***India's actual political and military assessment of the regional situation is not really known here. But the American one is. The Americans are uneasily, but fiercely supporting Musharraf and they are paying a certain political price for it. They are not asking pointed questions about his 'roadmap to democracy'. Behind the public show of confidence in Musharraf lies a good deal of unease and indeed what may be called alarm.***

OPINIONS and assessments about what the two armies are doing on the LoC, the working boundary and the Redcliff Line have veered away from imminent danger. Time was when, in January, tension was telling on everybody's nerves; people expected war soon. The bellicose tone of the Indian leadership more than matched their action and it seemed as if India was quite ready to use its armed might to punish Pakistan for its perceived sins of omission and commission. That situation has cooled down and even this threatening forward deployment is now being taken in stride.

The latest example of this sangfroid was shown in the questions put to the Pakistan President by a panel of Dawn journalists in a recent interview. One of them was: why do you not unilaterally withdraw Pakistani troops from the borders, as no one now thinks that the Indians would actually march in. The President refused to do anything of the kind, of course. He said that Pakistan cannot take even one per cent risk to its national security. It may be remembered that he found it necessary once or twice to remind the world, particularly the Indian government, about Pakistan's readiness to use its nuclear weapons first, if necessary. Why then Pakistani analysts and commenta-

tors are no longer so impressed with the imminent danger of a possible nuclear exchange? Despite all the bad blood between the two countries and a certain amount of aggravation of anti-India feeling here as a result of Gujarat pogroms, many seem to think that the purpose of the Indian troops' deployment in an attacking mode is not simply invading. After all it is four long months that the troops are now sitting in

exposed forward locations. According to military opinion, this sort of deployment is done only when actual operations are intended or in cases of coercive diplomacy: It is done for sharply defined purposes for a brief while. The drill in such cases would appear to comprise making the demand, giving a fairly short timeframe for compliance and to back up the demand, bringing up the troops to attacking locations, including preparations for finally going through with the intended action; or bring them back to their normal stations fairly quickly, if hostilities are not intended.

What is happening on the borders between Pakistan and India is something extraordinary. It is more than four months since India gave an ultimatum backed by the menace of troops on the borders in the attacking mode. Their troops are still there with all the paraphernalia of an invasion, costing Indian exchequer a minimum of Rs.60 crore a day. And yet India was in no

position to, or saw no need to, use the troops for the threatened pur- I pose. Why? I

If India was actually deterred by t

the nuclear weapons of Pakistan or other complications arising from t

possible American and western I

reactions or any other disincentive, it should have been logical and ;

cheaper to beat a retreat. India has i not done it. Why?

There is a proposition that has been extensively discussed in t

Pakistan --- outside the corridors of power, of course. What precise objectives can India have in fighting a war with Pakistan, supposing it has a good reason for it? No strategic or long-term interest of India would seem to require a defeat of Pakistan, not counting the emotional desire for it. Indeed many argue that the attempt to do so might produce too much of destabilisation in the region, while the threat of a nuclear winter over large parts of India and Pakistan was ever present. The whole Indian exercise appeared to many Pakistanis senseless. Politically, some argue that an unfriendly Pakistan is now a useful political ploy for the votaries of Hindutva. An external bogeyman comes in handy to the more chauvinistic and jingoistic Indian. One thought that has been expressed was that no matter how much men like L. K. Advani may talk about a confederation, it will be the likes of him who would be most unhappy if there were to be an Akhand Bharat

with the infusion of 265 million more Muslims in the revived historical India. Whichever way people thought, risking a possible nuclear war did not make any sense, though the continuation of high tension and bad relations between the two would seem to politically benefit some Indian parties, like those now in power.

Some others in Pakistan have argued that the massing of Indian troops on the Pakistani border -- and

their inaction for four long months at some cost to the morale of Indian troops -- so soon after 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan must have had something to do with the American war against international terror. What could it be? is a query that has been discussed among some analysts.

In the opinion of some analysts here the revived Pakistan-US alliance is a fair weather bird; it is not something deeply embedded in the long-term American or even Pakistani strategic thinking. In contrast, the conclusion of the Indo-American Alliance against Terror is seen here as something substantive and of strategic nature. India is perceived here as the big catch for America and not Pakistan which has merely been commandeered to serve American purposes. Pakistan-America alliance serves while its utility for American objective lasts. It is not comparable in quality with the Indo-US strategic partnership. Few governments ask their Army to go sit

at the border. It looks on the face of it irrational; adopting a publicly threatening posture requires the will to do what is threatened or after a short while stop threatening and start doing other things like negotiating. The idea that India's Home Minister will give a list of 20 persons for taking custody from Pakistan and the latter would meekly hand them over, given all the background of bad relations, is ridiculous. The fact

that India says so and has kept the troops for four months with an aggressive stance becomes a riddle. But linking it with American purposes would impart it a rationale.

The American purposes can of course be discerned clearly enough. For them, any political troubles in Pakistan, such as a rebellion against General Pervez Musharraf by hardline generals or the Islamic zealots or both would be a situation in which it would want to intervene. But few can visualise America intervening with its own troops. That is simply unthinkable. It would need proxies. And given the state of goodwill between the US and India, Indians appear, on this theory, to be ready to become such a proxy. The Indian troops would thus move when and if needed for the American purposes. That is a theory being advanced by some. It may seem far-fetched and perhaps it is. But since no other rational explanation suggests itself for the pattern of this so called coercive

diplomacy, people have begun to explore the less obvious reasons.

India's actual political and military assessment of the regional situation is not really known here. But the American one is. The Americans are uneasily, but fiercely supporting Musharraf and they are paying a certain political price for it. They are not asking pointed questions about his 'roadmap to democracy'. Behind the public show of confidence in Musharraf lies a good deal of unease and indeed what may be called alarm. The trends of Pakistani opinion, as their experts perceive, are none too reassuring. The Islamic extremists have not dissolved into thin air; they are there. The official Islamabad action against them was quite moderate, to begin with. Later Musharraf seems to have diluted it further and released most of those arrested. Americans continue to assess the situation as dicey and insofar as the American experts are concerned, President Musharraf is nowhere near being as powerful as the previous military dictators were. Hence they would require some kind of possible checkmating of the threat to Musharraf's survival.

A look on the map would show that other than India there is no other power that can help the US. The uncertain Sino-US relations might be an additional attraction of India in American eyes. And some of the Sino-Pakistan moves are being passed without a single comment by the US about these being unhelpful to whatever the Americans want in Asia. All these enhance the utility of India for the US. For the Vajpayee government, nothing could be more welcome and sweeter. Even so, the idea of Indian army massing itself on the Pakistani border for intervening in favour of General Musharraf is as startling as it might be unsettling for many hardline Indians.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.