News ANALYSIS : Less-Polarized World May Emerge From Gulf Crisis : The future: It may decide direction of the arms race and international response to state-sponsored terrorism.

WASHINGTON — As the first global crisis of the post-Cold War era, the confrontation in the Persian Gulf could have an enormous impact on some of the world’s most critical issues--many of them unrelated to the immediate goals of defending Saudi Arabia and restoring Kuwaiti sovereignty.

The issues at stake range from the future direction of the world arms race, especially for deadly chemical weapons, to the framework of a new world order and an international response to state-sponsored terrorism.

The potential link between the gulf crisis and the quest for a new, less polarized world order--which began with the revolution in Eastern Europe last year--was dramatically symbolized by the U.N. Security Council’s historic resolution Saturday to enforce its embargo against Iraq with military force if necessary.

That vote, which unified the United States, France and Britain with the Soviet Union and China, set a precedent that is as important for the future as it is for the current crisis. It established a mechanism for international cooperation on collective security.

After a week of balking, the Soviet Union reversed its opposition to the use of force because, among other things, it sees a stronger United Nations as an instrument for global security and a constraint on unilateral military adventures--at a time its own ability to counter aggression is limited. And China, rather than abstaining as was expected, also supported the resolution.

But the U.N. vote did more than bring together the Cold War antagonists whose rivalry divided the world into hostile ideological blocs for almost half a century. It also demonstrated that the superpowers and their major allies are not the only ones interested in developing a system for collective security.

The nonaligned nations in the Security Council, some of whom had stubbornly held out against sanctioning the use of force until the wee hours of Saturday morning, in the end abstained or gave their assent as well.

In effect, the divisions that defined the Cold War period--the socialist East versus the democratic West, the industrialized North versus the underdeveloped South--have begun to be reshaped.

“This is a momentous day that will go down in history,” said Augustus Richard Norton, a senior research fellow at the International Peace Academy in New York. “This is the first time ever that we’ve had a genuine consensus in the U.N. to invoke the military enforcement measures. This has never happened before.”

The Security Council only twice before in its history endorsed the use of force.

But the first time, after North Korea’s 1950 invasion of South Korea, the Soviets had walked out of the Security Council before the vote, and China was then represented by the government of Taiwan not Beijing. The second resolution, against Rhodesia’s 1965 unilateral declaration of independence from Britain, provided for no military force.

“From one perspective, the crisis of the gulf is secondary to the establishment of an effective mechanism with which to cope with other crises in the years ahead,” Norton said.

Several U.S. analysts cautioned against over-optimism. The gulf crisis centers on an oil-rich country--and beyond that on basic energy costs--important to the industrialized and developing worlds alike, and on a dictatorial regime dependent on food imports for survival.

“Everyone will say the United Nations works. But this is not some halcyon new age for the United Nations. It will only work when the five (permanent members) agree,” said Mark Lowenthal, senior foreign policy specialist at the Congressional Research Service.

“It’s an unusual combination of circumstances that may not repeat itself too often in the future,” added a State Department official.

And the abstention of two nations--Cuba and Yemen, the only Arab member of the Security Council--indicates the tenuousness of the Third World vote.

Moreover, while the resolution could have a far-ranging impact in protecting small or vulnerable nations by serving as a deterrent to future aggression, the reverse is also possible. “Small nations particularly may be wary of how this (precedent) might be used against them by bigger powers during some crisis down the road,” conceded a Bush Administration official.

The stunning unity displayed in five U.N. resolutions against Iraq--condemning the Aug. 2 invasion, imposing sanctions, nullifying Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait, demanding the release of detained foreigners, and permitting the use of force--also does not necessarily mean the dawn of peace.

“We’re not on the brink of a world government. We’re not on the brink of an age of world peace and stability. We’re not approaching any kind of peaceful millennium,” Norton said.

“To the contrary, the Iraqi aggression reminds us forcefully that the years ahead are going to be brutal and tough. But to the extent that we have an international organization to deal with the new challenges to world order, we can avoid facing international chaos and disaster. It teaches a lesson that there are limits to how avaricious a country can be.”

The principle of collective security could also have an impact on the arms race, as developing nations particularly feel less need to spend precious resources on weapons because “collective security” could offer an alternative shield.

But on the arms issue, U.S. analysts are less concerned about what happens at the United Nations than about the pattern of events in the Arabian sands, particularly the use of chemical weapons.

“What happens in the gulf will have an enormous impact on the future of chemical weapons,” said a U.S. specialist. “It will probably be the biggest factor in determining whether we finally get a treaty--or, conversely, whether the proliferation race accelerates.”

Although their scenarios differ, U.S. experts on chemical weapons generally agree that either a prolonged stalemate or the continued rule of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after a diplomatic resolution of the crisis would trigger a major arms race among countries that have so far resisted developing poison gases.

“Even those countries that don’t want them would feel they had to have a defensive capability, especially in the Middle East,” said the U.S. specialist. According to the CIA, 22 countries have or are developing chemical weapons.

In the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, Israel and Syria are known to have significant arsenals of poison gases already, and Libya has been developing a capability. None of the oil-rich nations in the Arabian peninsula are thought to have chemical weapons systems.

But if chemical weapons are used, U.S. analysts predict that there will be greater world interest in expediting the 40-nation Conference on Disarmament talks in Geneva that have been bogged down in large part by Third World nations’ concerns.

“The issue of chemical weapons has never really been in the forefront of public concern about disarmament,” said a U.S. specialist. “Most people focused on nukes and missiles and disarming the superpowers.”

“They understood that the Iran-Iraq war (during which Baghdad made repeated use of mustard and nerve gases) set a dangerous precedent. But most people took it as an isolated case far away. Now they care. We’ll finally have the world’s attention plus a sense of urgency that something’s got to be done,” the specialist added.

The future of state-sponsored terrorism may also be deeply affected by the gulf crisis. Dating back to the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, three U.S. presidents have been stymied by their inability to free kidnaped Americans without concessions or to respond to hijackings and suicide bombings. In both Iraq and Kuwait, thousands of hostages from several nations are being held and Baghdad has said they will not be freed until foreign forces withdraw from the Persian Gulf.