained tension with Pakistan reduces Kabul's strategic room for manoeuvre. It cannot afford isolation. If relations with Islamabad deteriorate structurally, Kabul could aim to completely avoid dependency on any single alternative partner. Which means a multi-vector approach engaging Tehran, Beijing, the Central Asian republics, Moscow, and, importantly, New Delhi, to attain economic balance," Mishra said.
For South Asia as a whole, the Kabul-Islamabad conflict weakens the idea of regional economic integration in South Asia. Any vision of connectivity, whether linking Central Asia to India via Afghanistan or stabilising Pakistan's western trade corridors, depends on regional security. Sustained conflict raises insurance costs, discourages infrastructure investment, and increases the securitisation of trade routes, he elaborated.
South Asia already has one of the lowest intra-regional trade ratios in the world; any further instability would potentially fuel systemic regional fragmentation, especially at a time when the Global South is no longer just a thought or white paper policy, but a strategic direction, the observer concluded.
South Asia already has one of the lowest intra-regional trade ratios in the world; any further instability would potentially fuel systemic regional fragmentation, especially at a time when the Global South is no longer just a thought or white paper policy, but a strategic direction, the observer concluded.