Peace and security are often treated as inseparable. Yet what the Taliban call peace and security in Afghanistan does not align with the broader meaning of those terms. As Nelson Mandela said, “Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, colour, creed, religion, gender, class, caste, or any other social markers of difference.”
The absence of widespread conflict does not, by itself, guarantee peace or security. The Taliban’s definition rests primarily on the decline in large-scale fighting since the collapse of the Afghan republic. But ending one war is not the same as creating the political, economic, and social conditions necessary for lasting security.
Is security simply the ability of a military establishment to suppress opposition and preserve the authority of those in power? Or does it extend beyond regime survival? In security theory, the term does not simply mean defending territory from war. It also encompasses political stability, economic well-being, societal cohesion, and the ability of individuals and communities to live without fear.
Five years after returning to power, the Taliban claim that they have restored peace and security to Afghanistan. Taliban officials regularly point to the end of the nationwide insurgency, the decline in suicide bombings and roadside attacks, and their control over most of the country. According to this narrative, Afghanistan is more stable than it has been in decades.
There is an element of truth in that claim. The end of the Taliban-led insurgency reduced large-scale battles, roadside bombs, and suicide attacks. Afghans no longer experience the same level of nationwide warfare that characterized the final years of the republic.
But this is only the narrowest measure of security. What the Taliban have established is a coercive form of order that prioritizes the survival of their regime over the broader conditions that would allow Afghans to feel genuinely safe. Afghanistan may be more tightly controlled, but control and security are not the same thing.
Security extends beyond the absence of armed conflict. It includes political, military, economic, societal, and environmental dimensions. Threats in one area frequently create or intensify insecurity in others. Political repression can undermine social cohesion. Economic deprivation can fuel political instability. The exclusion of women from education and employment can weaken both families and the national economy.
Security is also shaped by a process known as “securitization.” This occurs when political leaders portray an issue or group as an existential threat to justify extraordinary restrictions or coercive measures. Under the Taliban, political dissent, independent journalism, women’s activism, and many ordinary forms of civic participation have been treated as threats to the regime.
When Afghanistan is assessed according to this broader understanding of security, the Taliban’s record is considerably weaker than its rhetoric suggests.
The Taliban returned to power through military force and have consolidated their authority through centralized control and the systematic repression of dissent. Former government officials, former members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, activists, journalists, and other perceived opponents have faced arbitrary detention, disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial punishment.
This is not political stability based on public consent or confidence in governing institutions. It is stability imposed through fear and coercion. The Taliban have securitized ordinary political life by treating nearly every form of disagreement or independent organization as a potential threat to their rule.
The difference matters. A country may appear calm because its citizens accept the political order, or because they are too frightened to challenge it. Both conditions may produce fewer demonstrations and less visible unrest, but only one represents durable political stability.
The military picture is more complicated. Although the Taliban have largely contained organized resistance groups and reduced the overall intensity of the conflict, those groups have not disappeared. Recent resistance activity in Badakhshan has demonstrated that anti-Taliban organizations retain some ability to mobilize and conduct attacks.
The Islamic State’s Khorasan Province also remains active. ISKP continues to operate through decentralized networks and has demonstrated its ability to conduct deadly attacks despite sustained Taliban pressure. Other militant organizations remain present inside Afghanistan, while recurring tensions with Pakistan have produced direct military clashes and instability along the border.
The disappearance of full-scale civil war should therefore not be confused with the disappearance of serious military threats. The Taliban have reduced one form of violence without eliminating the militant networks, political grievances, and regional tensions that could produce future conflict.
For large portions of the Afghan population, economic insecurity has grown worse. International isolation, restrictive Taliban policies, unemployment, and the exclusion of women from much of public life and the formal labor force have limited access to work and basic necessities.
In 2026, the United Nations estimated that approximately 21.9 million people, or roughly 45 percent of Afghanistan’s population, would require humanitarian assistance. This scale of dependency is incompatible with any serious claim that the country has achieved meaningful security.
