IT may be useful to reiterate who the Taliban are and what they do. First, they are uncompromising adherents of a puritanical version of Islam that has been made even stricter by their own native tradition. Second, they are warriors whose inclination to fight has been hardened by their ideological zeal. Third, they are a hierarchically organized and internally disciplined group. Fourth, some of them occupy positions in a government that controls more than ninety per cent of Afghanistan’s territory.

Still others may be teachers, prayer leaders, small farmers, grocers, and herders of sheep and goat. The “activists” among them may not number much more than a couple of hundred thousand in a population of some ten million still living in the areas they control. There are some Afghans who are sympathetic to the Taliban, others who have no strong feelings about them one way or the other, and still others who are hostile but silent.

Governments of the United States, Britain, Pakistan and numerous other countries have been speaking of a “post-Taliban” government in Afghanistan. They expect the Taliban regime to be thrown out. And this not only because it refuses to surrender Osama bin Laden and his associates to the United States. Even if it were persuaded to meet this demand, the current war in Afghanistan would not stop. The inclination of the United States and its allies, unless thwarted by circumstances beyond their endurance, will be to continue the war until they have driven the Taliban out of power because their regime, by its very nature, is repugnant to their ways and values.

How will the Taliban’s overthrow be accomplished? Will bombing of their offices, military camps and installations, training centres, police barracks, utilities, and such roads and bridges as still exist cripple them to an extent that their regime simply melts away? Bombing alone has not produced that kind of a result in any other place — not in North Vietnam, Laos, Iraq or, more recently, any territory in the Balkans. Even in the case of tiny Grenada, American air strikes (during Mr Reagan’s presidency) had to be followed by landing of troops.

There is not much of industry and related modern infrastructure in Afghanistan that bombing can destroy. Nor can its tribal society be immobilized any more than it already is. Which army will then go in to dispossess and disband the Taliban after air strikes have wrought the damage they were capable of inflicting? It is well known that the Americans are most reluctant to see their young people get killed in foreign wars. They felt, for instance, that it was the Europeans’ obligation to do the fighting on land in Bosnia and Serbia. Even if a little less reluctant, the British too would like it much better if others, meaning people from the neighbourhood, did the actual fighting in Afghanistan with overall Anglo-American aid and direction.

Which states or forces within the region are candidates for such a role? Considering its location, knowledge of the area and its people, and military capability, Pakistan would be the most suitable player of this role from the standpoint of America’s short-term goals. But considering its well-known relationship with the Taliban, substantial pro-Taliban sentiment within the country, and fairly widespread scepticism about America’s deeper design with regard to Afghanistan and the rest of the Muslim world, Pakistan is precluded from accepting this mission. In spite of its antipathy towards the Taliban, Iran will also reject this role because its relations with the United States are in a bad way.

Uzbekistan has provided, and other Central Asian republics have offered, “logistical” support to the United States. But the prospect of their troops entering, and presumably occupying, Afghan territory cannot be welcome, for any inroads they make might reopen the door to Russian presence and influence in Afghanistan. That leaves the Northern Alliance many of whose warlords, according to Robert Fisk of The Independent, London are gangsters, torturers, rapists, and murderers, in addition to being terrorists.

Will America take them as its allies or even as suppliers of a few thousand indifferently trained “foot soldiers” and, if it does, will it be able to control them? Indications are that it will accept them. That their dependence upon American money and weapons will make them amenable to American direction is problematic. We know from America’s own previous experience that providers of aid cannot always control the recipients’ actions. We will have to wait to see what happens in this regard.

The Northern Alliance cannot provide the requisite number of “foot soldiers” to defeat the Taliban. The United States and Britain will have to deploy their own troops, and keep them in Afghanistan for quite some time, if they are to bring their operation to a successful conclusion. Taliban spokesmen have said that in case they had to abandon formal ruling authority, they would retire to the mountains and continue to wage war against their enemies.

This option is viable to the extent that the tribes living in the mountains are receptive to the Taliban. It depends also on the continued availability of essential supplies — food, fuel, vehicles and weapons, spare parts, and ammunition. If their sources of supply dry up, the Taliban may pretty much have to halt their struggle or postpone it to a more propitious time. In any case, the American campaign to cleanse Afghanistan of Islamic militants is likely to be long and hard.

