Containing Pakistan

Should the U.S. use India to contain Pakistan?

David Rothkopf thinks the U.S. should form an alliance with India to contain Pakistan:

Pakistan is America's ally, of course. We say it all the time. Unfortunately, Pakistan also harbors our enemies, supports our enemies, tolerates the intolerable by our enemies, and is therefore also our enemy. Not all of Pakistan, of course. Just some of the most influential of its elites and institutions as well as substantial cross-sections of its population.

Pakistan therefore has no one to blame for the steady deepening of the security ties between the United States and India than itself. As containing the problems within Pakistan through cooperation with the Pakistanis looks increasingly difficult, it is only natural that the United States should simultaneously develop a Plan B approach. That approach is containment and it necessarily must involve a partnership with India.

I think a tighter partnership with India is very much in America's interests, but not because it's going to somehow squeeze Pakistan into abandoning its support for militant groups. In fact, if the U.S. is frustrated with Pakistan's behavior now, it beggars belief that we'll somehow get more cooperation out of them by teaming up with an arch-enemy. Nor is it clear how this will "contain" Pakistan since the use of militant proxies is almost impossible to stop.

What would potentially solve, or at least mitigate, Pakistan's support for militant groups would be a change in the dynamic between itself and India, and to the extent that greater U.S. ties to India could encourage a rapprochement there it's all for the better. But that's unlikely to happen, given how India views outside interference on the Kashmir issue.