Pakistan and Afghanistan are now in an undeclared war, and the Taliban are losing ground at home — bad for Kabul, dangerous for the wider region.

• Border fighting this year has killed hundreds and pushed over 115,000 Afghans from their homes, and Pakistan's own defense minister calls it open war.
• Pakistani officials privately say their security will not improve until the Taliban are dealt with, and Kabul now fears a Pakistani-backed push to topple it.
• More than a dozen Afghan resistance groups are attacking the Taliban across the country, quietly helped by contacts with Pakistan.
• Pakistan would win a straight fight easily, but it is already stretched thin by its own Taliban insurgency, separatists in Balochistan, high inflation, and a feud with India.
• Afghanistan is heading into another winter with a deepening hunger crisis and almost no working military.

Outlook: Full-scale invasion is unlikely this year, but Pakistan looks content to let Afghanistan bleed from the inside while keeping up strikes across the border.