What happens if and when the Taliban vacate their seats in government offices and depart for undisclosed destinations? Pakistan, Britain, America and others say that there will then be a “broad-based” government in Afghanistan, meaning a government in which all ethnic groups are represented, presumably each according to its proportion in the population. It is being said also that the successor political system will be democratic, and it may even include “moderate Taliban” (assuming that these two designations are not mutually exclusive). Before considering these expectations further, a critical fact about Afghanistan should be noted, to wit, that it is for the most part a tribal society. In no such society does the writ of a central authority reach tribes that are nomadic, moving from place to place in search of pasture as the seasons change.

Afghan tribes that are not nomadic but sedentary live in isolated mountain villages beyond the reach of motor vehicles and modern devices of communication such as telephones. For many practical purposes, they are necessarily self-governing. It should then be understood that the rule of any government that replaces the Taliban will not extend much beyond towns and farming villages that are connected to them by road.

Who will bring this broad-based post-Taliban government into being? The United States, as an occupying power, did devise a new political system for Japan and, with some assistance from its allies, it did the same for Germany. Both Japan and Germany were industrialized, urban, and modern societies with abundant inventiveness to operate and even fortify their new political systems. Neither the Americans nor the present generation of British officials have had any experience of building political systems that would work in tribal societies.

Any new government in Afghanistan must be one that its people and/or notables are capable of operating. It follows also that Afghan notables must bear the principal responsibility for identifying the specifics as well as the underlying principles of this government. The role of the United States, Britain, Pakistan and any others that may get involved — preferably under the auspices of the United Nations — should consist mainly of bringing and keeping the various politically relevant Afghan groups together to undertake this work. Inducing these groups, some of them mutually antagonistic, to work together will be no mean task.

Even if all of this happens the way it is being envisaged, how will the war against terrorism have fared? Until the Taliban bestowed not only hospitality but honour upon Mr Osama bin Laden a few years ago, Afghanistan was not especially known for harbouring terrorists. Once the Taliban have been driven out of power, the country’s connection with terrorism will surely weaken and eventually break. This raises an intriguing question: once out of power, what will the Taliban do? Fighting is just about the only thing many of them know how to do. But as mentioned above, some of them are said to be “moderate,” meaning that while they are reasonably good Muslims (like many of the rest of us), they are not overzealous crusaders.

For them soldiering was just a job, and if they cannot be soldiers any more, they will try to enter other occupations. The non-Afghans (e.g., Arabs) among the Taliban will probably be expelled. The “hardliners” may enter Pakistan, and those who remain behind will probably be suppressed if they do not mellow with time. They may indeed mellow as revolutionaries in other times and places have done. The ones who come to Pakistan will not learn ways of moderation until their Pakistani mentors (Qazi Husain Ahmad, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Maulana Noorani and other similar dignitaries) have been persuaded to adopt these ways.

One last point. We want considerable participation in the refashioning of the Afghan political system. A problem in this connection should be noted. Our alignment with the United States has surely alienated the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance denounces us in no uncertain terms. Where then is our constituency? Unless we can ingratiate ourselves with such Afghan tribal chiefs as may be more pragmatic than fundamentalist, or unless we have quietly offered the United States services beyond the ones made public, expectations of a major role in any Afghan political restructuring are no more than pipe dreams.

HERBLOCK is dead at the age of 91 which is no satisfaction to the man who hated him the most — Richard Nixon — because he is dead too, the old adage about nobody getting out of it alive having once again come true.

Herblock was the editorial cartoonist of the ‘Washington Post’ and he was boss. The rule at the newspaper was the same that you see on some cars registered in Texas (Don’t mess with Texas), namely, ‘Don’t mess with Herb.’

If he was to be described as among the last of the great American liberals, it would be an accurate description. Even if he had done nothing except draw Nixon, he would have earned his place in the niche God surely keeps aside in heaven for liberals. He saw through Nixon before anyone else.

Nixon was returned to the US House of Representatives in 1946. During the campaign, he called his opponent, a Democrat, a communist, which he wasn’t. In fact, after the election was over and Nixon had won, he told an aide of the defeated man that though he knew all along that he was not a communist, he used the damaging epithet because he had to win.

