First, discussions are now underway in Vienna among the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, one of three bodies that has to sign off on the controversial U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has already given the nod. The U.S. Congress is likely to agree, but the timing may prove tricky if the deal is to be complete before the George W. Bush administration leaves office.
The Nuclear Suppliers will not be a pushover. Norway has noted that it is "concerned about the implications to the international nonproliferation regime," and the Swiss are insisting on the "necessary nonproliferation guarantees." Some countries want a conditional approval that a clause would be revoked if India resumed nuclear weapons testing.
Nonetheless, this keystone feature of the U.S.-India strategic partnership looks likely to succeed.
The second event of the week was the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Baghdad, trailed by her remarks that a Status of Forces Agreement between Baghdad and Washington was now very close. While stressing Iraq's national sovereignty, this will keep U.S. forces in the country for the foreseeable future, nailing down the powerful U.S. military presence in the world's richest energy region.
The third event was Rice's signing, just before her Baghdad visit, of the agreement to base U.S. anti-missile missiles in Poland despite the anger and threats to target Warsaw that have been coming from Russia.
Just before the Polish agreement came the fourth event, the extraordinary NATO ministerial summit, at which the alliance may not have agreed to do very much about the Russian military incursion into Georgia, but at least agreed that Georgia would not be abandoned. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a weekend visit to Tblisi: "Georgia will become a member of NATO if it wants to -- and it does want to."
Put these events together and a pattern starts to emerge, of NATO extending its sway beyond the old European theater of operations and into the Caucasus.
And one thing is clear about the impact of the suicide bomb that killed 10 French paratroopers outside Kabul Monday; France's President Nicholas Sarkozy is not about to cut and run, not least because he wants France to return to full membership of NATO, including its joint military command.
Throw into this mix France's new basing agreement with Qatar, and a chain of interest and military relationships is now building from Washington through NATO into the Caucasus and Iraq and extending through the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and on to India.
It would be premature to say we are witnessing the emergence of a larger and updated version of the old Baghdad Pact. But something important seems to be stirring in the deep, dark waters of geopolitics.