Can't win unless the main center is neutralised.

"With the US military gone," from Afghanistan, "The Taliban are reported to have gained control of more than half the country," wrote Sandipan Deb. "The Taliban, or 'students' in the Pashto language, emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan," BBC. "Pakistan has repeatedly denied that it was the architect of the Taliban enterprise" but, "As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates with an increase in offensives by the Taliban, Pakistan and its Army continue to provide a safe haven to the insurgent groups and its affiliates," ANI. "The Afghan government has repeatedly accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and preventing the Afghan forces from carrying out military operations against them," NDTV. "Whatever the US may claim, the Taliban and their supporters see the American withdrawal as their triumph over the world's most powerful country," wrote Deb. "They will want a dominant role in any transitional government and then go for a final bloody purge." Former Taliban leader Mullah Omar died in a Pakistan hospital in 2013, BBC, but Pakistani authorities did not release the news for over two years. "What Pakistan doesn't discuss openly is this central tension: Pakistan has long treated the Afghan Taliban as friends -- preferring them to Pashtun nationalists (which it viewed as threatening, fearing they would mobilize Pashtuns on the Pakistani side of the border as well) and to the current Afghan government (which it sees as friendly with India) -- while the Afghan Taliban's friend and ideological twin, the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), has posed an existential threat to Pakistan and killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis," wrote Madiha Afzal. "For Washington, part of the reason it lost the war against the Taliban is because the Taliban found support in Pakistan, including sanctuary for the Haqqani network and the Quetta shura." Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said in an interview with Fox News that "Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) provided the United States with leads that helped them find and kill Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden", Scroll.in. Which means, the ISI had been sheltering bin Laden till then. Unless the US tackles the main sponsor of terrorists, Pakistan, it will continue to lose wars. "Most Americans rightly believe that the US military is the best and most formidable in the world. If that is correct, why, since the end of World War II, has the United States lost every war it started and failed every time it used force without just cause?" wrote Observer. "Fortunately, the United States prevailed in the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation. George HW Bush was masterful in the first Gulf War in 1991 and managing the collapse of the Soviet Union." The problem for the Pakistan Army is that it controls the main businesses, and therefore the wealth, of Pakistan. If it loses power it will surely lose all its privileges, as has happened to army officers in Turkey after they allowed Recep Tayyip Erdogan to seize power, dw.com. "Pakistan's military establishment represents the largest conglomerate of business entities in the country, reveals a United Nations Development Programme report called 'The three Ps of inequality: Power, People and Policy'. The report said that Pakistan's military enjoyed Rs 257 billion in privileges in 2017-18 and it is the country's biggest real estate developer and manager, with wide-ranging involvement in the construction of public projects," Samaa. If the US wants to tame the Taliban it must hit Pakistan's army in its softest spot, which is its illicit money making activities. Pakistan was outflanked in 2019 when India revoked Articles 370 and 35(A) which granted special status to Kashmir, Economic Times. However, back channel diplomacy produced a ceasefire on the Line of Control, wrote C Raja Mohan. Or, maybe Pakistan is waiting to get control of Afghanistan before unleashing terrorists on India. It is using drones to drop weapons and drugs into India, ndtv. Defeating the Taliban is easy. Just neutralise Pakistan.