This Crisis in the Far East of Asia also underlines the larger issues that have been thrown up by uneven proliferation of atomic weapons that cannot be shelved. That this conference failed to resolve the contention between the US and North Koreans is a setback. But some ice breaking may have taken place between the two sides, even though the Chinese diplomacy will continue its hard work of getting the two to meet again for more jaw-jaw won if a satisfactory solution may continue to elude. Perhaps the Japanese-North Korean dispute over the abducted Japanese is relatively easier the solution to which may hold the key to the resolution of the bigger issue.

Talking of larger issues, greater significance attaches to the observations made by the IAEA Chief Mohammad al Baradei who, in an interview to a German newspaper, underscored the root cause of proliferation to be the total unwillingness of the US to cut its stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Instead, it is now embarking on new kinds of atomic weapons: development of low yield special purposes atomic weapons -- bunker busting and blasting deep underground military structures such as biological weapons factories -- and of new missiles, with weapons to fit them, for the new Missile Defence System.

These weapons will enhance the asymmetry around the globe. He noted: "then, a small number of privileged countries will be under a nuclear protective shield, with the rest of the world outside". Obviously the idea is based on double standards with which to judge atomic bombs: the US is in effect saying that the bombs that the US, UK, France, Israel, China and Russia possess are kosher; all the rest of them are evil. If the rest of the world is angered by this self-serving dual standards, it is justified. What is the logic behind the US conduct -- that is set on a still greater build up of new atomic stockpiles? Why should the rest of the world stay non-nuclear? Quite naturally whoever wanted to make nuclear weapons has done so, as India and Pakistan have built their own and some others look likely to proliferate soon. North Korea, for instance, says it is forced to build a deterrent because of the US actions, especially its cancelling of the 1994 agreement.

That the US is determined to build many more smaller new nuclear weapons (of low yield, more suited to the requirements of the battlefield) is now a given. American intention of using them on actual battlefields is plain. It is crossing a rubicon that NPT seemed to have prohibited. This development is sure to be condemned round the globe. But more importantly, this is sure to become a powerful incentive for others to go in for the same genre of weapons.

The world needs less nuclear weapons rather than more. The US, despite all the brouhaha about its reducing the huge number of aging strategic weapons, is actually breaking new grounds. By any definition it would be proliferation of atomic weapons. Ironically, the same US is promoting non-proliferation of all MDWs (mass destruction weapons). Moreover, it is ignoring, indeed violating, the best provision in the NPT that visualises total destruction of nuclear weapons from the armouries of all states; the US commitment to that aim is clear, though a date for doing so was not given. In the last UN Conference on Non-Proliferation (2000), the US had reaffirmed its commitment to a wholly Nuclear Weapons Free world.

The US is certainly a hyper power. It has no rival in military strength. Its economy is a quarter of the whole world's. It has the most effective and up-dated nuclear deterrent. All the fine things about a Nuclear Weapons Free World run smack into the contrary fact that it refuses to give any approximate timeframe or even conditions under which it will do so. It is engaged in an open-ended War on Terror. Some of its current policies also require critical notice. It is determined not to allow any other state to surpass it either in the military or economic sphere. It reserves the right to intervene wherever it feels necessary. It feels it has the right to militarily invade preemptively -- before the concerned state has committed an act injurious to the US interests. Conditions in which it is likely to intervene are promotion of terrorism or protection of terrorists or having just the wrong geography, such as was the case with Iraq and may now be in the case of Iran, Syria or any other place the US chooses. In terms of geopolitics, the US is embarked on creating a New World Order that is dominated by itself. This Order has all the characteristics of a global empire minus colonisation -- though in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq extended stay is not defined as colonisation.

Let's look at its intent to proliferate and to enter new spheres: Some of its historic allies, such as Britain and France, are sure to follow suit. What would be the Chinese reaction? It is impossible to ignore that respectable rightwing columnists in mainstream American press are advising Japan to go nuclear. That is their reaction to the threat supposedly posed by North Korea. Knowing such columnists' linkages, one concludes that they reflect the Bush Administration's desires. They do not appear to mind an unending process of atomic weapons building throughout East Asia. The possibilities inherent in it are nightmarish. This advice comes from a power that is supposed to be committed to the goal of a Nuclear Weapons Free World.

Such huge gaps in logic apparently do not trouble the American government. It is not wild anti-Americanism to suggest that the US actually wants proliferation of the Weapons of Mass Destruction -- in cases where it thinks its interests are served by proliferation. Israel and Japan are now cases in point. It is a different matter that the Japanese may finally decide not to do as the Americans apparently wish them to. But official America's predilection is however clear. Time was when South Asia was not in such news. The standard Indian argument in leading the global anti-nuclear brigade used to be that the major powers cannot continue to build mountains of atomic weapons and expect others not to follow suit. By now the Indians themselves have proliferated. And so has Pakistan. Meantime there are others who are said to be some time away from becoming nuclear weapons powers.

By what logic can the Americans lecture the Indians and the Pakistanis or anyone else about the perils of proliferation? Nobody believes a word of such sermons; all act on their own perceived interests. This is not the place to argue for or against Indian or Pakistani nuclear programmes. One condemns MDWs everywhere, including in India and Pakistan. But how can the world remain calm and composed when these two known atomic powers threaten to nuke each other despite the populous nature of their countries? The India-Pakistan nuclear standoff has not gone away by the return of the soldiers from the borders. The putative normalisation is proceeding at a snail's pace while the latest trends appear to point to regression. The Indians and the Pakistanis have masterfully created a problem for the world it cannot solve.

While we in South Asia need a strong anti-nuclear movement, the world requires to refresh its memories of the cold war days. In earlier years of the cold war and right down to 1980s the threat came from the needless truculence of the American and Soviet governments. The chances of an actual vaporisation of large areas in Europe and America were actually not half as great as now in South Asia or Northeast Asia tomorrow. But the possibility was there. That alone elicited a big peace movement. The new proliferation that impends calls for even greater vigilance on the part of peace-loving mankind because what is desired is battlefield weapons and some semi-nuclear ones (DU bullets) are already in use.

The new proliferation would not remain confined to a few powers; small and low yield weapons will be attractive to all; many states will go for it almost compulsively. All proliferators will need to be dissuaded by far more intense peace movement all round the globe, especially in South, Far East and Northeast Asia. Unless the peace movement is pursued with vigour, the trend may not remain containable. Here the people of America have a larger responsibility in telling their governments what is not on.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.