In a test of nerves, both India and Pakistan are locked in an ongoing military standoff to test each other's resolve. This resolve is built in a broad strategic environment driven by the two great powers, China and the United States.

Both powers hold the major cards and drive the moves on the regional chessboard on which both India and Pakistan act as pawns. Both India and Pakistan play a subordinate role to these larger regional and global powers in their bilateral relationship as well as in the regional conflicts.

The US views the geopolitical competition in the region as a competition between the free and the regressive vision of the world. But that is the US version of the competition; the Chinese version is different.

China views a definite shift in the balance of power between itself and the US, which has continued for the last few decades but has now reached a culminating point. Today, China views this balance of power as a strategic stalemate — a state in which both countries wield comparable power.

The US supports India's leadership role in the region as a counterweight to China and to prevent China from reordering the Indo-Pacific region to its advantage. This American patronage of India is as good a reality as the Chinese patronage of Pakistan. It is in this context that one must view the current grand strategies of not only the US and China but also of Pakistan and India as the subordinates of these two great powers.

Put........

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