Foreign News
Taliban 2.0: Victory, Isolation and Unfinished Peace
Five years after the Taliban returned to Kabul, Afghanistan presents one of the world’s most complex political paradoxes.
The insurgent movement that promised stability has largely delivered security and centralised control, but at the cost of international isolation, deep restrictions on women’s rights and a shattered economy. For India and Pakistan, meanwhile, Taliban 2.0 has overturned long-held strategic assumptions.
On August 15, the Taliban will mark five years since its dramatic return to power, celebrating the date as “Victory Day” and the liberation of Afghanistan from foreign occupation. For many Afghans, however, the anniversary marks the collapse of the Islamic Republic and the beginning of a political order that has fundamentally reshaped Afghan society.
Five years on, Afghanistan remains a country of contradictions. The Taliban has brought a degree of stability unseen in decades while presiding over an economy in crisis and a government that remains diplomatically isolated. Women’s rights continue to dominate international criticism, yet those living and working inside Afghanistan often describe a more nuanced reality than the one reflected in global headlines. Meanwhile, India’s cautious re-engagement and Pakistan’s deteriorating ties with Kabul have reshaped the regional balance.
Perhaps the Taliban’s greatest achievement has been ending large-scale conflict. For the first time in more than four decades, almost the entire country is under the authority of a single government. Internal travel has become easier, rival militias no longer control competing territories, and armed clashes have fallen dramatically compared to the final years of the Republic.
That does not mean Afghanistan is entirely at peace. The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) continues to carry out attacks against civilians, Taliban officials and minority communities. Anti-Taliban resistance groups also remain active, although none has emerged as a serious military threat to the regime.
If security has improved, the economy presents a far bleaker picture. Afghanistan plunged into a humanitarian crisis after 2021 as international sanctions, frozen Afghan central bank assets and the suspension of much of the foreign aid that sustained the previous government triggered economic collapse.
The Taliban has improved tax collection and customs administration, and many Afghans acknowledge that everyday corruption has declined sharply compared to the Republic era. But those gains have not translated into better living conditions. Unemployment remains high, poverty is widespread and food insecurity continues to affect millions.
Jill Kornetsky, an Afghanistan-based subject matter expert who has lived in the country since 2015, believes economic hardship is the country’s defining challenge.
“Afghanistan’s biggest problem and the thing most negatively affecting the most people continues to be poverty and hunger,” she says.
In her assessment, the collapse of international aid has inflicted greater hardship on ordinary Afghans than is often recognised in international debates surrounding the Taliban.
No issue has attracted more global attention than the condition of women and girls under Taliban rule. The ban on girls attending secondary schools and universities, restrictions on women’s employment and limits on public participation have been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations and international human rights organisations. These policies remain the principal obstacle preventing formal recognition of the Taliban government.
Yet Kornetsky argues that many international accounts overlook important realities.
“Most of social media reports are not true,” she says.
According to her, women continue to work across numerous sectors.
“They still work as doctors, nurses, business owners, customer service reps at all the telecoms, grocery stores and nonprofits,” she notes, adding that many women lost employment because international funding disappeared after 2021 rather than because the Taliban explicitly banned those professions.
She also disputes the perception that female entrepreneurship has largely disappeared.
“I know women who have started tech companies, dried fruit and nut companies, and other trading businesses after the Taliban took over,” she says.
Women-only restaurants have also increased in Kabul and other cities, she adds, but such developments rarely receive international attention because they do not fit the dominant narrative.
Education presents a similarly mixed picture. While acknowledging Taliban restrictions on formal education for girls, Kornetsky says community-based alternatives continue to function.
“Many people, including my business partner’s sisters, are running home schools. They are not ‘secret’ and they are in no way prohibited. They are just informal and run by members of the community,” she says.
She argues that community schools have existed for years because Afghanistan has never had enough classrooms, particularly in rural districts.
Her observations differ sharply from those of the United Nations and major human rights organisations, which continue to document systematic restrictions on women’s education and public participation. Together, these contrasting assessments illustrate the complexity of contemporary Afghanistan, where lived experience often resists simple characterisations.
The Taliban’s return also forced India to rethink its Afghanistan policy. New Delhi had refused to recognise the Taliban’s first regime during the 1990s and became one of the strongest supporters of the Afghan Republic after 2001, investing more than $3 billion in infrastructure, healthcare, education and humanitarian assistance.
Following the Taliban takeover, India initially closed its embassy in Kabul. Over time, however, it gradually restored diplomatic engagement, resumed humanitarian assistance, reopened its mission and expanded contacts with Taliban officials.
The shift reflects strategic necessity rather than political endorsement. Maintaining a presence allows India to safeguard two decades of investment while preventing Pakistan and China from dominating Afghanistan’s political landscape.
Praveen Donthi of the International Crisis Group argues that India has adopted “strategic pragmatism” because disengagement would simply create space for regional rivals.
Raghav Sharma of OP Jindal Global University reaches a similar conclusion.
“States engage in order to protect and further their interests.”
In his assessment, ideological differences between India and the Taliban remain significant, but both sides recognise the strategic value of maintaining dialogue.
If India has quietly adjusted to the new reality, Pakistan has faced an unexpected strategic reversal.
Long regarded as the Taliban’s principal external supporter, Islamabad has seen relations with Kabul deteriorate steadily since 2021. Border disputes, tensions over the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Pakistan’s deportation of Afghan refugees and Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan have all contributed to the breakdown.
Pakistan has increasingly accused India of using Afghanistan to undermine Pakistani security, alleging that the Taliban has become a proxy for New Delhi. Kabul has rejected those accusations, and Pakistan has not publicly produced evidence to support them.
Kornetsky offers a blunt explanation for the worsening relationship. Pakistan, she says, once had “a fairly obedient attack dog” that no longer follows instructions.
In her view, Islamabad expected the Taliban to remain dependent on Pakistani influence. Instead, the movement has increasingly pursued its own interests and shown little willingness to submit to external pressure. The current tensions, she believes, reflect Pakistan’s difficulty in adjusting to that new reality.
Five years after reclaiming Kabul, the Taliban has undeniably transformed Afghanistan. It has restored territorial control, sharply reduced large-scale violence and strengthened state authority to a degree unmatched in decades. At the same time, it governs an economy still struggling to recover from the withdrawal of international aid, remains diplomatically isolated and continues to face intense criticism over women’s rights and political inclusion.
The story of Taliban 2.0 is therefore neither one of complete success nor unqualified failure. It is a story of competing realities. Security has improved, but freedoms have narrowed. Corruption has declined, but poverty persists. The government has consolidated authority, yet international legitimacy remains elusive.
For India, engagement with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan has become an exercise in strategic pragmatism rather than political endorsement. For Pakistan, the movement it once viewed as a dependable asset has evolved into an increasingly independent and unpredictable neighbour.
Five years after Taliban 2.0 began, Afghanistan remains caught between stability and isolation, with its future—and the geopolitics of South Asia—still very much in flux.