War on terrorism will alter strategies and use of force

AMERICA'S NEW war on terrorism will bring important changes to the way the country conducts its foreign policy, short term and long term.

Its approach will become both more collegial, with greater emphasis on global alliances whenever possible, and more assertive - going it alone, including with force, if joint action seems unlikely or ineffective.

This will require major changes in military operations and intelligence gathering, with tactics revised to meet the transnational security threats demonstrated with such destructive force in New York and Washington on Tuesday. Many nations will welcome this, whenever it gives real hope for tangible results about shared problems, such as terrorism and global crime.

But some will not. If the United States meets equivocation when seeking co-operation on what it considers crucial issues, Washington might act alone in intrusive ways. At times, this means other governments must make a cruel choice between co-operation they find difficult to accept for internal reasons and the risk of tangible harm if they let the US act alone. Just now, Pakistan faces that dilemma.

Over time, this shift of emphasis should cause the US to pay more sustained attention to the fundamental causes of some modern threats. For example, much terrorism flows from the endless war between Arabs and Israelis about how to divide the former Palestine. After a nearly successful peacemaking effort collapsed last year at Camp David, the new administration of George W. Bush stepped back, in the hope the parties would come to their senses.

They have not, and this continues to breed trouble across the Middle East. Eventually, the US will have to re-engage in an assertive manner to curtail additional future exports of that region's violent ways. It will not try to impose peace terms for the sake of pacifying terrorists, but it will make clear to all sides that the world can no longer afford to let the region's self-centred battles continue.