On arriving in Washington, Nixon joined the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) from where he launched his political career. The very name of the committee was an outrage, implying, as it did, that there were certain Americans who followed “un-American” ways and were, therefore, not only outside the body politic but were possibly traitors, until established otherwise. The first man Nixon targeted was former State Department official Alger Hiss for spying for the Soviet Union. Though Hiss was ultimately convicted for perjury, the charge that he had spied for the Soviets was never conclusively proved. However, it unleashed an anti-communist witch-hunt that came to be known as McCarthyism after the Wisconsin senator who initiated a long series of congressional hearings on “un-American” activities.

Long before Nixon came to Washington, Herblock had chosen what side he was on and begun to run cartoons showing contempt for the committee and its philosophy. This was no easy thing to do because anyone could be called a communist and paraded before the committee in full view of the press and television cameras. Many innocent people were thus destroyed. Some left the country; others never worked again, especially in Hollywood. It is no small wonder that Herblock was not summoned by the committee to prove that he was not a communist.

Herblock who hated the HUAC had nothing but contempt for a politician like Nixon who had decided to build his career on the popular prejudice of the time. He published his first Nixon cartoon in 1948 showing him and two of his companions dressed as Puritans making a fire under a chained Statue of Liberty. The caption - Herblock wrote his own captions - said, “We’ve got to burn the evil spirits out of Her.”

In 1950, Nixon came to the US Senate after defeating a woman, Helen Douglas, whom he persistently called ‘pink lady’, the slur being that she was a crypto communist. Two years later in 1952, Nixon was elected vice-president under Eisenhower. While the ‘Washington Post’ supported Eisenhower for President, Herblock, its editorial cartoonist, supported the general’s rival, the great intellectual liberal, Adlai Stevenson. It is a tribute to the newspaper that it let its cartoonist draw according to his conscience. One can’t imagine that happening in many other places, certainly not in Pakistan.

The Nixon cartoon that everyone remembers was the one published in 1954 which showed him climbing out of a sewer to address a rally of supporters. In 1968, Herblock published a cartoon in his paper which showed a barbershop with a sign running across the mirror saying, “ ‘ This shop gives every President of the United States a free shave.’ H. Block, Proprietor.” It reminded me of Saadat Hasan Manto’s reply to a woman correspondent who had charged him with obscene writing, “In my reform house, I keep no combs, curlers or shampoos because I do not know how to apply make-up on people. If Agha Hashr was cross-eyed, I have no device with which I can straighten his crooked eye.” Manto would have liked Herblock.

Of the sewer cartoon, Herblock wrote that he had drawn it because Nixon was conducting a “mud-slinging, Red-smearing campaign against some of the most respected senators up for re-election and it occurred to me he was travelling the country by sewer. It described what he was doing.” For twenty years, Herblock drew Nixon with what is called a 5 o’clock shadow on his face which made him look both sinister and ugly. When Nixon took office as president, he told the wives of his cabinet members that they would have to get used to seeing Herblock cartoons in their morning paper.

Herblock drew some of his most savage cartoons during the Vietnam war. When Nixon was running for re-election in 1972, Herblock drew a cartoon which showed Nixon on the campaign trail holding a sign saying ‘election year plan to end the war’ while in the background could be seen a tombstone which said ‘20,000 Americans dead since 1968’. When at the height of the Watergate scandal, Nixon made his famous declaration ‘I am not a crook’, Herblock drew a cartoon that showed the president suspended precariously in the air while holding on to two spools of tape on which was inscribed the line ‘I am not a crook’.

Herblock never got used to Nixon even after he left office and increasingly grew in public and international esteem. He concluded a chapter on Nixon in his autobiography with a quote from Barry Goldwater, “He was the most dishonest individual I ever met in my life.”

When Einstein died, Herblock paid tribute to him by drawing the globe with a banner running across its girth saying ‘Albert Einstein lived here.’ When Stalin died he showed him being greeted by the Grim Reaper in person with the words, ‘You were always a great friend of mine, Joseph.’

Another memorable Herblock cartoon showed a worried Jimmy Carter standing next to a ‘communications repair’ man. A TV set showed a fuzzy image of the president with the caption saying ‘It comes out fuzzy’. In 1998, Herblock’s view of the Monica Lewinsky scandal was evident in a cartoon showing Bill Clinton dancing on a tightrope with a heavy book called ‘Budget’ poised on one finger while his other finger showed the dancing figure of a luscious young woman. The caption said ‘Balance’.

