> My low-key guess is cutting off Pakistan was intended to send a message to Cairo
Abu Dhabi and Cairo have been misaligned for years since the Sudan Civil War began (UAE backs the RSF and KSA+Egypt back the Army) as well as the UAE backing Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia at the expense of their traditional partner KSA.
> To my understanding there isn’t a treaty yet.
This is as close as it will get. New Delhi doesn't "sign" defense treaties unless pushed to a corner, because it reduces maneuverability.
The Pakistan-KSA alignment was already cooking after IK was overthrown. I think I mentioned it before on HN (need to find the post I wrote) but given the primacy Pakistan has had in US-Iran negotiations well before the war as well the PRC's increasingly miffed attitude at Pakistan following the CPEC attacks, the US most likely brokered a back-room realignment between PK and KSA.
A neutral-to-ambivalent India with a pro-America Pakistan is better for the US than a completely aligned India with a pro-China Pakistan.
TODO: citations
India is doctrinally non-aligned (being a founding father of the Non-Aligned Movement), and the chance of a completely US-aligned India has always been zero. Even with Russia, its closest "ally" (only by a history of cooperation, not in any formal pact-ratified sense like Russia-China), it maintains only an arms-length relationship.
India is actually the true neutral major power. I don't really count Switzerland because it was obvious it would align with the EU/NATO/US axis when things got hot, as it did in the context of Ukraine-Russia.
Yep. There's nothing wrong with that, but it means US-India relations tend to remain fairly transactional while allowing both autonomy from a strategic standpoint, such as India signing a RELOS with Russia and Pakistan under Munir returning to the American fold at the expense of the Chinese.