A former top adviser to ex-Vice President Dick Cheney has called US neutrality between India and Pakistan a "great mistake," according to Times Now. The admission, from deep inside America's Republican national-security establishment, signals that the old Washington consensus of "balancing" New Delhi and Islamabad is crumbling — and India stands to gain the most.

For the better part of seven decades, Washington's South Asia playbook ran on a single, almost theological, principle: never choose between India and Pakistan. Arm one, aid the other. Scold both in public, cut deals with each in private. Call it balance. Call it strategic hedging. A former senior adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney now has a blunter word for it: a great mistake.

That phrase — reported exclusively by Times Now — did not slip out in a casual aside. It came from inside the marrow of America's Republican national-security establishment, the same corridors that once greenlighted F-16 transfers to Islamabad while mouthing platitudes about "shared democratic values" with New Delhi. When someone that close to the levers of the Bush-era war machine says the old balancing act was wrong, the ground is shifting beneath the hyphen that has joined "India-Pakistan" in every State Department memo for generations.

Political Pulse

The backstage read in Washington's think-tank circuit, according to analysts tracking US-South Asia policy, is that this is not one retired official going rogue. The talk in strategic circles is that an entire generation of Republican and hawkish Democratic foreign-policy hands has quietly arrived at the same conclusion: Pakistan's utility as a Cold War ally and then as a post-9/11 logistics corridor has expired, and the pretence of equivalence with a $4-trillion Indian economy is now an active liability for American interests in the Indo-Pacific.

Why now? The timing is no accident. India and Pakistan have been locked in heightened military tension through 2025 and into 2026, with cross-border strikes, diplomatic downgrades, and a near-complete trade freeze. In this climate, the old US reflex — "urge restraint on both sides" — has started to sound not diplomatic but deaf. India Herald's assessment is that figures like the former Cheney adviser are reading the room: the era in which Washington could extract value from both sides of this rivalry by staying neutral is over, because neutrality now costs more than alignment.

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Consider the arithmetic. India is America's fastest-growing major defence customer, a Quad partner, a semiconductor corridor in the making, and the world's most populous democracy. Pakistan, by contrast, is running a fragile IMF-dependent economy, faces persistent questions about its terror infrastructure — the kind that sheltered Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad — and has deepened its economic and military dependence on China, the very power the US is trying to contain. As one American strategic analyst put it in a widely discussed assessment, treating these two nations as equivalent is like insisting on "equal time" for a fire engine and an arsonist.

The former Cheney adviser's public break with the neutrality doctrine is significant precisely because of where he sat. The Bush-era vice president's office was the intellectual engine room of post-9/11 US foreign policy — the shop that argued, successfully, for the 2005 US-India nuclear deal that first de-hyphenated the two countries in practice, even as official rhetoric maintained the fiction of balance. That the same stable is now saying the quiet part out loud suggests, in India Herald's read, that the institutional appetite for de-hyphenation has moved from a tactical exception to a strategic consensus.

For New Delhi, this is vindication delivered on a silver platter — but it comes with a question mark. India's diplomatic establishment has long argued that the US cannot be a reliable Indo-Pacific partner while simultaneously sustaining Pakistan as a hedge. That argument has clearly landed. But the harder question, according to foreign-policy observers, is whether India is prepared to accept the deeper alignment — on trade, on technology controls, on military interoperability — that a post-neutral Washington will expect in return. Strategic friendship, unlike strategic ambiguity, comes with a bill.

For Islamabad, the implications are stark. Pakistan's foreign-policy leverage for decades rested on one asset: the ability to play Washington and Beijing against each other, and to remind the US that it could not manage Afghanistan, nuclear stability, or counter-terrorism without Pakistani cooperation. If the American establishment — not just one president's mood, but the deep-state consensus — decides that this cooperation is no longer worth the moral and strategic cost, Pakistan loses the one card that kept it at the table.

The talk in South Block, according to sources familiar with Indian diplomatic thinking, is cautiously optimistic but unsentimental. Indian officials are understood to view statements like the Cheney adviser's as welcome but insufficient unless they translate into concrete policy shifts: a harder US line on terror financing networks that operate from Pakistani soil, a willingness to share intelligence without the old caveats, and a genuine re-evaluation of military aid that Islamabad has historically used not against terrorists but to build capacity against India.

