The discussion between Dr Sreeram Chaulia and Dr Tara Kartha on DD News explored the enduring strategic consequences of the United States’ friendship with Pakistan, tracing its roots back to the early 1970s and extending to the present mediation role in the Iran war of 2026.

For over half a century, the United States has repeatedly turned to Pakistan as a geopolitical instrument, even as their relationship has followed a cyclical pattern of embrace and estrangement. The conversation between Dr. Sreeram Chaulia and Dr. Tara Kartha traces this trajectory from the opening to China in 1971, when Pakistan’s role as an intermediary helped engineer the Nixon–Kissinger rapprochement with Beijing, to the contemporary moment where Pakistan is again being cast as a mediating bridge in the Iran war diplomacy of 2026. This long‑standing instrumentalization of Pakistan has profound implications for India’s foreign‑policy calculus and for the broader architecture of power in the Indo‑Pacific.

The central insight is that Pakistan has, for Washington, functioned less as a stable strategic ally and more as a flexible tool for specific operational objectives. In 1971, Pakistan’s willingness to facilitate secret back‑channel communications allowed the United States to bypass both India and traditional Cold War alignments in order to open a new front against Soviet‑aligned China.

Later, during the Soviet–Afghan war, Pakistan became a logistical and intelligence conduit for the U.S.‑backed mujahideen, enabling Washington to contest Soviet power in Central Asia without direct ground intervention. Each time, Pakistan’s geographic location, military‑intelligence infrastructure, and willingness to operate in the shadows made it an attractive, if unreliable, partner.

The quid pro quos in this “off and on marriage of convenience” have been carefully calibrated, even if they have often been morally and strategically corrosive. The United States has offered Pakistan security guarantees, substantial military and economic aid, and periodic diplomatic cover in international forums, particularly at the United Nations.

In return, Pakistan has provided basing, intelligence access, and strategic leverage against Afghan and Central Asian actors, as well as, at times, diplomatic intercession with China and, more recently, with Iran. These arrangements have been transactional rather than founded on shared values, which is why the relationship has repeatedly frayed when Washington’s priorities shift or when Pakistan’s conduct—especially its sponsorship of jihadist networks—becomes politically untenable in the West.

China’s role in deepening the U.S.–Pakistan bonhomie is both paradoxical and critical. On the one hand, Beijing has long treated Pakistan as a quasi‑client, squeezing Islamabad into an asymmetric partnership centred on the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, F‑16‑style fighter‑aircraft cooperation, and nuclear assistance.

On the other, the United States has often tolerated, or even tacitly encouraged, Pakistan’s Chinese entanglement because it keeps Pakistan pliable as a counterweight to India and as a hedge against over‑dependence on any single regional power. The result is a triangular dynamic where China’s deepening presence in Pakistan is simultaneously a source of friction and a latent facilitator of U.S. objectives, especially when Washington seeks indirect channels of influence in South and West Asia.

One of the most troubling consequences of this pattern is the risk that Pakistan’s perceived association with U.S. power will embolden its sponsorship of jihadist extremism. During earlier phases of the U.S.–Pakistan courtship, particularly in the 1980s and the early 2000s, Islamabad’s security establishment treated proxy groups as instruments of asymmetric warfare against India and Afghanistan, often with the implicit understanding that Washington would look the other way in exchange for cooperation on other fronts.

This time‑honoured playbook could be revived if Pakistan reads any renewed U.S. overture as a licence to recalibrate its posture toward militant groups, especially in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The psychological and political effect of even loose American patronage can be enough to harden Pakistan’s domestic consensus that jihadist proxies remain a legitimate tool of statecraft.

The opening of the Iran war in 2026 adds a fresh and dangerous layer to this calculus. As Washington seeks discreet channels to de‑escalate or manage a regional conflagration, Pakistan’s geographic proximity to Iran, its ongoing military and intelligence ties with Tehran, and its own sectarian fault lines make it a uniquely positioned intermediary.

If Pakistan successfully positions itself as a legitimate broker in this crisis, it may extract concessions from Washington in the form of security assurances, financial aid, and reduced scrutiny of its militant‑linked networks. For India, however, such a role amplifies the risk that Pakistan will leverage its perceived indispensability to the United States to project power in Iran’s neighbourhood and to shape outcomes that constrain India’s access to Persian‑Gulf energy and trade routes.

The revitalisation of U.S.–Pakistan friendship inevitably spills over into the U.S.–India strategic partnership, introducing both friction and recalibration. India has, over the past two decades, invested heavily in transforming its relationship with Washington from one of strategic suspicion to one of quasi‑alliance, anchored in the Quad, defence sales, and growing technology cooperation.

Yet persistent U.S. engagement with Pakistan—especially when it involves security‑sector assistance or diplomatic rehabilitation—remains a latent irritant. New Delhi discerns in every U.S. tilt toward Islamabad a reminder that Washington still treats Pakistan as a necessary, if problematic, node in its wider Indo‑Pacific and West Asian architecture.

This dynamic compels India to pursue a more agile and hedged diplomacy toward Washington. On the one hand, India continues to deepen interoperability with U.S. forces, align on Indo‑Pacific security, and cooperate on technologies that counter Chinese assertiveness. On the other hand, New Delhi must privately signal that further U.S. indulgence of Pakistan’s ambiguous posture toward terrorism and its attempts to weaponize mediation in Iran‑related conflicts could erode trust in the U.S.–India partnership.

India’s leverage lies in its relative predictability, its growing economic heft, and its willingness to act as a net‑security provider in the Indian Ocean, all of which contrast with Pakistan’s chronic volatility and dependence on external support.

For Indian diplomacy, the central strategic consequence is that the United States’ recurring use of Pakistan as a geopolitical tool will force New Delhi to manage a dual challenge: containing the regional disruptions that Pakistani‑backed extremism and mediation‑based brinkmanship can unleash, while simultaneously consolidating its own position as Washington’s preferred partner in balancing China.

India cannot realistically expect Washington to decouple from Pakistan altogether, given the latter’s geographic and strategic utilities. It can, however, insist on clearer red lines regarding the use of militant proxies and on greater transparency in U.S. security and intelligence cooperation with Islamabad.

In doing so, India would channel its discomfort into calibrated pressure, rather than reactive resentment, thereby preserving the long‑term viability of the U.S.–India strategic partnership even as Pakistan continues to be courted as a tactical ally of convenience.

DD News