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Lawfare Archive: Why Pakistan is Deporting Afghan Refugees with Madiha Afzal
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Isabella Arroyo
I'm Isabella Arroyo, intern at Lawfare with an episode from the Lawfare archive for December 21, 2025 in recent months, the government of Pakistan has responded to violent tensions with the Taliban controlled government of Afghanistan by escalating its campaign of mass deporting millions of Afghan refugees, a category that includes many adults of Afghan descent born and raised in Pakistan. As of December 2 this year, roughly 1 million of the 3 million Afghans in Pakistan have been repatriated to Afghanistan, subjecting them to the humanitarian crisis unfolding under Taliban rule. These more recent efforts are part of a broader campaign against Afghans in Pakistan that began in 2023. For today's archive, I chose an episode from November 20, 2023, in which Madiha Afzal and Scott Anderson discuss the origins of the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan, the reasons for Pakistan's wave of deportations of Afghan refugees, how this latest action intersects with concerns over terrorism, the Taliban's reaction, and more.
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Madiha Afzal
Currently, Pakistan has a caretaker government in charge and run up to elections in a few months. And this caretaker government is really, you know, sort of a military backed caretaker government. So this action, this deportation drive, should really be understood as something that the military is pushing. Not not to say that, you know, an elected government would not have necessarily done this because it would have limited, I think, political repercussions in Pakistan given that Afghans are not Pakistani citizens. These refugees wouldn't be able to have an impact on the election, and Pakistanis may not necessarily feel very strongly about this because some of them will buy into the government's narratives of refugees being a burden or being linked to terrorism.
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Scott R. Anderson
I'm Scott R. Andersen and this is the Lawfare Podcast for November 20, 2023. Over the past few weeks, the country of Pakistan has pursued an aggressive wave of deportations targeting thousands of Afghan refugees, some of whom have been in Pakistan for generations. Many fear that this move will add to the already precarious and humanitarian situation facing Afghanistan. But the Taliban regime, for one, has reacted in a way that few expected to talk through these refugee removals and the ramifications. I sat down with Madiha Afzal, a fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. We talked about the origins of the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan, how this latest action intersects with concerns over terrorism, and where the crisis may be headed next. It's the Lawfare podcast for November 20, why Pakistan is Deporting Afghan Refugees with Madiha Afzal so Medeha People who follow events in or relating to Afghanistan and Pakistan over the last few weeks have really been taken by a pretty dramatic story, which is the forced transfer return of many, many Afghan refugees, many of them long term, many cases lifelong refugees, from Pakistan to Afghanistan in the past few weeks. I want to begin our conversation by digging into some of the historical context. Tell us a little bit about the relationship between these two countries, I guess in the first place, and how this refugee population, this long term refugee population over the last few decades has played into that relationship.
