The Indian-Pakistani Ceasefire Is What U.S. Diplomacy Should Look Like
America didn’t start the fire between India and Pakistan. But U.S. diplomacy ended it. After four days of nerve-wracking combat between two nuclear-armed powers, the world first heard from U.S. President Donald Trump that both sides had agreed to a ceasefire.
“After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Saturday afternoon. “Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence.”
Although the Indian government denied the role of “third-party intervention” in ending the crisis, Pakistani Foreign Minister Munir Dar confirmed that the U.S. was one of “three dozen countries” whose diplomats tried to mediate between the warring countries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had talked with both Indian and Pakistani officials over the weekend, telling them to resume contact with each other. Vice President J.D. Vance personally called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday afternoon after receiving “alarming intelligence” about a “dramatic escalation,” CNN reports.
Just a day before, Vance had told Fox News that the Indian-Pakistani conflict was “fundamentally none of our business.” And indeed, neither side relies on American weapons, funding, or protection. That neutrality made it easier for the U.S. to play peacemaker. Rather than a source of unwanted interference, Washington looked like a distant power that both sides wanted to be on good terms with.
It wasn’t always so. Pakistan was a close Cold War partner of the United States, which gave it billions of dollars in military aid. The Nixon administration infamously rushed weapons to Pakistan during its brutal attempt to suppress the Bangladeshi independence movement in 1971. But the relationship cooled over the following decades, and the Trump administration finally cut most U.S. military aid to Pakistan in 2018.
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