India Herald's forward read is this: watch the next six months for three signals that will tell you whether this is a genuine strategic realignment or just a retired official's Sunday opinion. First, whether the US modifies or attaches new conditions to its remaining military relationship with Pakistan. Second, whether Washington takes a harder public position on cross-border terrorism originating from Pakistani territory — not the usual boilerplate about "condemning violence," but naming names. Third, whether the next round of US-India defence and technology agreements expands into domains — submarine technology, jet engine co-production, space situational awareness — that were previously off-limits precisely because of the old Pakistan-sensitivity calculus.

If even two of those three move, the de-hyphenation is real and irreversible. If none do, then what we heard from the former Cheney adviser was a confession, not a conversion — and Washington's favourite balancing act will have survived its own autopsy.

(The Political Pulse section reflects strategic-circle chatter and informed analysis, not confirmed government policy positions.)

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Key Takeaways

  • A former senior adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney has publicly called US neutrality between India and Pakistan a 'great mistake,' per Times Now — a rare break from decades of diplomatic convention.
  • The statement signals a potential deep-state consensus shift in Washington: Pakistan's Cold War and post-9/11 utility has expired, and equivalence with a rising India is now a strategic liability for the US.
  • India gains rhetorical vindication, but the real test is whether the US translates this into concrete policy — harder lines on Pakistan-origin terror financing, modified military aid, and expanded defence-tech sharing with New Delhi.
  • Pakistan risks losing its primary diplomatic asset: the ability to leverage Washington-Beijing rivalry, if the US establishment concludes the cost of the balancing act exceeds its returns.
  • Three signals to watch in the next six months: new conditions on US-Pakistan military ties, explicit US naming of cross-border terror networks, and expansion of US-India defence cooperation into previously restricted domains.

By the Numbers

  • India is now a $4-trillion economy and America's fastest-growing major defence customer, making the old US policy of treating it as equivalent to Pakistan increasingly untenable.
  • Pakistan's economy remains IMF-dependent, with its latest bailout programme running into 2026, sharply contrasting with India's position as a Quad partner and semiconductor corridor.

The 5W+H: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How

  • Who: A former senior adviser to ex-US Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking in an exclusive interview with Times Now.
  • What: Declared that decades of American neutrality — treating India and Pakistan as a hyphenated pair — was a 'great mistake' in US foreign policy.
  • When: The statement was reported in June 2026, amid heightened India-Pakistan tensions and shifting US strategic priorities in South Asia.
  • Where: Washington, D.C., within US foreign policy and national security circles.
  • Why: Because, according to the former adviser, the policy of equivalence between a democratic India and a Pakistan that has harboured terror infrastructure undermined US strategic interests and regional stability.
  • How: Through an exclusive interview with Times Now, in which the former official broke with established US diplomatic convention of not publicly choosing sides between India and Pakistan.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the former Cheney adviser say about US neutrality between India and Pakistan?

According to Times Now, a former senior adviser to ex-Vice President Dick Cheney called decades of US neutrality between India and Pakistan a 'great mistake,' arguing that treating the two nations as strategic equivalents undermined American interests.

What does de-hyphenation of India and Pakistan mean in US foreign policy?

De-hyphenation refers to the US treating India and Pakistan as separate strategic relationships rather than as a linked pair — evaluating each on its own merits rather than always balancing engagement with one against the other.

How could this shift affect Pakistan's foreign policy leverage?

Pakistan's diplomatic leverage has historically depended on its ability to position itself as indispensable to US interests in the region. If the US establishment concludes that this utility has expired, Islamabad loses its primary bargaining chip with Washington, potentially accelerating its strategic dependence on China.

What concrete signals should observers watch for to confirm this policy shift?

According to India Herald's analysis, three indicators in the coming months would confirm a genuine realignment: new conditions on US military aid to Pakistan, explicit US naming of cross-border terror networks from Pakistani soil, and expansion of US-India defence cooperation into previously restricted technology domains.

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Sowmiya Sriram

05/07/2026 08:19 AM