India to answer Mumbai attacks with talk not troops

But there is no point in India brandishing a gun unless it is prepared to use it.

The saber-rattling in 2002 yielded few results -- in the end the government moved the troops back -- and India is not seriously considering starting a fourth war with its neighbor.

"The military option has never been an option, because the military can't guarantee you an outcome," said Manoj Joshi, comment editor of the Mail Today. "We have been there, done it, and it doesn't work."

Indian security experts believe the attacks were staged in an attempt to undermine a burgeoning friendship between the civilian governments of the neighboring states, an attempt which could have had support from parts of the Pakistani military.

Confrontation would have also strengthened the hands of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group which the Pakistani military sees as a useful tool to infiltrate India in the event of war.

Instead, India has little choice but to try isolate hawks within Pakistani military and work with the civilian government, which has promised to cooperate with the attack investigation.

BALANCING ACT

But New Delhi has to play a delicate balancing act. Elections are due by May and the government is already under fire for failing to prevent this and a series of preceding bomb attacks on its cities. The opposition says it is "soft on terror."

That balancing act is already proving tough, and the government is in danger of overreaching itself, demanding more from Islamabad than it is likely to get.

Immediately after the attacks, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanded the head of the ISI visit India to share information. Pakistan snubbed him by promising to send a lower-ranking official -- an embarrassment, proclaimed the media.

Again, New Delhi upped the stakes by demanding 20 of its most wanted men be sent back to India from their alleged hideouts in Pakistan.

The list is believed to include Dawood Ibrahim, a top Indian crime boss wanted for bomb attacks in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 250 people, and Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistan is very unlikely to comply with that request. It has always insisted Pakistanis would be tried at home, if any evidence was given of their guilt, but that none had been given.

Yet Delhi's aim is to harness global outrage at the Mumbai attacks. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama must now realize, analysts say, that reining in Pakistani militant groups must be a top priority -- whether they are attacking India or Afghanistan.

"If you want a solution to Afghanistan, you have to lean on Pakistan to shut down all jihadist operations," Varadarajan said.

"You have to tackle the root cause, which is the attitude of the Pakistani military. That is the silver bullet."

(Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Bill Tarrant)