India’s engagement with the West was heavily Eurocentric and did not cater adequately for the new American primacy. This contrasted with the determined cultivation of the new superpower by the Pakistani elite. Differences with the US in the larger global arena also helped solidify American support for Pakistan, to a point where that country eventually reached a tactically superior position in 1965. At the other end, the political opening with the USSR provided early harvest, including support in the UN on Jammu and Kashmir. Its defence dimensions took more time to unfold. But the USSR’s
...more