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Madiha Afzal
Well, the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan is sort of long and fraught if one focuses in particular on the last about 45 years. It's been defined in many ways by two wars, the Soviet Afghan War that was fought in the 1980s and that Pakistan, with the help of the US and Saudi Arabia, played essentially a covert role in Pakistan helped train and arm the Afghan mujahideen with US And Saudi money and arms that eventually defeated the Soviets. And then, of course, Pakistan was explicitly a US Ally in the war on terror, the war in Afghanistan that was fought post 2001. With that, the first wave of Afghan refugees came to Pakistan in 1979 at the start of the Soviet Afghan war, and Pakistan has housed millions of Afghan refugees over the decades. One thing I should mention about the relationship between the two countries, and this may come up later as well, is that the border is something that various Afghan governments, including the Taliban, have disputed. So the border was drawn by the British, the Durand Line and that something that while Pakistan recognizes it, there are some disputes about what exactly is the border. And of course along the border there are in Pakistan what used to be called the Northwest Frontier Province, now called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The ethnicity is their Pathans or Pashtuns, there's a shared ethnicity. So there's certainly obviously cultural affinity there. So the, the relationship between the Afghan government that preceded the current Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the Afghan government that was the U. S backed Afghan government was especially fraught because Pakistan was also, you know, accused of harboring the, the Taliban and of having this sort of policy of strategic depth which basically mean Pakistan wanted a friendly government on its western border in Afghanistan to sort of counter being surrounded by unfriendly governments on both borders, the east and the west. And the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani and preceding him Karzai, they were considered to be friendlier towards India than towards Pakistan. And so Pakistan was accused of supporting, supporting the Taliban against essentially both obviously the US but also the US backed government in Afghanistan. Of course, Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban has been more fraught since the Taliban have come into power since 2021. And again that's something we can talk about. Currently Pakistan has about 4 million Afghan refugees, some of whom have been in Pakistan for decades now there are multiple generations who have been born in Pakistan as well. So post 1979, you know, you could have two generations of course born, born in the country. And then more recently, after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, about 6 to 700,000 refugees had entered Pakistan. Of these 4 million total, about 1.7 million refugees are thought to be Afghan refugees are thought to be in Pakistan without any documents, just undocumented or illegally in Pakistan. And Pakistan's deportation policy that it announced at the beginning of October was said to target the undocumented refugees. The illegal refugees are the refugees without any documents. And basically it gave them four weeks to essentially return voluntarily or face forced deportation after November 1st.
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Scott R. Anderson
So let me drill it down on that a little bit. Talk to us a little bit about what it has meant to live in Pakistan for these, particularly the long term Afghan refugees, as you note, some of whom have been there for a generation or more. How have they integrated with Pakistani society or not? What is their kind of legal status, social status there and how does that fit in with this documentation question? Who is documented, who isn't and why?
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Madiha Afzal
Well, Pakistan is not signatory to the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees. So that means Pakistan does not have any obligation to naturalize refugees. There isn't actually a path to naturalization or even full assimilation, if you will, of the refugees. Essentially, they're able to live in Pakistan with registration cards or proof of registration cards that allow them to work in the country. And those registration cards expire every few years. And so you have to apply for renewal. That's sort of the legal status. So it's always a little bit in limbo. There is no well defined kind of long term policy for the Afghan refugees. And Pakistan's argument has always been that the refugees were supposed to be in Pakistan temporarily and not permanently. Over the years, Pakistan has actually had multiple, what is called repatriation. I mean, the current drive is called deportation drive, but it's called them repatriation drives as well. The most recent one of these repatriation drives was in 2016, 2017, at which point about 600,000 Afghans returned home even then. So, so the idea is that the, the, you know, Afghan refugees are there in kind of a, you know, more temporary status. But as I've said, some have been there for, at this point, more than 44 years. They have married, they may have married Pakistanis and, you know, multiple generations may have been born there. Even for those multiple generations, they do not have a way to get Pakistani citizenship because Pakistan's Citizenship act doesn't provide for citizenship for those who are not the children of Pakistani parents. So their status is by definition or by sort of necessity, kind of more temporary, you know, in terms of sort of economic kind of integration. I mean, many of them, in fact, have nothing to go back to in Afghanistan. You know, especially the ones who have lived in Pakistan for decades. They may own small shops. You know, some may work as laborers. I mean, they're, they're sort of a gamut of professions. But obviously there are limits to the, to what they can do given their kind of tenuous and temporary legal status in the country. But you can, in any of Pakistan's major cities, Peshawar, Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, you would be hard pressed to spend a few days there and not interact with Afghans who are running shops, who own shops. You know, they're very much part of the fabric of, you know, the Pakistani, the market markets in Pakistani cities, for instance, you know, that's the one place where you would certainly see them. And you know, so they are obvious contributors to Pakistan's economy. The kind of social integration is perhaps again because of their legal status. You don't quite see a full social economic integration, however, especially with the recent deportation drive. I heard interviews of some Afghans who are being sent back, who were born and raised in Pakistan, going from the middle of Punjab, which is Pakistan's largest province. They're ethnically not Punjabi and you know, they have a thick, you know, Punjabi accent. They are indistinguishable from, from Punjabi. So, so, you know, obviously those born in, in, in, in Pakistan are, you know, for all intents and purposes, you know, they, they don't know anything about Afghanistan. You know, Pakistan is their, is their country, but even they are now being sent back.