Herblock drew his last cartoon for the ‘Washington Post’ that he had joined in 1946, having been hired by Katherine Graham’s father, on 26 August 2001. The last lines in his autobiography sum up the man and the cartoonist. “There’s always a clean slate, a fresh sheet of paper, a waiting space, a chance to have another shot at it tomorrow. Tomorrow!”

Not a bad note on which to end the story of a remarkable life and an even more remarkable career in committed journalism.

AS US leaders and analysts keep stressing, the world has changed since September 11. The sole superpower realized its vulnerability, after the trauma caused by the terrorist outrage against symbols of its power and prestige on that day. It has launched a war against terrorism, with operations concentrated against Afghanistan, the poorest and most devastated state in the world today.

The world is daily witnessing the incredible spectacle of the most advanced weaponry being used against a land that suffered depredations, killings, and dislocation for over two decades, reducing it, in the words of US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to a heap of rubble.

Considering that Osama bin Laden and his fellow organizers of the Al Qaeda group are enjoying the sanctuary of the Taliban, perhaps a resort to military force was to be expected after the Taliban failed to respond to diplomatic efforts by Pakistan to hand him over for trial.

However, the US had come to the conclusion earlier that the Taliban regime was not conducive to stability in the region.

When an alternative political dispensation has been established, or in the unlikely event of the Taliban deciding to respond to the UN demand that Osama be handed over, the US will not walk away as it did in 1989 after the pullout of the Soviet troops.

At his press conference on October 11, President Bush conceded that the earlier decision had been a mistake and that “we will not leave after the military objective has been achieved.”

The economic reconstruction of war-ravaged Afghanistan is going to be the first objective of an American presence in Afghanistan.

However, there is a long-term strategic and economic interest for Washington in the stabilization of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, because of the fact that the largest reserves of oil and gas outside the Gulf region are found there. After investing the military effort into its objectives, the United States would like to promote conditions under which not only is the Afghan economy rehabilitated, which would be the most effective deterrent to religious extremism, but also the resources of the vast landlocked region can be developed.

In a manner, this objective would be best achieved through regional cooperation of the kind visualized by ECO, so that Iran might also be involved, with a role for Pakistan in the provision of transit facilities. This kind of role for the US is being seen by American analysts as indicating the transformation of the perspective of President Bush, from a unilateralist approach to a multilateralist one.

Former US diplomat, Anthony Lewis, writing in The New York Times of October 13, pointed out that “in one traumatic month, President Bush’s view of America and the world has been transformed.”

He has already shown concern for the sensitivities of the Europeans, Arab states and Pakistan in his anti-terrorist campaign “Demonizing” China as a potential enemy has dis-appeared in response to the need to enlist Beijing’s support for the alliance against terrorism.

Mr Bush, who considered the US involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the Clinton administration to be excessive, has now come out openly in favour of a Palestinian state.

He put strong pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to broker a cease-fire after he went on a rampage against the Palestinians. There is little doubt that he will be ready for a major diplomatic role to resolve this problem, and has encouraged British Prime Minister Tony Blair to help revive the stalled Middle East peace process.

The visit of Secretary of State Colin Powell to Pakistan and India is a significant development in relation to the US desire to lessen tensions between the two traditionally hostile neighbours. India has been showing signs of taking advantage of the implications for Pakistan of the US-led anti-terrorist attack on Afghanistan.

Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and Interior Minister Advani have been threatening to move against “terrorists” operating from Pakistan in Kashmir.

Even US Ambassador in New Delhi Blackwell has stated that no distinction will be made in moving against “terrorist” groups in Kashmir and those operating elsewhere. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement before his departure for South Asia that Kashmir would figure during his talks with the leaders of the two countries also suggests America’s US readiness to play an active role in promoting a settlement in Kashmir.

While President Bush is showing welcome signs of adjusting US policies to the new situation, some of his colleagues are still sticking to the unilateralist decision-making pattern. Deputy Defence Secretary Wolfowitz still talks of attacking Iraq, ignoring the prevailing sentiment in the Arab and the Muslim countries. There is already soul-searching in America as to why thee is so much anti-American sentiment in the world.

