New York, May 9 —Amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, the US has said it will not get involved in a war that is “fundamentally none of our business.”
While the US cannot control India and Pakistan, it can encourage the two nuclear-armed neighbours to de-escalate, Vice President JD Vance said in a TV interview on Thursday.
"Look, we're concerned about any time nuclear powers collide and have a major conflict," Vance said when asked how concerned the Trump administration is about a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
Vance quoted US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio who have said that Washington wants the tensions to "de-escalate" as quickly as possible.
"We can't control these countries though. Fundamentally, India has its gripes with Pakistan. Pakistan has responded to India. What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit. But we're not going to get involved in the middle of war that's fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America's ability to control it," the vice president said.
"America can't tell the Indians to lay down their arms. We can't tell the Pakistanis to lay down their arms. And so we're going to continue to pursue this thing through diplomatic channels. Our hope and our expectation is that this is not going to spiral into a broader regional war or, God forbid, a nuclear conflict, but sure, we're worried about these things."
"But I think the job of diplomacy, but also the job of cooler heads in India and Pakistan is to make sure this doesn't become a nuclear war. If it happened of course it would be disastrous. Right now we don't think that's going to happen," he said.
Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance and their three children were on their first official visit to India when militants killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22.
Two weeks after the attack, India launched Operation Sindoor on Wednesday, targeting ‘terror infrastructure’ in Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
On Thursday night, India said it neutralised Pakistan military's attempt to hit military stations in Jammu, Pathankot, Udhampur and Rajasthan with missiles and drones.
After the Indian military foiled the Pakistani attempts, the defence ministry said India remains "fully prepared to defend its sovereignty and ensure the safety of its people".
Earlier on Thursday, Secretary of State Rubio spoke separately with India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, stressing the need for immediate de-escalation.
In his call with Jaishankar, Rubio expressed US support for direct dialogue between India and Pakistan and encouraged continued efforts to improve communications.
Historically, the United States has often positioned itself as a mediator in major international conflicts, portraying a role of a peace broker when global stability is at stake.
From facilitating the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978, to hosting the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War in 1995, Washington has stepped in as a negotiator in several key moments of modern diplomacy.
It has also played an active role in Middle East peace efforts and has engaged in high-stakes diplomacy with North Korea over denuclearization.
In South Asia, while the U.S. has generally avoided formal mediation, it has frequently applied diplomatic pressure to de-escalate tensions between India and Pakistan, such as during the Kargil conflict in 1999 and the Pulwama-Balakot standoff in 2019.