SHADOW OF WAR: The US fears an Indo-Pakistani scuffle will scupper its battle against terror in Afghanistan

In September 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. Neville Chamberlain's government dug trenches, moved troops, mobilised auxiliaries, evacuated civilians, distributed gas masks, made grim press statements-and then did nothing. There was no battle, no fighting, no shooting. This period of static (non)-warfare earned the German appellation "Sitzkrieg". To an exasperated American observer it was simply the "Phoney War".

It must be tempting, if you are a more contemporary American observer, to liken the Indian military build-up since December 13, 2001-after the terrorist attack on Parliament-to a replay of the Phoney War. Two sobering caveats prevent this assessment.

First, the N-word. The fear of a nuclear war in the subcontinent is every western diplomat's nightmare. Second, the prospect of "accidental" conflict, a term used during US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca's recent visit to the region. With a million Indian and Pakistani troops facing each other across the Line of Control (LoC), war may be a process of unintended consequences.

INDIA BOUND: Straw (left), like his US allies, wants Musharraf to curb infiltration speedily

"There's a pressing need for an end to terrorism, a lowering of tension and then dialogue." Jack Straw, UK foreign Secretary

The result is, to quote British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a "crisis the world can't ignore". As Sumit Ganguly, professor of Asian Studies and Government at the University of Texas, Austin, puts it, "The (George) Bush Administration is in a real bind. It has to deal with a worsening Israeli-Palestinian problem, pressing domestic issues and now South Asia. It is a real crisis."

The American calculation is that neither India nor Pakistan actually wants to go to war, that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Government is looking for gains to "sell" domestically before it can even contemplate moving back troops. Further, both Washington and Delhi lay great hopes on a free and fair election in Jammu and Kashmir.

The key to this is curbing infiltration across the LoC. The murder of All Party Hurriyat Conference leader Abdul Ghani Lone-he was being subtly nudged by the Americans to take part in the election-is being interpreted by western diplomats in Delhi as a pre-emptive strike by the jehadis. It is a message to moderate Kashmiri leaders that any moves towards regular, electoral politics will not be tolerated.

Jonah Blank, chief policy adviser to the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, echoes this: "The assassination of Lone flags the need for Musharraf to deliver on his January 12 promises. He vowed to crack down on violent jehadi groups not as a concession to either the US or India, but for the sake of Pakistan itself."

A month after that speech Musharraf visited Washington and promised Bush he would check jehadi migration across the LoC this summer. In return, the Americans were to persuade the Indians into giving Pakistan time. That, in a nutshell, was the culmination of India's post-December 13 "coercive diplomacy".

It is now well into summer and the infiltration continues. That the American establishment is, to put it mildly, disappointed was reflected in a May 15 Washington Post editorial titled "The general's broken promise". "Most of the militants Mr Musharraf had arrested," it said, "are back on the streets ... Extremist religious schools are still operating. Guerrillas are once again infiltrating from Pakistan into Kashmir."

For Uncle Sam, this is serious business. A personal promise to the American president has to be honoured. That is why there is pressure on Musharraf to do more. As Straw, who plans to visit India and Pakistan this week, said in London, "There is a pressing need for an end to terrorism, a lowering of tension and then dialogue."

The chronology laid out matches India's-first check infiltration and, by implication, terrorism, then talk peace.

Of course, if securing the poll process in Jammu and Kashmir is the principal political objective of India's troop mobilisation, it would be logical that the soldiers stay put at the LoC till voting day in October. What that means for western fears of war by accident in the interim is anybody's guess.

Aside from a nuclear conflagration, America has been concerned at what the Indo-Pakistani diversion may do to its own war against terror. The battle against the rump Taliban and Osama bin Laden's jehadi desperadoes is now concentrated in the region of the Durand Line-on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. To exterminate the Al-Qaida, the Allied forces require Pakistani help. Musharraf says he can't commit enough troops because he needs them on the Indian front.

Not that Uncle Sam buys the argument entirely. Al-Qaida operatives are beginning to regroup in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and may well make it the operational HQ for another assault on America. If Musharraf is unable or unwilling to help, and if effective authority in Pakistan passes into fundamentalist hands-in a jehadi rendition of the domino theory-India will become the frontline state.

All this points to another divide in the US Administration that is so fundamental that one analyst labels it "schizophrenia". The question is: should the Allied troops focus on Afghanistan or take the larger war against Islamist terror into Kashmir? In another reckoning, the US is asking itself just how many eggs it should put in the Indian basket.

While Bush and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are seen as India inclined, within the Pentagon there are two voices. The LoC, which in effect divides India and Pakistan, also separates the areas of operation of the US Army's Central and Pacific Commands.

The Central Command-engaged in Afghanistan, familiar with Pakistan's generals and planning to strike Iraq later this year-would want India to stay quiet.

The Pacific Command-taking on Al-Qaida associates in the Philippines and East Asia and seeing China as the long-term enemy-would want to treat India with more sympathy. Pacific Command soldiers took part in exercises with the Indian Army in Agra recently.

While Bush's political appointees-Robert Blackwill, ambassador to India, being one-may be gung-ho on ties between the world's largest democracies, the State Department bureaucracy is not so sure. Through the Cold War, it has seen India as not quite friendly to US foreign policy goals. If Secretary of State Colin Powell is said to reflect this institutional Indo-scepticism, his deputy, Richard Armitage, due to visit Delhi and Islamabad on a peace mission, is closer to Bush's Pak-sceptic instincts.

The future direction of America's South Asia policy may for the moment be only an intellectual exercise. A more practical issue is the state of apparent imminent war between the subcontinental twins. The original Phoney War ended after seven months, in April 1940, and led to full-fledged hostilities. As June, the seventh month of the Indian arming of the LoC, beckons, Washington and London will be keeping their fingers crossed.

4 DESERT FOXED
Attack on Iraq will come when the Afghanistan region has been pacified. Saddam Hussein (left) could expect fire this winter.

3 THE OLDEST FEUD
As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict worsens, America may come under pressure from its Arab allies to check Israel. Tel Aviv is, of course, hardly likely to listen.

5 THE NEW DOMINO THEORY
With Al-Qaida regrouping on the Afghan-Pakistan border, the Central Command could do without an India-Pakistan war.

1 TOMORROW'S STORY
China is the long-term threat but not an immediate enemy to engage.

o THRILLER IN MANILA
The Pacific Command is battling Al-Qaida affiliates in the Philippines. The war in East, South-East Asia is just beginning.