The second drawback is that by encouraging the view of India as an implacably hostile, omnipresent enemy, this belief encourages still further the Pakistani military view that India is seeking to use Afghanistan in order to surround and destabilize Afghanistan; and therefore that Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan should be dictated above all by a desire to reduce Indian influence (something for which some of India’s actions in Afghanistan have, it must be said, given real support).

This of course encourages continued ties to the Afghan Taliban, who are seen as Pakistan’s only Afghan allies. Among more intelligent officers in the senior ranks of the military, this is no longer the old desire for “strategic depth” against India, and it is accompanied by serious thinking about how Pakistan can help to bring about a peace settlement in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, lurking in the background is always the perception of the Indian threat – and indeed, unless wise statesmanship in Washington can make use of Pakistan to help bring about an Afghan peace settlement, the future of Afghanistan may indeed be largely defined by Pakistani-Indian rivalry.