America -Our Agony Aunt

According to the Artha Shastra, our best regarded treatise on statecraft, relations with other kings/states are to be established and carried out through ambassadors. It prescribes three types of ambassadors: the plenipotentiary, envoy with limited negotiating powers, and one who is merely a messenger. One sees that the distinctions are now blurred. There are at least half a dozen mission specific envoys and an equal number of statesmen sans portfolio crisscrossing the globe for the Western powers.
On perusing the media coverage post 26/11 in its entirety, if one was to plot a graph with media weight on the Y axis and duration of associated hype on the X axis, you would immediately recognize a pattern. Every time there was significant media coverage and all hopefuls were frothing with excitement, it was the red and blue of the star and stripes in the background. No one disputes the polar position of the United States and the pragmatism of convincing them of our case. Indeed it furthers a very relevant partnership made out of choice.
However, while a seemingly interminable procession of spent cartridges from the Bush administration made India their destination our government seems to have seen them as weapons of mass illusion. Somehow, we were rest assured that an impassioned plea to big brother would help our case against the neighbouring rogue state whose protégés were giving us a bloody nose. To what effect ? And why the need ? To whom did we submit ? For what leverage was the show and tell orchestrated ? Our leaders tell us all options are open, yet the menu of options seems to be like that of an American Diner – Keep it the Sunny side up.
Kautilya, our sage advisor, distinguished between six major approaches to foreign policy. The first a policy of maintaining peace with another state. The second , the policy of hostility which be followed if one is stronger than the enemy. The third, one of inaction most suitable when states are of equal strength. The fourth an outright invasion , a policy recommended for the very strong, The fifth recommended policy is of duality ,i.e. peace with one king/state while maintaining hostility towards another Only for the very weak and impotent was prescribed the sixth and last approach, i.e., seeking shelter with another king and waiting for better days . It is in the exclusive mandate of the sixth approach that we as a nation state seem to have put all our hopes.
The FBI may serve us nothing. In despair , we rely on externally owned instruments to deliver the coup de grace to an enemy that has previously been made so vulnerable with its crumbling reality. Are we so weak ? Think and keep watching as the Americans inspect the case.