That response-strike, however, is also based, secondly, on the continuity of a national command authority that can withstand initial losses from a nuclear strike and deliver a replication. This would imply that should, God forbid, New Delhi be destroyed in a nuclear first strike by an adversary, there are constitutionally provided subsequent layers of authority. This chain of authority should have the sanction of Parliament and be constitutionally empowered representatives of thepeople.

And they should automatically assume command once the seniormost leadership or those that follow thereafter are incapacitated by the first nuclear salvo. The third and last criterion for fulfilling the eligibility conditions of a no-first use pact is that when the country responds it does so with unimpeachable methods. Unimpeachable in that its missiles, and aircraft too possibly, reach the targets that have been designated for them. At the end of the day a nuclear weapon is only as good as the delivery system it is mounted upon. And at the end of this millennium, the most effective delivery systems available are missiles.

This is a universally recognised fact, hence the reluctance at the various START talks to not broach the subject of missiles with as much eagerness as, say, tactical nuclear weapons. The reason for that is pretty simple -- there is yet no totally reliable anti-missile system available. Does India fulfil any or all of the criteria? Not even remotely, certainly not the India oftoday. The profligacy of the eighties and the negligence of the nineties have ensured for India a conventional force structure with gaping holes.

The armed forces today are a strange mixture of some eminently higher-end technologies along with the antiquated and coupled with structures that have long outlived their utility. While some sections of the armed forces are capable of participating in and sustaining a modern conventional war, there are many portions that lack the readiness required to enter the battle. Only some of the tanks can be called upon, fewer of the artillery units, a few of the air combat squadrons and only certain ships are really battleworthy in the modern sense of the term.

he cutting edge of the ground battle, the infantry, is of course in a completely different orbit. Political indulgence of the previous decade has ensured that in this decade an inadmissible proportion of the infantry has been deployed on counter-insurgency duties. The firefighting that has had to be done since1984 has largely been the responsibility of the infantry. And without well-trained, led, motivated and equipped infantry, no army can hope to achieve tactical gains on the ground.

This firefighting deployment has eaten into modernisation, especially since monies are not forthcoming but the operations still have to be conducted. This has been a one-way street in India, but we digress. The firefighting has also eaten into training cycles, because there is just not enough time to rest, recoup and then get down to regular corps-level exercises.

Therefore, when the Air Force and the Navy are in not much better condition, how is then there a confidence in the conventional option? Given the nature of the Indian polity since Operation Bluestar, there is little likelihood of arriving at a constitutional accord on a national command authority and structure.

Political snipers are running amok in the capital, so how is the requisite command to come up at various levels of governance? The issue is a national one,but the sniping underway is purely for parochial and partisan gain. Who will take the subsequent decisions if, God forbid, a nuclear armed missile were to fall on Raisina Hill? No one in the near horizon. Given the schismatic nature of the polity and society, there is no possibility of arriving at a harmonious decision on the question of a structure to any intended national command authority.

And lastly, there is the almost comical subject of missile delivery systems. Of the two Indian systems that are nuclear-capable, it is only the Prithvi short range battlefield support missile that has been developed, produced and delivered. Agni, of infinitely more military value, is still being regarded as a `project for re-entry technologies'. This was the ingenious phraseology arrived at in 1994 and followed dutifully since then.

India has demonstrated a remarkable consistency in its approach to the Agni issue, one that is marked more by coyness than a confidence in national abilities to realise its securityneeds. Who says, then, that there is no national consensus on security issues? If India is in the business of consolidating its status as a nuclear weapons state, it can do so only with demonstrable intercontinental delivery systems. There is little use in testing nuclear weapons if the missiles are of provincial ranges. An ability to cross the seven seas is also the ability to inflict damage wherever the first-strike may have come from.