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Scott R. Anderson
You've teed up perfectly. Kind of. My next question, which is what is the relationship of these populations, again, particularly the longer term refugees who've been gone for extended period or perhaps their whole lives? What is their relationship with Afghanistan at this point? Is this a case where many of these refugee groups represented whole family groups or communities that might be, be, have been uprooted in Afghanistan and therefore they have limited social ties back, or is there a very active sort of exchange back with Afghan society, politics, economy that would ease or hinder reintegration? What is the relationship between, between these groups and, you know, Afghanistan, the country of their origin or their parents origin in some cases?
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Madiha Afzal
Well, from, again, you know, it may vary, but for those who were, who came, let's say, in the, you know, in the late 70s or the early 80s, that, that first wave and who have stayed there and who've had multiple generations born in Pakistan, their children and their grandchildren, children born in Pakistan, their children and grandchildren, you know, the, the, the kind of the millennial generation. And then the, the, the, the very young may never have visited Afghanistan. They essentially will have no ties to, to Afghanistan. Their property, their lives are in Pakistan. They attended school in Pakistan, either mainstream schools or, you know, schools and refugee camps. And they've, they've worked in Pakistan and now, you know, they have nothing to go back to. Essentially. They would be going back to a country that they have no socioeconomic ties to anymore. And even their familial ties, you know, basically have essentially disappeared over the last four decades. The others who may have come in more recent years do have ties there, but this brings us to the most recent wave that arrived a little over two years ago after the August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. A lot of the 600 to 700,000 Afghans who fled to Pakistan then also fled because of fear of persecution from the Taliban. So they may have worked with the US backed Afghan government or in fact for the US and they feared retribution from the Taliban. And many of them were in Pakistan as sort of in a third country while applying for asylum to the West. Right. So they kind of have applications pending and about from, you know, sort of these rough numbers, about 200,000 of those may have been resettled in the west, but there are many hundreds of thousands that are still kind of in this limbo status. They would have ties, you know, to Afghanistan. Obviously they have come to Pakistan very recently. But, you know, it would be hard for them to go back or they fear going back because of sort of the fear of retribution that they have from the Taliban.
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Scott R. Anderson
So Madihya, you mentioned that there have been prior waves of efforts at repatriation campaigns or similar sorts of efforts, similar to the current deportation campaign that the Pakistani government has been pursuing. Can you tell us a little bit about what the political context, the motivations have been behind those prior campaigns and how they relate to this most recent action?
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Madiha Afzal
Yeah, So I can talk about the one about six, seven years ago, the 2016, 2017 one. The idea is that Afghan refugees are painted by the government for political reasons as a burden. Basically they'll say they're an economic burden on Pakistan. And in this sort of previous round, and this is happening right now, as well as linked to terrorism. And over the last couple of decades, of course, Pakistan and Afghanistan have traded accusations of terrorism coming at the other from the other's borders.
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Scott R. Anderson
Right.
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Madiha Afzal
So in Afghanistan, the Taliban had launched its insurgency. They were thought to be living of course in Pakistan as they regrouped and launched that insurgency. But when it comes to Pakistan, there's an allied group of the Taliban, the Tehrika Taliban Pakistan or the TTP or also just called the Pakistani Taliban, which had sanctuary in Afghanistan and attacked Pakistan from its sanctuaries in Afghanistan. That was the case before and that is certainly actually happening right now that the TTP is attacking Pakistan from its sanctuaries in Taliban ruled Afghanistan. So what Pakistan has done with this kind of environment of a blame game of terrorism is pointed the finger at Afghan refugees for increased terrorism in Pakistan. And of course that is disingenuous and there is no evidence, of course whatsoever that Afghan refugees have anything to do with increased terrorism in Pakistan. But that's sort of the narrative that was something that Pakistan used in its previous repatriation drive as well. The increased economic burden and refugees being responsible for increased terrorism in Pakistan is also the narrative that is being used for this current deportation drive. Of course there are more layers to this current drive which we can get into. But that's kind of the political narrative that the government uses to justify these Deep.
