Despite the PM’s desire to reconstruct the Silk Road between Delhi and Kabul, through Pakistan, no one in the UPA government was betting on its realisation.

Dr. Singh knows that Pakistan’s civilian leaders like Zardari and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif fully share his vision for economic cooperation in the northwestern subcontinent.

The PM is also aware of the strong opposition from the Pak Army to free trade and open borders along the Radcliffe line that divides the Punjab and the Durand Line that separates Pakistan and Afghanistan.

What has given the PM’s regional vision a boost and generated anxiety in the Pak GHQ may be the Obama Administration’s emphasis on promoting transit trade within the subcontinent and between south Asia and central Asia as part of the newly minted Af-Pak strategy.

As it prepares for the next round of meetings with the leaders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the United States in July, New Delhi must put on the table a range of new proposals for regional trade and economic integration.

If New Delhi can make these proposals attractive and actionable unilaterally by India, it is bound to win some new friends in Lahore, Peshawar, Kandahar, Kabul and Washington.

(C. Raja Mohan is a Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)