The other day, the New Delhi correspondent of this newspaper quoted L.K. Advani, India's deputy prime minister, as 'challenging Pakistan to a fourth war'.

Even though he was electioneering in Gujarat, this kind of jingoistic rhetoric from a supposedly responsible politician speaks volumes for what passes as sanity in the higher echelons of subcontinental leadership. Lest we Pakistanis think we can be holier-than-them, let me remind the readers of the bellicose statements that issue forth daily from our own leaders.

Indeed, a few months ago at the height of the military stand-off between the two countries, I remember seeing ex-Captain Gohar Ayub, ex-speaker and ex-minister, holding forth on a private TV channel. When asked what kind of war it would be if one were to break out, he said repeatedly and with great satisfaction that it would be 'short and sharp'. Almost gleefully, he dilated upon the devastatingly unerring nature of modern weapons systems as well as their vast destructive capability. His face shining with a sheen of perspiration and conviction, he repeated the mantra 'Short and sharp!' as though he was reciting a battle command he had learned in his old army days.

Just for the record, the good captain never fired a gun in anger, having been honourably relieved of this responsibility soon after his father general (later self-promoted field marshal) Ayub Khan staged a coup. The only time he led troops into action was when his father won the heavily tilted election against Miss Fatima Jinnah in 1964, and son Gohar marched with a ragtag bunch of tribals into Liaquatabad and Nazimabad in Karachi where fighting broke out and he had to beat a hasty retreat.

My point is that too many leaders speak blithely of war without an inkling of what it means, both for the soldiers who are ordered into action, and for the civilians who suffer as a consequence. As a matter of fact, we in Pakistan - and most Indians, for that matter - have never suffered the devastating consequences of war. In the context of the titanic struggles that have taken place elsewhere, our wars have been skirmishes by comparison. To get an idea of the scale of hostilities between India and Pakistan, more soldiers died on both sides in the Kargil operation than in the 1965 and 1971 wars combined.

The people of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, are the ones who know the real face of war for they suffered death, mutilations and rapes in the hundreds of thousands during the civil war of 1971. Unfortunately, the gruesome events of that struggle were too removed, both physically and emotionally, for us to draw any lessons from them.

On a visit to the Soviet Union a couple of years after the 1965 war, Ayub Khan was taken to Stalingrad where he compared that city to Sialkot for their respective battlefield roles. His Soviet hosts were too polite to point out that Stalingrad had been the scene of some of the most ferocious fighting in the history of warfare, and that hundreds of thousands of Russians had fallen in its defence, while similar numbers of Germans had died or were taken prisoner trying to capture it. To get an idea of the scale of the fighting, a total of 20 million Soviet soldiers and civilians died during the Second World War.

Now that the potential for death and destruction has escalated exponentially with the possession of nuclear missiles by both sides, it is even more irresponsible to talk frivolously of war. In Pakistan, immature politicians, specially on the religious right, talk of launching a jihad against India day in and day out. No doubt, they would be willing to send foolish young men to fight and die just as they did in Afghanistan. In India, jingoistic politicians talk endlessly of 'teaching Pakistan a lesson'. But the true lesson that war is hell is ignored on both sides.

This macho rhetoric is not limited to South Asia: Bush and his coterie threaten Iraq every day, and indeed, war against that country cannot be far away. Hawks in Washington harp constantly on a war without end against terrorism. All the talk now is about B-52 bombers and cruise missiles; nobody has time for issues relating to the alleviation of poverty and disease. In point of fact, neither Bush nor any of his Washington warriors have served their nation in wartime: a recent magazine article showed how all the key players avoided service in Korea or Vietnam.

To accustom soldiers to the din and danger of warfare, armies subject their soldiers to a 'battlefield inoculation' which consists of troops advancing while live shells soar overhead to explode a short distance ahead of them. I went through this experience outside Quetta many years ago when as a young civil servant, I was attached to an infantry battalion for a couple of months. Although it was exciting, it was also dangerous and I remember a soldier being wounded in the exercise.

It is regrettable that before politicians indulge in idle threats of war, they should be made to undergo a 'battlefield inoculation' so they know what they are proposing. Those madmen advocating a nuclear exchange should be exposed to non-lethal doses of radiation. Politicians and soldiers with first-hand experience of war are generally far more cautious about suggesting military solutions to political problems.

And in reality, most issues between nations are political and economic; only when they are unresolved do they result in war. In fact, the outbreak of hostilities represents the failure of politicians. In times of tension, jingoistic rhetoric is as likely to serve as a trigger as a missile lobbed into enemy territory. False pride and perceived wrongs fuel the conflict; a stubborn refusal to face facts prolongs it.

At a time when the armies of India and Pakistan are withdrawing from the border, and new governments have been elected to office in Pakistan and Indian Kashmir, we need to tone down the war-like slogans and start talking again. Above all, we should remember Winston Churchill's sensible advice: 'To jaw-jaw is better than war-war'.

Footnote: In my last column 'The Final Partition', I alluded to the Indian charge that bodies of their soldiers had been mutilated before being returned. An officer of the Pakistan army who commanded and fought at Kargil has written to me, insisting that such dishonourable conduct would have been unthinkable for him and his men. In fact, his unit observed a ceasefire to allow the Indians to collect the bodies of their fallen soldiers. I have no reason not to believe that my correspondent and his troops acted within the rules of warfare, and I apologize without reservation for any pain I might have caused him and his colleagues in uniform.