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Scott R. Anderson
Yeah, let's dig into that now because the Pakistani government, by my understanding, is tying this deportation effort renamed or reframed a little bit differently, interestingly, as you noted, as a response to a specific kind of set of military threats, not a more general threat of terrorism, although it's closely related, but specific activities by certain groups within Afghanistan, or at least that's the suspicion that this is a response to the activities of those groups. Tell us a little bit more about what is specifically seems to be driving the most recent effort and how these different narratives of blame and association with terrorism fit into that. Sure.
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Madiha Afzal
The first sort of big narrative that Pakistan, by the way, is using and the economic burden and terrorism are, you know, maybe sub narratives, if you will, is that the war has ended. You know, the US War in Afghanistan has ended. There is no civil war going on in Afghanistan right now, and it is time for refugees that Pakistan has been housing to go home. So that's kind of the overall thrust of the argument. And then Pakistan, which is going through an economic crisis, as I said, says that the Afghan refuse are an economic burden. The second, the terrorism sub thread, if you will, is that the advent of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has led to increased terrorism within Pakistan's own borders because a terrorist group that is allied with the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, has been emboldened and has found logistical space as a result of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. This is a group that had launched attacks against Pakistan, you know, Pakistani state targets, but also civilians, and killed tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians between 2017 and 2015. And at that point, Pakistan took action, kinetic action, against the group that was thought to have driven many of these, the fighters of the group, into Afghanistan. And actually they were driven into Afghan jails. In the weeks as the Taliban was taking over Afghanistan in August 2021, these fighters were let out from these jails. They regrouped and celebrated the victory of the Afghan Taliban and then started launching attacks against Pakistan once more and in particular, Pakistani military targets along the border. And so those attacks have increased strikingly since 2021. And it's that kind of cross border terrorism that Pakistan is quite frustrated with. Pakistan had kind of bet upon its relationship with the Taliban as sort of something that it could use to ask the Taliban to put pressure on the Pakistani Taliban to not attack it.
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Isabella Arroyo
Right.
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Madiha Afzal
So it thought it would have leverage over the Afghan Taliban and it could get the Afghan Taliban to contain the Pakistani Taliban. But the Afghan Taliban, again, to nobody's surprise really, except perhaps the Pakistani states, has refused to put any pressure on the Pakistani Taliban and essentially has let them do what it wants to do. That has led to kind of an unraveling of relations, certainly a deterioration in relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban government. And Pakistan is frustrated with the Afghan Taliban government. And so this kind of deportation drive really comes in that context where the deportation drive is a reflection of its growing wariness with the Afghan Taliban government and reflection of the deterioration of the relationship between the two countries. There have been incidents of cross border firing between the two as well along that, along the Duran line, along that border. And currently Pakistan has a caretaker government in charge and run up to elections in a few months. And this caretaker government is really military backed caretaker government. So this action, this deportation drive should really be understood as something that the military is pushing. Not, not to say that, you know, an elected government would not have necessarily done this because it would have limited, I think, political repercussions in Pakistan given that, you know, Afghans are not Pakistani citizens. They can't, these refugees wouldn't be able to have an impact on the election. Right. And Pakistanis may not necessarily feel very strongly about this because some of them will buy into the government's narratives of refugees being a burden or being linked to terrorism. What I can say is that there are elected governments. So the previous government, you know, run by Imran Khan, they did not engage in any deportation drives. Right. And so, you know, this is not necessarily something an elected government would have done, but it is certainly action that the military wanted to push and is pushing through this caretaker government.
