Triumphant eagle keeps one eye open

Secure after Cold War victory and fat on the fruits of unprecedented economic growth, the great American eagle still sleeps with one eye open.

Just as the ancient Chinese warrior Sun Tzu warned 2,500 years ago that in times of peace, great states must prepare for war, so too the United States is entering the new century rich and strong, but keen to defend itself against any emerging superpower - ideological, territorial or economic.

Republican Party presidential contenders talk of the need to boost the morale and budget of the US armed forces - now by far the most powerful military left, one whose aircraft carriers and submarines still ply the world's oceans on Cold War-era deployments.

Democratic President Bill Clinton, meanwhile, is using the dawn of a new century to warn of new 'organised forces of destruction' using biological and chemical weapons.

'People carry these little pads around now, you've got these gadgets you can use as a telephone or a typewriter, and do e-mail and all that . . . The same miniaturisation will apply to biological and chemical weapons,' Mr Clinton said.

'We've just got to be ready. There will always be bad guys out there in the world.' Mr Clinton also counselled his nation that, in the decades ahead, it would have to learn to co-exist with the growth of rival economic powers that will challenge the supremacy of the dollar.