Will stick-wielder turn global cop?

They say Washington has a special opportunity to use its influence to promote US principles and values, like democracy and human rights, but it cannot be, and does not want to be, involved everywhere.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said yesterday that Kosovo should not send the message that Washington was playing the role of world policeman. 8220;It should send the message that when there is evil and the possibility of getting rid of it, we should do so,8221; she said in a CNN interview.

8220;There are terrible things going on in other parts of the world and we should try what we can to makesure that those kinds of evils are either overturned or do not happen.8221;

8220;But we do not always have the same opportunities in each part of the world and the stakes are not always the same,8221; she said.

The 78-day air bombardment of Yugoslavia which ended yesterday without UN sanction, followed armed intervention by President Bill Clinton in Somalia, Haiti, Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Some critics fear the Kosovo conflict, in which the United States led its 18 NATO partners to war against a sovereign state, will erode the authority of the United Nations as a defender of smaller states8217; interests.

While a declared internationalist and vocal supporter ofthe United nations, Clinton has at the same time been willing to send off cruise missiles and bombers to scattered targets without a nod to international legality or support.

Washington8217;s ability to be a world cop is anyway limited.

An increased deployment of the US military around the world, coinciding with a reduction in troops andfacilities to reflect the end of the Cold War, has brought loud complaints from top generals about the forces being stretched too thin.

Russia, China and others have protested against the Kosovo operation.

A Voice Of Russia commentary from Moscow in May said: 8220;The world community will face a dismal future, for it is unclear which country will become NATO8217;s next victim and when.8221;

John Steinbrunner, a foreign policy analyst with the Brookings Institution, warned of the consequences of this 8220;display of unilateral initiative outside the bounds of international legal procedures.8221;

But other analysts dismissed such concerns, saying that far from being part of a pattern, Kosovo was a one-off operation.

8220;We went into this because there was a broad perception in Europe and the United States that there was a critical strategic interest,8221; said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

8220;That does not say anything about America wandering back intoSomalia or its equivalent,8221; he said. 8220;The next case that arises is almost certain to be different and it will be debated on its merits, not on the basis of what happened in Kosovo.8221;

He dismissed the concept of 8220;global policeman8221; as frequently applied to the United States by other countries, especially after the end of the cold war, when Washington began talking of constructing a 8220;new world order8221;.

8220;It assumes there is some international system the United States is going to enforce globally everywhere,8221; he said.

8220;The United States has never made that attempt. It8217;s not part of American doctrine. There is no serious debate in the United States about doing it. The question always in the United States is about commitments,8221; he added.

Washington still maintains a big military presence around the world but its national security focus has shifted in the last decade from the bipolar ideological struggle against Soviet influence to combating a disparate array of threats, including from 8220;rogue8221;states like North Korea and Iraq.

There was some hope in Washington that the Kosovo operation, with its awesome display of precise American air power, might have any affect on such threatening states.

8220;This conflict will deter anyone else from trying to duplicate what Milosevic did going into the next millennium,quot; said Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Steinbrunner was less convinced. 8220;It does not very easily relate to other situations around world. However if there are people inclined to act in roguish ways they presumably will have been slowed up.8221;