In Islamabad talks last week, India and Pakistan complacently declared that Kashmir is no longer a nuclear flashpoint. This is a dangerous delusion. So long as Kashmir remains a contentious issue, it could trigger military rivalry with a nuclear escalation potential.

Beyond a point, it's immaterial who deserves the blame for this stagnation. Each state has its own special concerns and compulsions. In the end, what matters is whether they address these concerns and allay their fears.

The stagnation comes almost a year after the two re-started their first serious dialogue since the 1998 nuclear tests. Unless the dialogue produces concrete results, India and Pakistan will fail in the eyes of the world community to achieve stability and relative peace.

Even worse, India and Pakistan have launched a huge arms-buying spree. India is acquiring sophisticated air defence systems, new submarines (including a nuclear-powered submarine), the Patriot range of anti-missile missiles, as well as new warplanes and an air-defence ship. India is now among the world's three largest arms-importers.

Pakistan is buying P-3C Orion maritime-surveillance aircraft, Phalanx rapid-fire guns, and TOW missiles, etc. -- worth a big $1.2 billion from the US.

Washington is encouraging both governments to acquire new, ever-deadlier weapons. Indeed, this was the principal function of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent visit to New Delhi and Islamabad. This has created resentment in both capitals.

India's Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has protested US arms sales to Pakistan. He says the weapons aren't meant "to contain terrorist groups … Nobody uses F-16 fighter planes and other weapons meant for big wars to fight terrorists". He warns that the sales could "jeopardise" the India-Pakistan peace process.

Pakistan retorts that India is "paranoid". Islamabad's arms acquisition is only meant to "restore symmetry and bring stability to the region" by filling up "the gap that emerged during the 1990s due to US sanctions…"

True, weapons like the F-16 or anti-tank missiles aren't meant to fight terrorism. But that's hardly the point. The deadly new toys are America's reward for Pakistan's invaluable assistance in fighting al-Qaeda.

Similarly, Washington has rewarded India too for its "strategic partnership": first by approving the sale of the US-Israeli "Green Pine" radar-based air-defence system, and then by offering top-of-the-range weapons like the Patriot-II missile interceptor.

Two transformations are visible here. During the Cold War, the India-Pakistan arms race was fuelled by rival Superpowers. Today, only one power drives the race: the US. India and Pakistan both vie for its favours. In the process, both sustain and in many ways intensify their rivalry.

Second, the US isn't even-handed. In one phase, it tilts towards Pakistan; in another, towards India. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, it offered F-16s to Pakistan on an exclusive basis. But in the early 1990s, it imposed restrictions under the Pressler Amendment, etc.

After 2000, Washington warmed up to India and offered "strategic partnership". Then, it suddenly designated Pakistan a Major non-Nato Ally. For all its rhetoric about India's great "potential" and its worthy democracy, the US doesn't support India's permanent membership of the UN Security Council.

President Bush now describes Pakistan as a "frontline state" against terrorism and calls Gen Pervez Musharraf "a world leader". Washington is equally effusive about India as an "emerging power, a regional power and a world power with which we want a growing relationship".

US ambassador to India David Mulford says Washington is eager to increase its military market in India. "We would like to be a bigger supplier of military equipment" [to India than to Pakistan].

Washington's double standards have harmful strategic consequences. They aggravate India-Pakistan rivalry. In particular, they could put a spoke in the current peace process.

It's downright foolhardy for Washington both to supply new weapons to India and Pakistan and then expect them to negotiate peace. The logic of the first process --escalation of military preparations and hostility -- sharply differs from the logic of dialogue and reconciliation.

It's even more foolish of India and Pakistan to imagine that they can arm themselves to the teeth out of insecurity and also hope to become secure. The bitter contention of the 1980s over F-16 sales to Pakistan is a case in point.

An even more dangerous delusion, emerging from last week's talks on CBMs, is that nuclear weapons can provide "strategic balance" and stability. They don't and never have. India and Pakistan went to war within a year of their nuclear tests! Another conflict, with a nuclear-escalation potential, could break out unless a durable peace is reached.

India and Pakistan have tried to talk peace without taking their foot off the nuclear/missile accelerator or even halting the conventional arms race. This suits a hawkish prescription. The hawks believe the US's "coddling" of Pakistan is a good thing. It will keep Pakistan on its "best behaviour".

Besides, increased military sales to Pakistan will help India demand "parity" -- new and more lethal weapons from Washington.

This logic is fatally flawed: seeking "balance" through new armaments creates new imbalances. These encourage a further tilting of the sales. A tilt in one direction, followed by a tilt in the other, constantly violates the ends of justice and peace. If you want peace, you must wage peace, not war.

It would be suicidal for India and Pakistan to forget this great lesson of the Twentieth Century.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.