Note To India: ‘US Needs Pak To Track Jihadis It Wants’

medium120590250In the days since the Pahalgam tragedy, statements of solidarity with India have poured in from Washington’s most senior officials. This isn’t surprising for an administration that, like GOI, takes the toughest of stands against terrorism. President Trump has declared that US “stands strong with India against terrorism” and that PM Modi and the Indian people “have our full support”.Perhaps the most significant statement came from Vice-President JD Vance. On Wednesday, according to India’s external affairs ministry, he spoke by phone to Modi while in India and said US “is ready to provide all assistance in the joint fight against terrorism”.These Trump and Vance comments can perhaps be construed as US green-lighting an Indian retaliation — or at the least as a signal that Washington won’t try to stand in the way of one. The offer made by Vance might portend a US willingness to share intelligence with India in its efforts to track down the Pahalgam perpetrators.However, if India retaliates militarily, beyond the non-kinetic responses already announced, escalation risks would rise considerably. The 2019 Pulwama-Balakot crisis made clear that India and Pakistan, even as nuclear states, are willing to use limited military force against each other. But US has always viewed a stable subcontinent as one of its core interests in the region, and so it won’t want to see a serious India-Pak crisis, much less conflict.This helps explain why there’s a strong precedent of Washington intervening to push de-escalation during previous India-Pak clashes. US mediation in the Kargil crisis is well-chronicled. More recently, in his 2023 memoir, Mike Pompeo, secretary of state in the first Trump administration during the 2019 crisis, claimed that US mediation then avoided a “horrible outcome”.From a US perspective, an extended India-Pak military confrontation would also distract each country from cooperating with Washington on key priorities: in the case of India, countering China, and in the case of Pakistan, tracking terrorists who threaten US. Trump wants to help end wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and has no interest in a fresh one breaking out, especially between nuclear-armed rivals.Trump does welcome challenging negotiations. His govt has warm relations with India and workable ties with Pakistan. It may also be able to leverage its close relations with the Arab Gulf states to coax them to provide additional mediation. But given the scale and egregiousness of Tuesday’s massacre, India would be in no mood for immediate de-escalation. Pakistan, not wishing to appear weak, would be prepared to stage counter-retaliations.Compounding all this, Washington may face pressure from India to scale back security ties with Pakistan that have inched forward in recent months — as evidenced by US releasing nearly $400mn to monitor US-made Pakistani F-16s, US-Pak cooperation to apprehend an Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist, and the planned resumption of bilateral counterterrorism dialogue in June. Washington will be sympathetic to New Delhi’s concerns, but it has its reasons for wanting to maintain security links with Pakistan.Yes, counterterrorism has long been a pillar of the US-India partnership. Before countering China became the core driver of bilateral cooperation, and especially after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, degrading Islamist terror was a core shared objective. This cooperation hasn’t always been smooth. Consider Indian concerns about David Headley not being extradited, and Washington’s long-running engagements with Pak military, which has sponsored anti-India terrorist groups.Nevertheless, the goal of ensuring that Pak territory isn’t used for cross-border terrorist attacks is articulated in formal US-India pronouncements, including the joint statement following Modi’s White House meeting with Trump in Feb. In this sense, Vance’s pledge of “all assistance” on jointly fighting terrorism can be interpreted as a desire not just to help India during its current crisis, but in counterterrorism efforts more broadly.Washington will need to balance its commitment to cooperate with India on counterterrorism with its strong interest in reducing stability risks in South Asia. That may well entail, in the event of a worsening India-Pak crisis, trying to guide the two sides toward off-ramps. Even if New Delhi believes it hasn’t fully achieved its immediate counterterrorism objectives.For Washington, in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on India in years, the strong statements of support for India are predictable and justifiable. But in the coming days, as the implications of the attack — especially for regional stability — become more clear, with escalation risks likely becoming greater, the situation will grow more challenging for US to navigate.