When a country is rich and powerful, that itself generates resentment. If the leaders of that country behave with arrogance, that compounds the problem. It is worth recalling that the problem existed even a generation ago when Senator Fullbright wrote his celebrated book “The Arrogance of Power.”

The expression “ugly American” provided the title of another best-seller. An adjunct to the new multilateralist approach adopted by the Bush administration has been provided by a British scholar who has come up with the idea of creating an international tribunal to try Osama bin Laden and his associates.

The US insistence on such a trial being conducted by its own courts has not gained the acceptance that would be accorded to a broad-based tribunal with several eminent judges from all over the world, and with a US judge and an Islamic jurist as so-chairmen.

Barely less than a month and half have passed since the terrorist attacks of September 11 and already the United States is showing signs of adjusting to the drastically changed global scenario.

The process will take time, but the “New World” is a reality, and the United States commitment to relentlessly pursue terrorists wherever they are demands fundamental changes in its behaviour if it is to exercise leadership of the global coalition against terrorism.

Apart from the need to consult other members of the coalition from time to time, there is the imperative necessity to utilize America’s enormous military, political and economic strength to promote a just international order.

The elder Bush had talked about a “New World order” on the eve of the Gulf War of 1991, but had reverted to arrogant hegemonic ways thereafter. One hopes his son will be more steadfast in pursuing policies aimed at eliminating terrorism from the world.

It is important, however, that he deals with the roots of terrorism rather than be concerned only with the terrorist manifestations of frustration and despair.

Political disputes, affecting the rights of large populations, need to be addressed, in all seriousness. These include Palestine and Kashmir, both of which are sources of great human suffering at the hands of powerful states that practise state terrorism.

Such political issues centre on specific regions of the world. However there is an economic divide affecting the whole world, between rich and poor countries, which is getting wider each year.

The US must provide leadership to carry out structural reforms designed to give the developing countries a fairer deal.

That the world ma witness resort to terrorism against the privileged minority could well become a reality if the reasons for agitation at each world economic moot are not addressed.

WHEN the use of mere pen-knives and box-cutters causes mass havoc and forces a major power to use cruise missiles and stealth bombers, the world’s stage alternates between tragedy and farce, between solemnity and absurdity.

The spectacle of the world’s leading military power target-bombing sites in one of the world’s most poverty-stricken countries has several dimensions of cause and effect. At this time, the dimension that stimulates reflection is the curious insecurity which afflicts certain states large in territory or population or resources — or in all three.

Since September 11, two big states in particular, the US and India, have demonstrated different facets of insecurity. In Washington, there is psychological insecurity. In New Delhi, there is, in addition, territorial apprehension.

For the US, there is understandable rage at the sheer audacity of the callously destructive attacks. They have spurred unprecedented doubts about America’s assumed impregnability. But the excessive concentration on attacking the symptoms of terrorism rather than its root causes is like crying “Wolf” when the real beast may lurk within one’s own soul.

In India’s case, the freedom struggle in Kashmir is misrepresented as terrorism by portraying the actions of some extremists as being the essence of the movement. It now wants to use the new global anti-terrorism wave of anger to crush the struggle for freedom. But the manner in which our neighbour desperately seeks a front-row seat in the global coalition by bad-mouthing Pakistan at every step makes its insecurity quite pathetic and laughable.

The asymmetry in the size of a big state in relation to its neighbours appears to breed paranoia in its policies instead of benevolence. Challenges of change are seen as threats to status and eminence. There is a reactive impulse to expand — or to dominate a region, or the world. Some elements in India want to recreate the myths of a Mahabharat that spans the space between Afghanistan and Indonesia. In the US, there is a sense of self-given duty to regulate the earth befitting its superior power status.

The track record of these two states shows a strong hegemonistic impulse. This aggressive streak is legitimized as a valid protection of a sphere of influence. But the more a big state seeks to extend its shadow, the more it stretches itself thin — to reflect its own inner insecurity. Size and scale may enlarge: they also enervate.

India swallowed large kingdoms such as Hyderabad (Deccan) and Kashmir as well as morsels like Junagadh and Manavador and tidbits like Sikkim and Goa. These ingestions were seen as inevitable rationalizations of identity to make India the only state in South Asia which continuously expanded its territory after independence in August 1947.

