The writing on the wall is quite clear; India, Kabul and the USA are convinced that such groups constitute an essential part of the instruments that Pakistan Army has deployed to pursue its foreign policy objectives. As a consequence, there is ever greater unity among the three countries on the issue of countering Pakistan for its "abetment of terrorist forces operating on the western and eastern borders."
As far the Pakistani Army and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are concerned, they still appear to be in a reactionary mode. Without charting a clearly defined way for Pakistan, they all say in unison that "without knowing what the Americans want in Afghanistan and in the region, we cannot devise and spell out our policy." They still maintain, and in this case legitimately, that for Pakistan, Afghanistan is a long-term reality and it cannot frame its policy in the "endgame context."
This appears to be a faulty approach as predicating our own policy on external factors thus far has taken us nowhere. It cannot be helpful in future either. Unless the Pakistani security establishment is clear itself and abandons foreign policy instruments that serve as the basic ingredient of discord in its relations with India, Afghanistan, and the United States, it will not be able to pursue even well-intended objectives in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's Afghanistan policy, or the military's strategy for that country to be precise, still seems to be pegged to the American endgame in Afghanistan as well as to future political setup in Kabul.
Given the broader US policy matrix on the region, one can safely assume that American and Indian presence in Afghanistan is now almost a constant, and together with Kabul, they will keep countering Pakistan to safeguard their “security and political interests.”
It makes even more imperative for Pakistani leaders to shun the cold-war era policies, and get into a proactive, economy-oriented policy framework if they want to prevent the country from becoming another Afghanistan, Sudan or Somalia.