For many of us, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact which ended an era called 'Detente' or the Cold War in 1989, I believe, is still very fresh in our minds. Immediately after its collapse, George Bush Sr announced the emergence of a new world order which was vividly echoed by social theorist Francis Fukuyama as the hailing of liberal democracy which signals the end of history.

In short, liberal democracy would be the path assumed by all nations in the world as the only valid form of government that stands for the most basic right of human existence - freedom. And the United States would take the lead in this last chapter of Fukuyama's history.

A few years later, this fairy-tale story was challenged by a Harvard Professor, Samuel P Huntington, who came up with the idea of the clash of civilisations as the form of the new world order. In this world order, nations would be divided along civilisational lines and would fight out their interests along these lines. Huntington conveniently categorises these civilisations as the Christian West, the Confucian East and the Islamic bloc.

The recent tragedy of New York's World Trade Center was about to prove Huntington's theory correct, but quick measures by the present Bush administration have diverted it somehow.

It seems that our world is heading towards another new world order consisting of two networks, not blocs. These are the Intelligence and the Terrorists.

Wars would not be fought among nations, but they would be funded by them. Nations who are continuously sanctioned economically and politically by the US and her allies find it extremely hard to take on their opponents led by the US. So the game should be played with different rules: small-scale but effective, simple weapons, but deadly.

The WTC tragedy signals the start of this new ball game, the kind played by cats and mice. The players need not come from a single nation, so there would be no one nation to put the blame on. And that's the dilemma that the present US administration is facing. Who to blame? The Saudis?

It may be true that those involved in the attacks are mainly Saudi nationals, but that doesn't have to mean that Saudi Arabia is waging war on the US. So what kind of new world order are we into now?

Fukuyama and Huntington have been proven wrong. True, nation-states are becoming obsolete. It seems that this new world order is going to be delineated along networks, not nations or civilisations, thanks to computers and cell-phones.