But the deafening thunder of supersonic MiG series aircraft and the drone of the MI 17 and 18 armed helicopters combined with the monolithic armoured division scouring the Thar desert horizon more than show that the Indian Army and Air Force are ready to combat anything the parched landscape conjures.

Coordinating manoeuvres in an environment of ``simulated hostilities'' are the key to understanding the desert and acquiring the ``potentials of waging war,'' AoC-in-C (south-western air command) Air Marshal S Krishnaswamy told the media team which visited the air-land exercise location in the Rajasthan desert.

The 12-day exercise which began on November 26 will go on till December 6 between the `red land' and the `blue land' in the arid regions of Rajasthan bordering Gujarat and around 150 km from the international border. Being jointly conducted by the Army and Air Force, the land operation iscodenamed `Shiv Shakti' and the air exercise `Gajraj.'

GoC-in-C (southern command) Lt-Gen H M Khanna said war in modern times has assumed a ``wide spectrum of conflict'' which could be classified in three broad categories. The low-intensity conflict was the curbing of externally-sponsored extremist and terrorist activities. The medium intensity conflict pertained to conventional warfare, the recent example being the Gulf War. The third was the ``unfightable, unwinnable'' nuclear holocaust which so far existed only at the theoretical level. However, the military exercises focus on medium intensity conflict and involve three levels, tactical, operational and strategic. The effectual orchestration of the tactics at the ``theatre of war'' was crucial, Gen Khanna said.

`Shiv Shakti' was a routine tri-annual exercise of the Army to experiment with and observe the validity of conventional capability available with the defence forces. In the present exercise, post-Pokhran II elements have been ``cranked into understand the increase in the relevance of conventional warfare'' after the nuclear tests conducted by India, he said.

Moreover, the terrain where the exercise was on, was akin to that which the armed forces could be up against in desert warfare and enable them to practice the ``air-land doctrine'' comprising mechanisation of manoeuvres and orchestration of battle to ``draw the enemy's reserve for its eventual destruction''.