The India Project
Shivshankar Menon
Distinguished Fellow - Foreign Policy
Tanvi Madan
Director - The India Project
Fellow - Foreign Policy, Project on International Order and Strategy
Bruce Riedel
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Center for Middle East Policy
Director - The Intelligence Project
Books
It will take more than cosmetic steps by Pakistan to get the Trump administration to unfreeze security assistance [to Pakistan]. Washington is looking for serious and sustained efforts against the Haqqanis [Haqqani Network], and active measures to incentivize the Taliban to engage in peace talks. I also suspect that any resumption of security assistance would be phased, focusing first on restoring military exchanges and narrowly-targeted counterterrorism assistance programs.
If the Indian establishment is willing to move forward with politically tricky but operationally meaningful agreements [such as the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement signed by India and the United States on Thursday], I take that as a good sign.
The question with this administration is, what will Trump see as an acceptable return for this waiver [granted to India for its trade with Russia and Iran]? Will he demand a transaction in return, some give on the trade side or a big defence deal for the US as well? Russia and Iran are sticking points, but the fact that the Trump administration is dealing with these privately is a sign of how much the relationship has changed. [Mr Trump] usually doesn’t give out freebies.