NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..."

So begins Rudyard Kipling's famous poem "If." A once-noble read, now reduced to a Hallmark card cliché, the poem's opening lines could almost describe how the U.S. technology industry is responding to the escalating India/Pakistan crisis.

The two South Asian nations have settled into a rhythm: toss verbal barbs, then retreat; deploy troops, then retreat; and always keep the rest of the world in an ongoing state of unease.

Meanwhile, the tech industry is quietly preparing for several possible scenarios. And for good reason: During the last few years, many U.S. technology firms have come to rely on India for high-quality outsourced labor. As the threat of nuclear war hovers over India and Pakistan, U.S.-based companies with a presence in the region are making contingency plans. Major technology firms, such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ: down $0.33 to $18.36, Research, Estimates), Intel (INTC: down $0.76 to $21.24, Research, Estimates), and Texas Instruments (TXN: down $0.55 to $25.85, Research, Estimates), have established a significant presence in India, and if all-out war breaks out, Indian-based functions such as software coding, design, and product development would likely grind to a halt.

According to a statement released by Nasscom, an Indian-based software and services trade group, the United States is "the prime destination for India's software exports...and is [projected to account for] $18.3 billion of the $50 billion [total exports predicted] by 2008."

With the U.S. economy so shaky, no wonder many leading companies are downplaying the threat of war and the danger it could pose to their bottom lines.

"Everything is operating as usual," says a Texas Instruments spokesperson. "We're watching the State Department advisories and following them very closely." TI's offices in Bangalore employ about 800 workers in design services and software development.

"It is not going to affect day-to-day operations," Balu Doraisamy, president of the Indian arm of Hewlett-Packard, recently told the Times of India. HP has 3,000 employees in India, Doraisamy said.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy points to the distance separating the company's 1,200 employees in Bangalore from the conflict region along the Kashmir border. "Our offices are 1,500 miles from the tension areas," he says. "There's been no impact on our operations in India, but we continue to monitor the situation." Of course, with last week's revenue and profit margin forecast cut, Intel has more pressing problems closer to home right now.

A statement released by Microsoft noted the authority delegated to that company's regional managers: "Country managers in each market have absolute authority to take steps to protect the safety of our employees."

As India's IT sector took off during the 1990s, a cottage industry sprang up to cater to the needs of U.S.-based companies looking for lower-cost labor. Two fast-growing sectors have emerged. One involves Indian-based, company-agnostic "software factories" that cater to foreign firms looking for employees on a per-project basis. The second is consultancies that help U.S. firms establish offices in India. Today both types of businesses are booming. But what are they advising their clients to do in the current situation, and what kinds of contingency plans are in place?

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Sunil Dubey, director of software engineering for Network Programs, a software services company that outsources coding work to India for U.S.-based telecom clients, says the public sense of calm conceals plenty of private anxiety. "We have seen significant concern," he says. "It's a cause of concern for everyone."

That said, Dubey stresses that outsourced programmers typically back up their work at least once or twice a week to international storage areas. "The data-source file is updated on the customer's site," he says, adding that in a worst-case scenario, three days' worth of work at most would be lost.

Peter Iannone, president of TPI, a Texas-based outsourcing adviser whose clients include AT&T (T: down $0.46 to $10.94, Research, Estimates), BellSouth (BLS: down $0.17 to $32.71, Research, Estimates), GM (GM: up $0.58 to $58.93, Research, Estimates), and JP Morgan (JPM: up $0.16 to $33.85, Research, Estimates), argues that India isn't the only country with significant technology outsourcing capabilities. "We've advised our clients not to put all their eggs in one basket," he says.

Since Sept. 11, many companies have been working to formalize their contingency-planning procedures. The India/Pakistan situation may provide an opportunity to put those plans to the test. Yet it's unclear to what extent the plans were designed to cope with the potential threat of nuclear war. "If the two countries start launching nuclear missiles," says the spokesperson of one Indian-based outsourcing specialist, "God help us."

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