Economic security means more than preventing state collapse. It requires access to employment, food, healthcare, education, and the ability to plan for the future. Armed control cannot compensate for the absence of those basic conditions.
The Taliban’s policies toward women have made these problems even worse. By excluding millions of women from employment and education, the regime has deliberately weakened Afghanistan’s human capital, reduced household incomes, and restricted the country’s long-term economic potential.
The Taliban’s societal policies may produce the most damaging long-term consequences. Their restrictions have effectively excluded girls from secondary and higher education, removed women from many professions and public spaces, and imposed increasingly severe codes of conduct governing personal behavior.
United Nations experts have described the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls as a system of institutionalized gender oppression and warned that it may constitute gender apartheid. More recently, UN human rights officials have warned that conditions for ordinary Afghans, particularly women and girls, continue to deteriorate dramatically.
This is not a secondary issue unrelated to national security. A government that deliberately marginalizes half its population creates vulnerabilities that military control cannot overcome. It weakens families, communities, educational institutions, the healthcare system, and the economy.
Afghanistan is also a multiethnic and multilingual country. Attempts to impose one ideological, cultural, or linguistic identity on its diverse communities risk deepening existing divisions. A durable political order must accommodate Afghanistan’s ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity rather than treat it as a challenge to be suppressed.
Societal security concerns the ability of communities to preserve their identities and participate in national life without fear of persecution or forced assimilation. By that measure, many Afghans are less secure under the Taliban, not more.
The Taliban’s emphasis on their supposed security victory is a calculated political strategy. By presenting the end of large-scale warfare as the return of peace, the regime seeks to legitimize its rule both inside Afghanistan and abroad.
This narrative focuses on the Taliban’s most defensible achievement, the decline in nationwide fighting, while excluding political repression, militant threats, economic deprivation, and societal fragmentation from the discussion. It reduces national security to regime control.
Daily life remains deeply insecure for many Afghans, particularly women, religious and ethnic minorities, journalists, activists, and those associated with the former republic. The fear of arbitrary punishment, loss of employment, restrictions on movement, and exclusion from public life creates a form of structural insecurity that is more difficult to measure than battlefield casualties but no less real.
The distinction has important practical consequences for the international community. Accepting the Taliban’s definition of security risks normalizing a political system built on fear and exclusion. Foreign governments focused exclusively on short-term regional stability or counterterrorism cooperation may overlook the deeper vulnerabilities developing beneath the appearance of order. In August 2026, UN experts specifically warned against normalizing Taliban rule without meaningful improvements in human rights.
A state cannot build lasting resilience by excluding women, suppressing political participation, persecuting former opponents, and weakening large segments of its society. Such policies may strengthen the regime’s immediate control, but they make the country itself more fragile.
Afghanistan is more tightly controlled today than it was at the height of the insurgency. It is not, however, secure in any comprehensive sense. The Taliban’s version of peace is real only in the narrow sense that large-scale warfare has declined. Politically, economically, and socially, millions of Afghans continue to live with profound insecurity.
The Taliban have produced order without legitimacy, control without inclusion, and quiet without genuine peace. That system may protect the regime’s immediate interests and prolong its rule, but it cannot address the underlying vulnerabilities that will shape Afghanistan’s future. Therefore, the Taliban’s narrative of peace and security is a mirage obfuscating a society that has not accepted their return as legitimate.
This article was originally published in Grumpy Combat Veteran on September 15, 2026.
About the author:
Mr. Mohammad Nasir Saleh is a security and defence expert. He is the Founder and Director General of the Bareen Initiative for Development (BID). Served as Military Assistant to Afghanistan’s Minister of Defence, and was Executive Director of International Military Affairs at the Ministry of Defence of Afghanistan. He holds a Master’s degree in Military and Security Studies from King’s College London and a Master’s degree in Defence Studies from the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.
Translation of an Article into Persian