Comment: Old foes come in from the cold

So. The unilateralist itch which visited the Oval Office in recent months seems to have subsided under the balm of interdependence, as witnessed by the Nato summit last month.With the George and Vladimir hug at the end of it all, the planet decidedly entered a warmer era that holds much promise for Mr. and Mrs. Average everywhere, especially in Russia.

A process that a pragmatic Mikhail Gorbachev set in motion in 1985 with Ronald Reagan, has run its course and the former ideological rivals have truly come in from the cold.

Now we can leave such chilling acronyms as MAD (mutually assured destruction) behind us. It has certainly been a long, worrisome ride since Nikita Khrushchev's shoe banging at the UN in 1960 and John Kennedy's unblinking stare over the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Four decades later and a full half-century since the bipolar rivalry began, it's all over and, lo and behold, Reagan's 'evil empire' is now a junior partner in the West's favourite defence club.

The bread and butter benefit in this new equation will certainly be felt more in Russia. It was not a long-kept secret that the former Soviet Union, which grouped Russia and over a dozen nations now running free in the CIS, was only able to match the West's (read mostly U.S.) pace in the arms race by depriving a majority of its 260 million plus population basic creature comforts. What struck me most on a late nineties visit to Azerbaijan, for instance, was the extent of Soviet neglect.

To Vladimir Putin goes a grateful world's prize for adding his own weight to the process set in motion by Gorbachev. Thus, in a unipolar world, we will hopefully see the sole superpower trying to talk in softer tones to its friends and allies. While it will still carry a big stick, with Russia's compliance, that stick will be used as a deterrence against new foes in a different (more dangerous?) world.

Tomorrow's battle zone will decidedly have more to do with anticipation and prevention (deterrence too) of surprise attacks by the godfathers of terrorism, who could be driven by a clutch of religious and political persuasions. And preparations to face those battles will demand a new geopolitical strategy, already emerging with the expansion of Nato.

Some possible scenarios: Despite their objections last month, the Russians agree to let their other eager CIS neighbours join Nato, until in under a few years the coalition of like-minded nations in all of Europe, largely in terms of security, spread from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

This new security equation puts the U.S. in a sunnier frame of mind, making it do the decent thing by the Palestinians. The U.S. implements the two-nation policy, thereby giving its Arab allies a break by addressing the thorniest issue in the Arab World.

In the absence of countervailing Russian voices, south Asia continues to place its strategically vital ports, airports and other facilities at the disposal of the U.S.-Nato alliance, when needed. The U.S. and India move closer to each other in a more mature manner which takes nothing away from America's cosy relationship with Pakistan.

And so long as the focus of western attention remains the fight against terror, cooperation in all areas of military operations is a given. In this climate, China, still the regional power in Asia, is more than unwilling to throw any kind of spanner in the works, as it has more to gain than lose.

South America has long stood up to be counted, and Cuba stays on board the anti-terror train. In Africa, Libya is in a conciliatory mood. And most other nations stay lined up with the West in return for far more help in combating their poverty, and staying clear of any terrorist group's embrace.

Henry Kissinger, the first statesman of nuclear diplomacy, was known for his caution and pragmatism. An equally cautious fellow, Colin Powell, now occupies Kissinger's old office. All in all, Powell and some other players going out to bat for the West are known to be good at spotting the curve ball. So.