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Scott R. Anderson
And what is the strategic objective of this? You know, you see other countries sometimes use population flows as a stick in terms of imposing additional economic burden on the recipient country. In some cases you even see them used as like, you know, a physical obstacle, you know, creating border insecurity, public health threats, things like that. Sometimes it's seen as more of a punitive action against the expatriate population that the recipient government presumably still cares about to some extent. So sort of a retributive action. And then sometimes it's motivated by internal factors, a desire to be done with or no longer have any sort of responsibility for this population. But it sounds like this is a much more instrumental, military driven, strategically driven sort of concern. What is the objective? What are they hoping this accomplishes?
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Madiha Afzal
I think there are a couple of things it plays partly domestically, right. Basically you can shift the blame of increased terrorism onto the refugee issue again, which, as I've mentioned, doesn't make any sense. In fact, many of these refugees who are being returned are the ones who actually fled the Taliban because of a Fear of persecution from the Taliban. So while disingenuous, that's a narrative that Pakistan can use to explain to its population increased terrorism. It can also pin the blame for some of its economic troubles onto refugees. So that's sort of the internal kind of narratives. And we've already talked about this, but I think the kind of instrumentally using this or strategically using this, there are a couple of things. One, this is kind of something that the government is doing to show its displeasure with the Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, and them not taking action against the TTP or the Pakistani Taliban. And so obviously, more than a million refugees returning to Afghanistan is going to put pressure on an already. On a country that is already struggling. Afghanistan has gone through an economic and humanitarian crisis since 2021, and we can discuss that a little bit more. About 300,000 or a little bit more in numbers of Afghan refugees have essentially returned already after October 3rd, which is when the policy was announced. Basically, some have felt pressure to return, some have returned voluntarily so as to not be deported, and others have forcibly been returned. But about 300,000 have returned. Interestingly, there's some reporting that's just coming out, which is showing that the Afghan Taliban have kind of set up temporary refugee centers, camps for those who are coming in and are welcoming them. But that's about 300,000 people. When this number becomes closer to the 1.7, if Pakistan continues to follow through and actually does end up deporting the full number of undocumented refugees, then we'll see sort of what happens to kind of the reception that the refugees receive in Afghanistan. So the first is kind of the deteriorating relationship with the Taliban, putting pressure on the Taliban to perhaps again do something different, take action against the Pakistani Taliban, if you will. So. So that's the first. The second, I think, is that this is also a signal to Western countries and to the US because that sort of 6 to 700,000, the number of refugees who had come in after August 2021 who hope to be resettled, you know, in the west, they have applications that have kind of dragged on, pending applications. Some of them might be on the special immigrant visa track, others might have other kind of, you know, asylum tracks, and their visa processes or asylum processes have not been completed. And so this could be pressure on those governments to speed up that. That process. In recent weeks, that there has been mounting pressure on Pakistan to, especially for those refugees who have a fear of retribution from the Taliban or a fear of persecution from the Taliban and are in kind of this on a track to receiving Western visas. There's pressure on Pakistan to sort of halt those deportations. And there is kind of some effort at coordination between the un, hcr, the Western governments and the Pakistani government to try to halt those deportations. So at least it could be, in fact, that the Pakistani government's pronouncement of this policy and the effort to deport has actually worked as a signal to Western governments to at least resettle some of those that they had promised to resettle.
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Scott R. Anderson
So you mentioned you've gotten this to us already, but I want to zoom in because I think is one of the most interesting parts of the story is the response of the Taliban so far, because at least some of the media accounts have. Have framed it as almost like a social or kind of communication strategy, success for the Taliban or an effort to succeed or to achieve a success. Emphasizing that there are welcoming committees with, I think, garlands at various points, as described in some of the accounts I've read, there's a plan to provide at least some initial funding and support for resettled refugees to welcome them home. Contrary to some of the fears that I'm sure, no doubt they had, I think many people had that they might face a more hostile reception. How widespread or universal is this, and do we have a sense about what the game plan is? Where does this go in Afghanistan? Does is this initial effort to present a warm, friendly face backed by a longer policy plan for dealing with the real challenges that come for this from this, or is it more superficial?
