How the US Gave India and Pakistan an Excuse to Stand Down
America may not be the global policeman it once was, but it was good enough to convince these arch rivals to pull back.
India and Pakistan have stepped back from the brink.
Photographer: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images
When President Donald Trump announced Saturday that India and Pakistan had agreed to a ceasefire, it surprised most on the subcontinent. The military exchanges that followed a terrorist attack on tourists in Kashmir had only intensified in the days prior. And few outsiders seemed interested in the conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations — on Friday, Vice President JD Vance had said that the brewing war was “fundamentally none of our business.”
So how was the Trump administration, unable to arrange for a ceasefire in Ukraine, so successful in South Asia? Even an unenthusiastic attempt at mediation proved remarkably effective. Is the US still the global policeman that it was a couple of decades ago?