HIDDEN IN THE North Korea’s communist military regime’s audacity is the grim message of the old world order falling apart and the emergence of a new global configuration in which countries can wantonly overstep the agreed lines of transgression. In the queue next is Iran. And, if Iran, too, finally goes the North Korean way, it would be a further affirmation of the weakening strings of the American control mechanisms.  

 

For the votaries of the anti-US hegemony, this erosion in the American authority of being the post-cold war world’s conscience-keeper might be assuaging, but it underscores the dangerous trend of the world going increasingly amok, with no power — single or collective — in a position to safeguard global interests and contain the unbridled ambitions of countries.

 

The usurped United Nations — which world citizens have discovered in many instances — can do little to reverse the situation and enforce the collective global will to safeguard world interests. So there is now a perilous world circus in which I-will-do-as-I-wish act goes unchecked in the absence of a credible ringmaster.

 

Each country is driven its own self-preservation logic to get the forbidden weapon. The initial nuclear league of five nations, which got enlarged to seven with the inclusion of India and Pakistan, now has eight and looks set to add at least one more to make it an ominous nine. There would be today not a single country that does not aspire to get hold of this weapon of power that when unleashed has the potential to forever change the face of the earth.

 

The nuclear test by N Korea is dreadful not only because an economically crippled country has turned nuclear, but also because it underlines the absence of a stopping force. We all know what this can lead to. If the US has come to this pass where its edicts are flouted by the hitherto reckoned small fires, it can only blame itself. To be a moral guardian of the world, it should have looked beyond its sole guiding mantra of “American interest”. Had it been guided by “world interest” perhaps it would have stopped North Korea from turning nuclear. It’s time for the US to wake up and the world to realize the grave nuclear course it is on.

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