No doubt, a great distance remains yet to be travelled – in both directions– and the course of history is notoriously convoluted. The direction of thesemovements is, however, substantially both necessary and inexorable. Pakistan’sunnatural strategic overreach, extended engagement with terrorism and Islamistextremism, and persistent political instability, have generated a blowback thatthreatens to sweep the country into widening disorder, and condemns it tonecessary strategic irrelevance in the medium and long term. It is significantthat every one of a large number of US strategic projections currentlyavailable, with time frames ranging from 2020 to 2050, confirm this strategicirrelevance. Conversely, the stability of India’s democracy and the increasingproportions and dynamism of its economy have underlined its importance in thesame projected scenarios. Despite the personal proclivities of the leaders ofthe current US Administration, as well as the often highly personalized basis ofdecision making, it is inevitable, consequently, that US policy eventuallyshifts to align more consistently with US strategic projections.