No surprise

Last year Colin Powell, the then secretary of state, came here and went on to Pakistan, where he announced that the US had granted Pakistan the status of a "major non-Nato ally". India took that badly. This year, not to be outdone, his successor Condoleezza Rice came here and went on to Pakistan.

Then, soon after she returned to Washington, came the announcement that the US would give Pakistan what has been Pakistan's since 1990: the F-16s, for which it had paid but which had not been delivered because the US suspected Pakistan had nuclear weapons. The shipment was held up when the US merely suspected; now that Pakistan is indeed a nuclear power, the US has decided to give the F-16s to it. Good going, Ms Rice.

India isn't surprised. It has been obvious for a year that an F-16 sale was on the cards. In June 2003, the US had promised Pakistan a fresh aid package of $3 billion, to be disbursed over five years. Half of that was to be military assistance. At the joint press conference afterwards, it was stated that "the President ... has been a strong advocate for the sale of F-16s to Pakistan."

The message is clear: the US wants to maintain some kind of military balance in the region""even with the sale of nuclear delivery vehicles. So much for any commitment to non-proliferation.

Should India be merely disappointed, or angry? It has a right to be the latter, since there is only one country that Pakistan would use the F-16s against. But responses will be tempered by the view that the F-16s do not fundamentally change the military situation in the sub-continent.

New Delhi would also have learnt to live with the realisation that Pakistan is important for the US in the current scenario, and President Bush is personally committed to bolstering President Musharaf.

Nevertheless, the US must see that there is a price to be paid for such decisions; and this can be in the form of decisions on arms purchases (India after all is the bigger market) or even the purchase of civilian aircraft by public sector companies since there is little to choose between a Boeing and an Airbus.

Whatever response is considered appropriate should not be one that seriously upsets the steadily improving relations between the two countries. Trade and investment have to grow, and India must make use of the sops offered by way of nuclear power technology.

"Arms to Pakistan and trade with India" may have been the unchanged US game plan for half a century, but India must recognise that the nature of the Indo-US relationship has changed""and this must not be hostage to the Pakistan issue.

Indeed, bilateral cooperation has now extended to the military sphere, with offers for co-production of frontline aircraft and cooperation in anti-missile defence systems. In short, Indo-US ties must be kept on track even as the US is given a message that India cannot be taken for granted.