The Foreign Service Journal, September 2010

that Washington must eventually back India over Pakistan. As explained be- low, this proposal is enticing for several reasons. However, tensions between America’s short- and long-term inter- ests in the wider Asia-Pacific region may preclude the luxury of choosing sides. Zero-Sum? Far removed from the original ob- jective of punishing al-Qaida, some seek to perpetuate the war in Afghanistan on a number of other grounds: as a means to promote liberty abroad, as a way to save face against global jihad, and as a measure to prevent a militant takeover of Pakistan. Others argue that in the long run, Washington must distance it- self from Pakistan and throw its full support behind India, America’s natural ally in the region. “[S]ome of the best arguments about why this war is necessary,” says Time magazine’s Joe Klein, “must go unspoken by the president. They in- volve Pakistan and India ... Tensions between the two countries would es- calate dramatically if we were to aban- don the region.” Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens echoes the view of those who advocate siding with India: “[They] have the same enemies as we do, they were supporting the Northern Alliance be- fore we were, [and] they will always be there long after the Taliban have gone.” On their merits, both arguments are compelling. But a significant bar- rier to choosing sides is that a long- term policy of engagement with India will likely make Pakistan less inclined to cooperate with the United States in the short term. In the long term, an alliance of the world’s largest democracies would be mutually advantageous, particularly given India’s sizable population, bur- geoning economic potential and lever- age against what former U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair has called a “more military, aggressive, for- 38 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 It appears that the enmity between India and Pakistan, as well as the focal point of their proxy terrorism, has shifted from the disputed territory of Kashmir to the battlefields of Afghanistan.