Deteriorating U.S.-Pakistani relations will direct Washington's gaze toward India.
U.S.-Pakistani relations are reaching a crisis point over the question of how to manage the jihadist insurgency in the Pakistani/Afghan theater of operations. Reports surfaced Sept. 15 that Pakistani troops fired on U.S. military helicopters in South Waziristan and that Pakistan scrambled fighter aircraft for the first time to repel a U.S. spy plane in the town of Miranshah in North Waziristan.
With Islamabad trapped between the need to get control over its own jihadist uprising and the need to be seen domestically as standing up to the United States, Washington will be looking for additional levers to pressure Islamabad — and one such lever lies in New Delhi.