In India's Lengthening Shadow: The U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Alliance and the War in Afghanistan

This article examines the impact of India's growing involvement with the Muslim countries in Pakistan's neighborhood-Iran, the Central Asian republics, and Afghanistan-on the contemporary U.S.-Pakistan strategic alliance, in particular the cooperation of these two allies in waging the war in Afghanistan. Driven largely by its need for expanded access to the region's energy resources, India has been moving rapidly to cement its ties with these countries. This article argues that U.S. and Pakistani objectives in Afghanistan are far from fully convergent, and that they are perhaps least convergent when it comes to India. India's lengthening strategic shadow in the region, it maintains, especially when coupled with its growing strategic partnership with the United States, is bound to have an important bearing on the evolution of the war in Afghanistan.