On May 1, 1960, Soviet missiles shot down a U.S. spy plane flying high above Soviet territory. Chaos reigned in international relations in the days after, particularly once Nikita Khrushchev revealed that Francis Gary Powers, the plane's pilot, had been captured. The U-2 spy plane incident occurred only two weeks before scheduled talks between U.S. and Soviet officials in Paris, and it destroyed any hopes of a détente in the Cold War for the immediate future. Most important in the context of this book, however, was not the international furor and the breakdown of Soviet–U.S. talks, but instead the often overlooked role of Pakistan. Powers began his fateful flight from a U.S. airbase in Peshawar, the product of the preceding agreements between U.S. and Pakistani leaders. U.S. strategists, following in British footsteps, had built up airbases in northwest Pakistan as a logical, proximate entry point to the Soviet Union. The region served as a stronghold against the Soviets. But the U-2 mishap brought a potentially hot Cold War to Pakistan's doorstep. The Afghan–Pakistan borderlands became a weak spot for the Government of Pakistan: the presence of U.S. planes and servicemen made Peshawar an obvious target for a Soviet attack.

Pakistani officials initially denied their country's involvement. Pakistan's president, Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, insisted that “To our knowledge no American military plane took off from any airfield in Pakistan” and warned that if Soviet leaders undertook rocket attacks on Pakistani airbases, “We have friends by our side. [… I]f Russia does so she will risk a global war.” The Eisenhower administration, however, admitted defeat. It claimed responsibility for the spy plane and its airbase in Peshawar, leaving the Pakistani government scrambling to explain Ayub Khan's claims. As Khrushchev threatened that if another such incident occurred, “we will retaliate immediately,” Ayub Khan could no longer be so sure of Pakistan's U.S. “friends.” Instead, the U-2 incident exposed Pakistan to the possibility of Soviet reprisals; in the view of Indian High Commissioner in Karachi Rajeshwar Dayal, “The U-2 plane incident came as a rude awakening to the Pakistanis. For the first time, people in this country have realised the mortal danger in which they are placed on account of Pakistan's military alliance with the United States.”