Ten years after end of Soviet Union,

US stands as sole superpower

Ten years after the Soviet Union sank into history, the United States has emerged as the sole global superpower, but one that seems unable to cope with the ghosts of the Cold War.

The August 19, 1991 coup that led to the collapse of the former Communist superpower "triggered an event that changed the world from a bipolar to a unipolar system," explained Michael McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But in spite of Russia's current clearly weakened economic state, the Pentagon believes the country remains a military rival, and it continues to point thousands of nuclear warheads in Russia's direction -- a position McFaul regards as "tragic."

"This is not a Communist regime seeking to undermine the US capitalist system the world over," he said. "It is tragic and ironic that a decade later we still have thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other."

At the same time, US President George W. Bush, who according to McFaul "never met a single Soviet citizen in his entire life," is trying hard to rewrite the rules of engagement with Moscow.

But so far, Washington has failed to convince Russian leader Vladimir Putin to move away from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that would free Bush to develop an anti-missile system.

Bush insists the ABM treaty is outdated and that the United States needs an updated defense system to defend itself from missile attacks from rogue states such as North Korea and Iraq.

"For him (Bush), the Cold War is a distant past," McFaul said.

Part of the problem, said McFaul, is that the United States has not yet decided what kind of superpower it wants to be.

Riding on a decade of technological and economic growth, the United States has set aside some 330 billion dollars, an increase of 10 percent for 2002, for its military and defense spending.

Washington still has some 6,000 warheads pointed at Russia -- although it has proposed to reduce this number -- and is intent on forging ahead with a controversial missile defense system.

At the same time, the Bush administration has taken a hands-off approach to many highly flammable global conflicts.

"To everyone else, the United States looks like a threat. How do you deal with one single global superpower that has not figured out how to be a benign superpower or an engaged one?"

It is ironic, said Ivo Daalder, a former adviser to previous president Bill Clinton who now works with the Brookings Institution, that the world's largest power feels vulnerable to attacks from smaller nations.

"I don't think there has been a country as powerful in the history of mankind," Daalder said. "Yet it seems to believe it is vulnerable."

Daalder added that in the Bush administration's "obsession" with developing a missile defense system, it was letting other issues drop by the wayside.

"We don't care anymore about Chechnya, press freedom (or) democracy in Russia," he stated.