The US originated with continuous territorial expansion (at the expense of the Red Indians, Mexicans and Russians, by various means) to become a hemispheric entity that keeps other big states out of the region through its Monroe Doctrine. At a global level, the US applies a unipolar perspective.

Big states are rife with contradictions. They are apparently powerful, secure and self-assured. Yet some of these attributes are only fitfully real. Often, they are bluff and bluster. They camouflage inner guilt and inadequacies. History offers several examples of the mortality of “superpowers.” Post-mortems by historians reveal that flaws existed at the cores even as surfaces dazzled.

Some big states like India are prone to perpetual insecurity because of intrinsic pluralism: of cultures, languages, dialects and religious. Most large states in our contemporary world do not have long histories of thousands of years in which they have managed to contain their differences in a harmonious way. The factor of pluralism is like a latent but alive volcano which, if not held in check, threatens eruptive disintegration.

Despite being open and secular in its ‘American’ way of life, the US seems to deeply fear radicalism. It may be a material giant but remains a spiritual child. Hence, though without territorial vulnerability, America has a surprising fragility in its persona.

In some respects, countries of vast resources such as the US and India host dynamic diversity and enrich humanity with their contributions to art and science, to labour and to sport, to enterprise and to infrastructure. Their association with any constructive process makes endeavours substantive and significant. It is in their incapacity to manage their bulk in a geopolitical context that big states often become dangerous for other states in their respective regions, and across the world.

America’s creativity, freedom and energy gives it a natural eligibility to be a global power. Yet its reach clearly exceeds its grasp. Despite being perhaps the world’s most electronic media-intensive society, it is also one of the world’s most insular and ignorant societies, unaware of the basic nuances and truths that characterize many parts of the planet.

India has a greater sense of history and awareness of people worldwide than the US does. But when it comes to transforming this innate intellectual advantage into political sagacity, particularly in its own neighbourhood, India becomes big-headed, instead of being big-minded, or big-hearted.

Multilateralism and the building of collective, participative institutions in which big and small states are equal, do not to the priority list of big states. They feel more secure when they act unilaterally. The veto power of the Big Five in the UN Security Council is a vivid expression of the fact that big states act arbitrarily. They disregard the very same rule of law that they preach to others. The US’s UN membership dues remain unpaid for years on end. UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir are flouted by India for decades. The US kidnaps and imprisons Panama’s serving head of state. It also refuses to accept the verdict of the International Court of Justice concerning the violation by the US of Nicaragua’s sovereignty.

India sends its policemen without invitation into Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. There is kinship when one big state (India) wants the other (US) to declare “lists” of terrorist organizations, terrorist states and terrorist individuals.

To speak with complete conviction is an obligation of official spokesmen. But the manner in which the presidents and prime ministers of big states express their world view and justify their actions goes beyond self-righteousness to pomposity. They leave no room for reflection or for scepticism. Official articulation for big states or small states cannot be indecisive. But big states have a special penchant to convert mere assertion into insufferable arrogance.

After the dastardly attacks of September 11, a disturbingly simplistic proposition that ignores various complexities is sought to be imposed on all nations to the effect that “you are either with us — or against us.”

Small states pay the price for the insecurity of big states. This is why, particularly in South Asia, a medium-size state like Pakistan has a unique function to fulfil: we serve as the sole deterrent against India’s desire for dominance, a role which no other state in the region can fulfil. Not even Bangladesh, because of its virtually complete geographical encirclement by India.

Big states have duties and responsibilities commensurate with their size. Few fulfil their obligations. Like bad bullies, big states rarely take on states of their own, matching size. Perhaps there are not enough equally big states in the neighbourhood. But in an age when the whole world is a single global city or village, the big guys can come eyeball to eyeball as they did over the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

The ideal values of humanity and the elements of rationality demand that big states act with insight and restraint, with vision and wisdom. Now more than ever before, in an increasingly uncertain world, it is vitally necessary to strengthen collective institutions such as the UN. All nations must strive to move from the dangerous, volatile unipolarity of big states to the balancing moderation of multi-polarity for stable coexistence.

The writer is a former federal minister.