South Asia's geography of conflict

Robert Kaplan says that "India's interests are, more or less, the same as ours" ... the "ours" referring to the US, of course.  He notes in the report:

While geography matters immensely, it is also true that the decisions taken by individuals affect history even more. Had the British Cabinet made different decisions in the 1940s, prior to the partition of the subcontinent, and had the Soviet Politburo made different decisions in the late 1970s, prior to its invasion of Afghanistan, a modern Indian superstate may have emerged able to better integrate what would have been peaceable northwestern borderlands.

There are a few places where I might slightly disagree with Kaplan, but I have nothing to disagree with the following:

This millennia-old imperial history is something that Indian elites feel deeply about, whether or not they are intimate with all the details. For even as Americans separate Eurasia into smaller and more manageable geographical areas, Indians see the supercontinent holistically, so that both Afghanistan and China are part of one integrated map in which every place affects every place else. The United States should think likewise.