Under the pressure of elections, a vociferous opposition out to damn the government and American pressure to permit Pakistan to save face, India failed to inflict adequate punishment on Pakistan for the Kargil transgression. This is widely perceived as a victory in Pakistan. An action-oriented field commander like Musharraf is merely pressing home the Kargil advantage. This columnist had pointed out the dangers inherent in a weak Indian response (May 27 and July 27). In order to drive home the point and convert our failed `deterrence' into a strategy of `compelling threat'.

India has little choice but to initiate action that causes pain and destruction unless we wish to suffer unilateral bleeding in Kashmir.Given the action orientation of the Pakistani ruler, the euphoria of the Kargil victory and the jihadist mindset, it is difficult to accurately predict where this spiralling violence will lead to. General Musharraf has been careful to cultivate the image of a modernist reformer, a la Kemal Ataturk, the builder of modern, secular and westernised Turkey. This may well be a ploy to win over the West. And even if he is genuine, one is doubtful if he can succeed in the face of the powerful mullahs, an Islamised polity and army. The chances of success on the economic front appear equally bleak. What with population growing at the (unofficial) rate of nearly 5 per cent, and with the US no longer willing to bankroll its economy and with military expenditure eating away 50 per cent of the revenues, even an optimist will not hazard a guess about the economic survival of Pakistan.

In the face of this more or less certain failure on the economic and social fronts, a jehad against India will be a tempting option, as ithas always been to all beleaguered Pakistani rulers. It is then a short step for a dictator to rationalise a threat to his own position as a threat to the `nation' and launch into a war. It is instructive to realise that Jinnah, who launched the `direct action' that led to secession and killing of millions of Hindus and Muslims, was also a whiskey-drinking, westernised and non-practising Muslim. Of late there have also been reports of Chinese activities opposite Arunachal Pradesh in the Towang sector. The Chinese, with their acute sense of timing, may well have decided on the annexation of Taiwan in the first year of the next millennium. Nothing will suit the Chinese better than a conflict in the sub-continent as that would engage the world's attention away from Taiwan. It was not a coincidence that the Chinese attack in India in 1962 closely followed the timetable of the Cuban missile crisis. Obviously, the great variable that will ultimately dictate war or peace in the subcontinent will be the attitude ofthe US.

A tough US stance against the Pakistani adventures, not mere words but deeds in terms of stoppage of economic aid and supply of spares to its war machine, can quickly knock sense into Pakistan. But the US appears, at this time, reluctant to abandon its favourite brat of the cold war. There is much effort to portray Musharraf as a moderate, and, in the words of a veteran American analyst, "India ought to give one more `last chance' to Pakistan."

If this American attitude persists then an open conflict that may well involve the use of nuclear weapons is a near certainty. The nuclear anarchy that this will unleash all over the world for all times to come is an issue that the Americans ought to ponder over. The appeasement of dictators has never worked in the past, be it the `Munich' peace or Kuwait's invasion by Iraq in 1990!

It would, however, not be realistic to expect the Americans to pull India's chestnuts out of fire! There is no economic, strategic or political motivation for it and India will itself have to fashion a response to Pakistani brinkmanship. The first step in this process is to have a clear, declaratory policy against proxy war. This may well include escalating the proxy war to limited war, say a war that is confined to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. There is obviously the risk of Pakistan wanting to then escalate it to an all out war, but `deliberately' raising the risk of an all out war is a tactic that is necessary if one is to avoid becoming the object of one-sided `brinkmanship'.

This objective cannot be achieved by mere statements, but will need action. Any delay fashioning a clear-headed Pakistan policy will only cost us more in innocent Indian lives, like the 11 who perished in the bomb blast on the Pooja Express train on November 11, 1999. Hopes of this happening are slim as there are no signs of any slackening of the grip of the Delhi "armchair intellectuals" over Indian policymaking.

An American expert of long standing agrees with this analyst that one of the reasons that encouraged Pakistan to initiate the Kargil misadventure was the fuzzy and half-baked concept of nuclear deterrent peddled by the National Security Advisory Board and accepted by the political leadership. It appears that India is destined to learn the lessons of 20th Century all over again in the 21st one.

The author is coordinator of the Pune-based Indian Initiative for Peace, Arms Control and Disarmament