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Madiha Afzal
My sense is it's probably a superficial measure, but it's nevertheless striking, right, to sort of, again, I've seen some of those images and they've got these stipends that they're handing out to refugees as they come in, which is again, contrary to some of the fears for the. The returnees. It may not be sustainable if more than a million refugees return. So I think that's the, you know, sort of one factor. I'm not certain that the Taliban would be able to sustain that. But the fact of the matter is that, you know, many Afghan refugees will be returning to a country or going to a country for the first time. In the case of those born in Pakistan, where there are economic opportunities and their educational opportunities for both men and women, but in particular for women, strikingly so, are more limited than they are in Pakistan. Girls cannot attend school beyond grade 6 in Afghanistan. Women cannot work. Their ability to participate in public life is essentially entirely constrained. I mean, they can't even at this point go to public parks and beauty parlors, beauty salons are being shut down. I mean, this is sort of the level of the, the curtailment of women's lives in Afghanistan right now. And that's in marked contrast to how girls and women can live in Pakistan.
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Isabella Arroyo
Right.
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Madiha Afzal
And so especially, again, for those who were born and raised in Pakistan, they would be returning to. They would be going to a very different country. But even for men, you know, Afghanistan's economy is one that has been sort of changed entirely. Obviously, by the end of the US war there, development assistance, which was kind of responsible for a large part of the sort of economy functioning, dried up completely. All that's been going into Afghanistan from the outside world is essentially humanitarian assistance, and the effort is to try to get it to people and not go siphon it through the Taliban. But even that humanitarian assistance, as the world's attention has been taken up by other conflicts, starting with the Russian war in Ukraine, humanitarian assistance is falling far short of the UN's appeals for humanitarian security. So just the amount of money flowing in Afghanistan is a lot less. And the economic opportunities that now women have none, but that men even have, are a lot fewer in many ways than they were pre2021. And so this is the context that people are returning to. And of course, Afghanistan has also seen a number of natural disasters, including an earthquake or a set of earthquakes in recent weeks that have essentially flattened entire villages. And so it's a tough socioeconomic environment to return to, even if refugees had. Obviously, some refugees had a tough life in Pakistan, but they had more opportunity. And for many, they've had to leave property and material belongings behind in Pakistan. In some cases, there are reports of it being snatched from them, being confiscated from them. And so they go to Afghanistan essentially starting an environment of having to start from scratch in a place where there is not very much opportunity.
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Scott R. Anderson
I want to leave the listener with a little bit of a roadmap to think about this issue as they continue to watch developments coming out of the region. What trajectory do you think this crisis is headed on in terms of the Afghan response, in terms of Pakistan's actions, future waves of deportations troubling with the humanitarian response? And what are the big indicators you're going to be looking at and tracking that you recommend we look at and track to see how big a problem, how big a situation this is becoming, and where it particularly veers in particularly dangerous directions towards worse outcomes? How will we know we're getting close to those to a point that the international community may feel a need to respond at some point.
