From your link:
According to Henry Kissinger, "When the Nixon administration took office, our policy objective on the subcontinent was, quite simply, to avoid adding another complication to our agenda." As events developed in South Asia, that goal proved to be an increasingly difficult objective to achieve. A political crisis in Pakistan developed out of Bengali demands for autonomy for East Pakistan, demands which were highlighted by the results of the general election in December 1970. The subsequent crisis, which roiled the subcontinent in conflict from March to December 1971, led to warfare between India and Pakistan, and eventuated in the evolution of the east wing of Pakistan into the new nation of Bangladesh.
The United States, with Pakistan at the time as a conduit in conducting secret negotiations with China, sought to defuse the crisis and prevent fighting between India and Pakistan. When the fighting developed, the Nixon administration "tilted" toward Pakistan.
The tilt involved the dispatch of the aircraft carrier Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal to try to intimidate the Indian Government. It also involved encouraging China to make military moves to achieve the same end, and an assurance to China that if China menaced India and the Soviet Union moved against China in support of India, the United States would protect China from the Soviet Union. China chose not to menace India, and the crisis on the subcontinent ended without a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
For a brief period in December 1971, however, the record indicates that the crisis had a dangerous potential and that President Nixon and his National Security Assistant Henry Kissinger were prepared to accept serious risks to achieve their policy objectives.