ADELAIDE, Nov 2: The world has already entered the next global conflict but it is very different to the world wars of the past, a US expert told a conference here Tuesday.

Retired US Army colonel John Alexander also said he disagreed with the assessment of his commander in chief, President George W Bush, that the world was a safer place because of the US-led war on terrorism.

"We're used to war, nation state on nation state," Alexander told the second International Policing Conference.

"But now we have non-state actors that approach the power of nation states: the concept of what is now known as the super-empowered individual, a person like (Osama) bin Laden and the influence that he can wield around the world."

Alexander, an expert on the use of non-lethal weapons and an adviser to the US Special Operations Command, said the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, was a defining moment in the history of the United States and the world.

He said terrorism had already come to the US mainland but never with such devastation and loss of life.

That attack served to wake the "sleeping giant" just as the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor had done during World War II. But Alexander said he did not agree that the world was a safer place after the US-led response.

"I must humbly disagree with my commander in chief because I do not believe the world is a safer place today than it was a few years ago," Alexander said.

"Rather, we have entered a dark, dangerous and foreboding path, one from which the outcome is unclear. "But this is not just America's struggle. Terrorists have struck at nearly every corner of the world and several attacks have targeted Australians specifically.

"It is the free people of the world and many nations who must now respond and say, never again."-AFP