- [40:29]
Madiha Afzal
What we have seen, we're about two weeks into the deadline for voluntary sort of returns having expired. So the refugees were given four weeks in October to return voluntarily. And now since November 1, essentially, Pakistan has set up dozens of actually deportation centers where they can detain refugees and then line them up for deportation. So in some sense, the larger waves, if Pakistan continues falling, following through on this policy, the larger waves are yet to come. There has been pressure on Pakistan, or at least there are pronouncements by the UN, Human Rights Watch, aid and rights organizations, Amnesty International, to halt or at least temporarily suspend these deportations, to try to, especially for those who might face danger in Afghanistan, to stop them, for those who are on a path to the US or other Western countries, to stop them in general, to comply with international law, to not engage in arbitrary arrests or detention or raids, because there are some, with the reports again of some Afghan refugees who are documented, who do have registration cards, who have also been rounded up. So there's a lot that has come into this umbrella. And so there are efforts to try to get Pakistan to sort of be a little bit more sort of systematic about this and sort of slower in some sense, at least about this, if not all this completely. And so that's, I think, what to do. What we should wait to see, you know, does the policy change? Currently, there's no indication of it changing. If it doesn't, if it doesn't change and in fact, the deportations go ahead as planned, then, you know, at the both at the border with Afghanistan, you know, on the Pakistani side, but then also on the Afghan side, you know, we're going to see, you know, a humanitarian crisis because this is a huge just wave of people that are going to be displaced. And that adds to, you know, the humanitarian crisis already in Afghanistan, Pakistan as well, there's been a humanitarian crisis that comes from, you know, sort of the flooding that occurred last year. And so, you know, this is just a whole other dimension. And again, at a point where the world's attention is not on this part of the world and on other conflicts, this could be a crisis. So my sense is that just attention on this and focus on this, reporting on this might actually help matters a little bit by slowing things down. And the Afghan Taliban's response to this, again, would be interesting to see and important to see. Do they sit down with Pakistan and actually carve out some sort of agreement on pressure on the Pakistani Taliban? You know, is that something that comes out of it and does that change the policy or at least slow down the policy of deportation. That remains to be seen. What can the US do? What can the west do? Do International organizations like the un, are they able to help? The UN has said that it stands ready to provide Pakistan and other countries housing Afghan refugees with more help. And so is there kind of a more systematic way for Pakistan to deal, especially with the undocumented refugees, for kind of the short to medium term in a way that's different from deportations, but where it does receive some kind of economic incentives to do so and some kind of logistical support to take care of refugees? You know, that, that remains to be seen as well. But at this point it just seems like, you know, this is the military's policy and the mood is to just kind of barrel ahead with it. But it could be, as I said, that these the UN's you know, response or what the UN can offer the west and the Taliban, you know, all of these factors. If there is in fact something that moves the Pakistani government and the military to change this policy, we might in fact see a bit of a slowdown.
- [45:32]
Scott R. Anderson
Well, there will certainly be lots to watch for in the weeks to come. But until then, we are out of time for today. Madiha Afzal, thank you so much for joining us here today on the Lawfare podcast.
- [45:42]
Madiha Afzal
Thanks for having me.
- [45:47]
Scott R. Anderson
The Lawfare podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. Please be sure to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to check out lawfair's other podcasts including Rational Security, a casual, light hearted chat about national security news that I co host each week with my colleagues Quinta Dress and Alan Rosenstein. In addition, be sure to visit lawfairmedia.org for extensive written coverage of national security law and policy issues. And consider becoming a material supporter of Lawfare to gain access to an ad free version of this and other Lawfare podcasts, among other perks. For more information, visit lawfaremedia.org support this podcast was edited by Jen Patchahal and produced by Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo. Our music is performed by Sophia Yan. As always, thank you for listening.
- [46:33]
Madiha Afzal
Amazon, Pizza Hut, Audible How'd they get.
- [46:36]
Scott R. Anderson
So big without soul destroying complexity? On Founders mentality, the CEO sessions We're going to find out who's number one.
- [46:43]
Madiha Afzal
It's the customer Whose Walmart is it? My Walmart.
- [46:45]
Earnin Advertiser
If you looked at Audible it was kind of like growth, growth and then growth.
- [46:49]
Madiha Afzal
It separates Amazon and AWS from anyone else.
- [46:53]
Scott R. Anderson
Join me Jimmy Allen, partner of Bain and company to hear surprising stories from the world's greatest leaders. Subscribe to Founders Mentality. The CEO Sessions now.