The Doklam standoff has emerged as a litmus test for India in terms of how resolutely it can stand up against an increasingly hegemonic China to protect the interests of Bhutan as well as its own interests.

While decades of counterinsurgency operations and peace processes have taken the sting out of the region’s major insurgencies, collaboration between groups continues to pose security challenges, particularly in the exploitable border areas adjacent to the upper Sagaing Region of Northwest Myanmar.

In December 2015, the Russian Foreign Ministry revealed that Russia was engaging in intelligence sharing with the Taliban to counter the growing presence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

The revival of Jaish indicates that Pakistan will continue to utilise terrorism as an instrument to advance its geo-strategic agenda in South Asia.