New Delhi, Feb. 24 -- After nearly six months of uneasy calm, the fragile silence along the Af-Pak border has shattered. Pakistan's recent airstrikes inside Afghanistan, reportedly killing around a dozen people, including women and children, signal a dangerous escalation between Islamabad and the Taliban regime in Kabul. The strikes come amid rising cross-border attacks by militant outfits, particularly the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), underscoring the deteriorating security landscape.

What was once touted as Pakistan's doctrine of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan now appears to be collapsing under the weight of internal contradictions and militant blowback. As tensions mount and ties between Islamabad and Kabul erode, the old...