Whether justified or not, India shall be hard-pressed to adopt an American-style, "Bush Doctrine" posture of preemptive strikes against terrorists, or a policy of hitting back at any cost similar to adopted by Thatcherist Britain during the Falklands Episode.

India simply does not have the right mix of military assets, or the internal commonality of ideas. It must also keep an eye on its international business networks. Customers abroad have presumed a peaceful democracy to be the backbone of long-term business arrangements. Foreign investment and customers will flee rapidly if instability and war escalate, especially where the opponent is a neighbor, armed with missiles and nuclear weapons and where an atmosphere of raw nerves, supercharged emotions and looming, deep old wounds in the background tend to cloud reason and diplomacy.

Thus, India shall have no choice but to forego military action and instead embark on building a broad international accord to isolate its rival -- pushing for tough sanctions or recognition that Pakistan’s failure as a sovereign state is perhaps as dangerous and brittle as Afghanistan or as lawless as Somalia these days.

To understand the current situation, it is important to recall the sequence of events, the bottled up anger and the reserved prejudices that have existed since the partiton of India and Pakistan based on arbitrary religious groupings and the time-tested, failed concept of setting up religious nation states in the old footprints of British colonial phantasms.

Let us remember that India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the partition, most recently in 1999. The Kashmir problem -- a residual of the partition -- has been the excuse or the main cause of each. And today, four decades after partition, there is only a fragile ceasefire in the disputed territory, not to mention UN Blue Helmet peacekeepers.

The dispute has festered within the British Commonwealth and the United Nations, and neither has followed up with an attempt to finally resolve the matter. The so-called “West” has often tilted towards supporting Pakistan against India and its itchy and abrasive, non-aligned politics. But India has advanced and has been discovered lately to be an attractive and convenient Western lever against China. The recent agreement to grant access to Western nuclear materials and technology to India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, is a clear indicator of the shift in politics.

It's also worth considering whether Pakistan is a de facto failed state, as defined by Westphalian rules of sovereignty. This assessment ought not to be limited to India’s perspective. It must be a worldwide appraisal of a state that has hosted (and perhaps continues to host) al-Qaeda extremists, has nursed the development and growth of the Taliban and, in at least some parts of the country, has given sanctuary to criminals and drug smugglers who maintain a cozy, comfortable relationship with Pakistan's "state-within-the-state” Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Beyond that, Pakistan is suffering from deep financial damage as it wobbles towards getting a survival loan from the IMF and as concentration of tribal rivalries inside Pakistan have weakened the grip of the central government on affairs of the country. Agricultural commodity export prices have fallen and Pakistan is now burning through its very weak foreign currency reserves at a rate of about 1.5 billion a month. This is a classic case of candidacy for falling to pieces after the loosening of the military grip on a country of diverse tribal backgrounds -- as seen in Yugoslavia in 1990s.

Taking into account the constraints of history and the reality of its opponent, India's response to Mumbai will likely depend on its ability to prove its case and, more importantly, overcome American and British vetoes at the UN Security Council. That is doubtful, at least for now, as the U.S. is not yet prepared to let go of its pseudo-grip on Pakistan and especially its close relationship with the Pakistani army and intelligence system. India would also have to triumph over the relatively successful pro-Pakistani lobby in English language press and media outlets.