Singapore is bracing for an invasion on December 9 when the 5,000 delegates from 150 countries of the World Trade Organisation descend on the small island. What all the participants are hoping to avoid is a battle, and after months of real concern about the prospects for the meeting, there are now hopes for peace and progress in some, if not all, potential areas for conflict.
For most of this year there have been warlike rumblings from powerful countries and blocs which seemed to be entrenching themselves into opposing positions ahead of the first summit of the WTO.
On one side: the United States, which has been pushing to widen the agenda at the Singapore summit to include such issues as labour conditions, corruption and more open investment. On the other: much of Asia, where there is deep suspicion of Washington's growing readiness to wield the trade weapon in what many believe are political situations.
Its attacks on China, Japan and, those who trade with Cuba are seen as blunt and inappropriate instruments.
Fears abound that widening the range of the WTO will simply serve to give the US more opportunities to pursue its own interests at the expense of other nations.
Collectively, and individually, the US has been warned by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that it should stick to the business at hand in December - tidying the loose ends of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - the predecessor to the WTO - and looking at ways for the new body to further the principle of free trade.
The willingness of the US to play the lone hand, and its use and threatened use of the Super 301 weapon to penalise those it found guilty of blocking trade - added to its apparent distrust of the WTO processes - have been seen as a potent threat.
