Bush's trip to India was kind of a shoulder shrug for the elite media, with the exception of the deal to provide nuclear technology, which of course is important because it has the word "nuclear" in it.

Yet it was a fascinating move in the geopolitical chess game where the U.S. is position itself to maintain and increase its global hegemony.

It hasn't completely escaped major media notice--the Washington Post alludes to the larger issues

Yesterday, Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they expected India to start purchasing as much as $5 billion worth of conventional military equipment as a result of the deal, if it is approved by Congress. The current U.S. Nonproliferation Act prevents India and other countries that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from acquiring a wide range of U.S. military technology that includes components that could be used for nuclear programs.

Administration officials have sought to publicly play down how the arrangement fits into a broad White House strategy to help position India -- a democracy that has the capacity to expand its nuclear arsenal -- as a regional counterweight to China.

But Pentagon officials said they considered many of the potential sales, including anti-submarine patrol aircraft that could spot Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean and Aegis radar for Indian destroyers operating in the strategic Straits of Malaka, as useful for monitoring the Chinese military.

The Pentagon yesterday released an assessment of China's military strength. Basing the findings on U.S. intelligence, the report claims that Beijing is increasing its nuclear arsenal and specifically noted that Chinese missiles are capable of striking India, Russia and "virtually all of the United States.":

In my view, this makes a lot of sense. India and China are bound to clash at some point as their interests collide and cultivating the world's largest democracy as an ally in this region is a no-brainer. The criticism of the deal's "proliferation" aspects is simply demogoguing in my view since India has been a responsible nuclear power since the 1970s (India gots its technology from "proliferator" Canada...). India will almost certainly attain great power status one way or another, and this way they will become a friendly great power in a region bound to be the locus of geopolitical developments for the foreseeable future.

Some middleeastern analysts are recognizing the nature of this development as well, although they aren't as sanguine about it as I am.

Now that India is under American nuclear auspices, New Delhi will not only give up its oil-related ambitions, but will be caught in the American spider web, because of its dependence on U.S. nuclear technology. Therefore, America will hit 10 Indian birds with one stone.

The second coup has to do with the Great Chess Game, the balance of power and strategic interests.

History will note that the George W. Bush-Manohan Singh deal of March 2, 2006, will have the same historic consequences as the deal between Richard Nixon and Mao Tse Toung in 1973. As the 1973 deal proved the undoing of major international alliances by pushing China away from the Soviet Union and dividing the Communist world, this new deal places India in opposition to China, again dividing the Asian world into two.

Condoleezza Rice described this development as an expression of "a balance of powers based on Freedom." But Zbigniew Brzezinski had a more realistic and less demagogic description. In his latest book, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,"[RealVideoexcerpts] he said that the three requirements for American Strategy are:

1) To prevent alliances and keep all satellite countries needing American security support.

2) Keep the burdens that are placed on these satellite countries low.

3) Prevent "the barbarians" from "uniting."

The Indo-American nuclear deal accomplished two of those requirements: it prevented a new oil alliance, and disturbed the efforts of the "barbarian" countries (read: India, Russia, and China) from uniting against the power of the American empire.

Surely, it is a historic coup for American diplomacy, surpassed only by the other coup, related to oil and energy. The Chinese will no doubt quickly come to realize the new situation and will react accordingly (along the line of famed Chinese wisdom). But will those concerned in Iran do the same? Don't ask President Ahmadinajad!

In a very real sense, we are seeing glimpses of another cold war. The real conflict is between the ambitions of the Chinese and the American hegemony, and as with the conflict with the Soviets, surrogates are used to play out the game. While the media talks about Iraq, Iran, Taiwan and North Korea as separate issues, they are in reality threads in the same cloth.