EW DELHI -- The border skirmishes and the largest military buildup between India and Pakistan since their last war in 1971 could escalate to a full-blown confrontation unless Pakistan is willing to go beyond symbolic steps against the terror groups its military and intelligence service have nurtured and directed for years.

The Dec. 13 attack by Pakistan-based Islamic terrorists on the Indian Parliament was a signal of how deadly and audacious these forces have become. It was an attempt to wipe out India's political leadership and to bring about chaos in the world's largest democracy.

In terms of what the terrorists sought to achieve, Dec. 13 was comparable to Sept. 11. It is thus understandable that India's resolve to respond to these terrorists is as firm as America's resolve to defeat terrorism after Sept. 11.

These Islamist terror groups, nurtured in jihad by religious schools, are instruments of what Pakistani officials call their war of "a thousand cuts" against India. But the crisis will be ended not merely by action against these groups, which keep changing their names and which serve as front organizations, but by the Pakistan military's stopping its undeclared war against India, based on terrorism through these organizations.

The Pakistan military is licking its wounds from its ruinous Afghan jihad policy, and now it faces the consequences of its jihad-inspired war on India. It should now be clear to the international community that the military has had a large role in turning that nation into a staging ground for global terrorism. Even now, the military equates Pakistan's future with its own hold on power.

The recent terrorist attacks have been carefully timed to send a message. The Oct. 1 strike on the Indian Kashmir legislature, which killed 38 people, followed the military's forced desertion of its creation, the Taliban. And the Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament came after the Taliban's rout exposed the full extent of the Pakistan military's role in propping up that militia and setting up terrorist training camps deep inside Afghanistan. The two attacks showed that the military is still doggedly sticking to its primary agenda — jihad against India.

India is now forced to confront this escalating level of state-sanctioned terrorism. New Delhi's approach would first penalize Pakistan through diplomatic and economic sanctions, as reflected in the new actions it announced yesterday. But India is also preparing for military action if the other measures fail to force the Pakistan military to stop supporting and aiding terrorist groups.

It would be a serious mistake to read the Indian military preparations as political posturing and a tactic to generate more American pressure on Islamabad. While New Delhi certainly would like Washington to employ its formidable leverage to make the Pakistani military regime disband the terrorism operations, India is clearly willing to move against Islamabad on its own. For India, the move from facing an undeclared war to engaging in a declared war no longer seems like an impossible leap. After all, the cumulative economic and human costs of the indirect war have been far greater than those of all the direct wars India has fought since independence.

The United States and India share common goals in relation to Pakistan. As targets of jihad terrorism, both wish to see a moderate Pakistan, freed from Taliban-like elements in its regime. Both want the dismantling of Pakistan's terrorist infrastructure and the capture of Qaeda members and other terrorists who have taken refuge there. Both seek the reform of Pakistan's Islamic schools that are producing tomorrow's jihadis.

But they differ markedly on how to achieve those goals. The United States has put its money on the military dictator Pervez Musharraf, whom it portrays as a moderate. Washington needs the Pakistan military, but India believes there can be no regional peace, or an end to transnational terrorism, or even nation-building in Pakistan, unless the military's iron grip is shattered there.

Pakistan has been an ally of the United States only under military rule, with its brief periods of democratic governance coinciding with a cooling of its relations with Washington. Despite the new international faith that the Musharraf government will be able to moderate the radical currents sweeping through Pakistani society, Pakistan's history illustrates the opposite case: Religious fundamentalism and militarism feed on each other, with the Islamists and the military often partners in illegal activities. In fact, fundamentalism and terrorism in Pakistan were bred by the previous military regime of Gen. Mohammed Zia ul Haq, who received multibillion-dollar aid packages from the United States during his 11-year rule.

Despite warming United States-Indian relations, Washington has undercut its influence with New Delhi by disbursing aid totaling $1.1 billion to Islamabad and by helping Pakistan obtain international debt relief and credit from the International Monetary Fund without requiring the Musharraf regime to end its terrorism against India.

There appears no early end to the crisis on the subcontinent, but Washington can help avert an open war by intensifying pressure on General Musharraf to end the military's jihad. Not only should such a change be a condition for further disbursement of American aid, but Washington should also be pushing in Pakistan what it has helped establish in Afghanistan — a broad-based civilian government.

Brahma Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.