Beneath the unfolding India-Pakistan crisis, one of the sub-plots involves dramatis personae India, Pakistan and the United States. This thickening sub-plot, with its curious twists and turns, is threatening to overshadow even the main plot.
American interest – not to speak of its position and action – is the biggest variable in the crisis that seems to be edging towards an inevitable military confrontation. China is Pakistan’s chief benefactor, but it still cannot replace the role played by Washington.
Unlike Beijing, that backs Islamabad driven by an existential, geostrategic necessity despite the terror-sponsoring state’s million perfidies and neck-deep involvement in the massacre of Hindus in Pahalgam, the Donald Trump administration holds no such brief.
It sees Pakistan primarily through a transactional security lens and finds it of lesser and lesser significance in line with Washington’s shifting of priorities to other theatres. In his first term, Trump cut off Pakistan’s security assistance worth billions of dollars, accusing Islamabad of “lies and deceit” and not doing enough on counterterrorism.
On the contrary, for all his tariff tantrums, Trump sees prime minister Narendra Modi as a “great friend”. White House has used a specific term, “ally”, to recently define ties with New Delhi. In his recent visit to India, US vice-president JD Vance called for strengthening the relationship and declared that a “stronger India means greater economic prosperity but also greater stability across the Indo-Pacific.”
It might seem that such a grievous terror attack against civilians, ironically coinciding with Vance’s visit, would place the US firmly on India’s side. What has added an extra layer of uncertainty is the mercurial nature of the Trump administration where policies are the man – impulsive, intuitive and arbitrary.
No one quite seemed to know what to make of when Trump claimed to be “very close” to both India and Pakistan, offered a unique timeline where the “Kashmir fight” had been going on for “1000 years”, border tension simmering for “1500 years” and expressed hope that both countries – that have taken a series of punitive measures and exchanged small arms fire along the LoC since the deadly terror attack where Pakistan-sponsored terrorists killed Hindus in a targeted hate crime – will “figure out the issue one way or another”.
In the immediate wake of the attack, however, the Trump administration seemed to weigh decisively in India’s favour. The US president posted on Truth Social that the US “stands strong with India against Terrorism. We pray for the souls of those lost, and for the recovery of the injured. Prime Minister Modi, and the incredible people of India, have our full support and deepest sympathies.”
Trump dialled Modi’s number a day after the attack in which Islamist terrorists, linked to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, methodically slaughtered 25 Hindu men, and “strongly condemned the terror attack and expressed full support to India to bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous attack. India and the United States stand together in the fight against terror.”
An even more decisive statement came from vice-president Vance, who categorically stated that “the United States is ready to provide all assistance in the joint fight against terrorism.”
At the UN Security Council, a US-drafted statement mentioned the name of the perpetrators, TRF, a Kashmir-focussed, LeT-linked terror outfit that had initially claimed responsibility for the crime before retracting under pressure from Islamabad. Pakistan, a non-permanent member of UNSC, managed to remove the name of the outfit that would have established a direct evidentiary link between the crime and itself with some help from China.
India interpreted the signals from Washington as an overwhelmingly positive one that creates space for military retaliation or at the very least, doesn’t put roadblocks in India’s stated desire of bringing the “perpetrators, backers and planners” of the Pahalgam terror attack “to justice.”
As India ramped up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan, announced a slew of retributive steps and the prime minister gave India’s armed forces “complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets and timing” to deliver a “crushing blow” on Pakistan – whom India holds as complicit – a panic-stricken Islamabad adopted the old trick of spreading the “nuclear war” canard, tapping into western insecurities over an Armageddon to restrain India.
That seemed to have worked with the US secretary of state Marco Rubio holding separate phone calls with India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar and Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The readout of Rubio’s calls generated a bit of thrill in Pakistan and quiet discomfort in India with America’s top diplomat seemingly echoing Islamabad’s stance of holding “an investigation” into the terror attack, pushing India for “de-escalation” of tensions, and calling for “re-establishing of direct communications” that remains suspended at India’s behest.
An excited Pakistan held an immediate presser “condemning” the terror attack in Kashmir –nudged by the US – to put up its end of the bargain. Jaishankar released a curt message on X (formerly Twitter) clarifying India’s resolve to punish the culprits beyond their imagination.
Interestingly, however, a day later on Thursday, India’s defence minister Rajnath Singh had a phone call with his American counterpart Pete Hegseth, and the US seemed to have reverted to its earlier stance of standing in solidarity with India.
The Indian defence ministry
readout states that in the call initiated by the American side, defence secretary Hegseth “reiterated full support of the US government in India’s fight against terrorism. US stands in solidarity with India and supports India’s right to defend itself.”
The readout also describes Pakistan as a “rogue state” that has a history of “supporting, training and funding terrorist organisations,”and of “fuelling global terrorism, and destabilising the region.”
At the time of writing, Pentagon hasn’t released its version of the conversation (that may be taken as a validation of India’s version). Hegseth, however, put out a
message on X (formerly Twitter) where he said, “I spoke with Indian Defense Minister Singh @rajnathsingh to personally extend my deepest condolences for the loss of life in the heinous terrorist attack last week. I offered my strong support. We stand with India and its great people.”
It is as clear and unambiguous a backing of India’s position as New Delhi could have hoped for and coupled with the fact that the US defence secretary did not speak to his Pakistani counterpart, it is evident that Washington has picked a side.
This not only indicates strong support for India across the US government, but also ample space for New Delhi to set the deterrence higher through military strikes. It is also a welcome change from the infantalising narrative pushed by western media that sees India and Pakistan as petulant children with nuclear toys who must be restrained by the more ‘mature and responsible’ West.
It does seem, however, that while counterterrorism remains a point of convergence between India and the US, Washington has been juggling with differing voices, at least within the sprawling bureaucratic setup of the State Department, between the need for backing India and ensuring that the situation does not descend into a full-blown confrontation.
That position does not square with the Pentagon view. The unambiguous stance taken by the US defence secretary that New Delhi has the right to defend itself, along with the fact that it was the US that initiated the call, indicates that that internal debate is over. When it comes to Pakistan, Pentagon likely pulls greater weight than the Foggy Bottom.
The unfolding crisis could be a good metric to test the resilience of US-India ties. It is quite evident that a degree of trust, that was in short supply under Biden, has been restored. Sterner tests lie ahead.