The New Bad Boys on the International Block Are Yesterday’s Heroes : Policy: As the balance of power shifts, once-prominent politicians who now face marginalization desperately lash out to stay in the game.

The turmoil from Moscow to Mogadishu during the past week exhibits a common thread, even a predictable pattern. Behind the varied flash points, a host of political figures otherwise far afield--from Ruslan I. Khasbulatov and Alexander V. Rutskoi in Russia to Somalia’s Mohammed Farah Aidid, from Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi in South Africa to Angola’s Jonas Savimbi--share a similar motive.

Worldwide, the devolution of power, the realignment of priorities and the opening up of politics and markets beyond traditional elites are not only upsetting dozens of local power structures, they’re also leaving behind leaders who fail to adapt or are excluded. And as the balance of power shifts, these once-prominent politicians facing marginalization are desperately lashing out to stay in the game.

Unfortunately, these remnants of the past are likely to be harbingers of the near future, at least through the current historic transition to new political and economic systems. They are the byproducts of change; they represent the price of political progress.

As was also brutally evident last week, they’ll increasingly constitute a major challenge to policy-makers in the post-Cold War world. They explain why the sorting-out process, locally and internationally, may be messier, more unstable and longer than anyone realized with the onset of global change in 1989.

Two years after the Soviet demise, Moscow’s White House, home to its Parliament, stands charred, an apt symbol of both the political and physical rebuilding required to make Russia’s democracy survive after die-hard communists challenged the pace and direction of change. Whatever the Clinton Administration claims for its new policy and military deployment in Mogadishu--the basis for reconstructing Somali society--both the United States and U.N. mission will still depend, short term, on the actions of a single warlord.

Rather than the interracial coexistence promised by the end of apartheid, South Africa is today the scene of intraracial strife bloodier than the violence of racial segregation, in large part due to the obstinacy of a traditional leader unwilling to forsake his Zulu tribal base.

Despite a formal cease-fire and the country’s first democratic elections last year, Angola’s civil war is also deadlier than ever because a nationalist leader refused to accept its results. An average of 1,000 die each day, according to U.N. figures, making Angola’s war the bloodiest in the world.

Although history is littered with discarded leaders, this round differs from the traditionally vanquished because the current crop of bad boys wasn’t always bad. Before they became outlaws, they were, more often than not, allies or acceptable alternatives.

In the not-too-distant past, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Rutskoi and Khasbulatov were part of the same communist regime. Savimbi, who now faces the prospect of a United Nations arms and oil embargo, was for more than a decade on the CIA payroll. For chasing out former President Siad Barre, one of Africa’s longest-serving dictators, Aidid was initially deemed a hero, at home and abroad. And Buthelezi was once the moderate black considered capable of bridging the racial gap.

To deal with the new spoilers, internal and international powers face four options: They can be bought off, converted, exiled or eliminated militarily.

Three of the four have serious limitations. Buying off the opposition often requires resources governments don’t have; it may also not be lasting. Simple exile that doesn’t involve political closure leaves open the possibility of a return and future disruptions.

Military defeat involves polarization that can linger in the political background and is best avoided. And elimination doesn’t automatically mean the problem will go away; leaders may be replaced by the next-in-charge.

In some cases, the spoilers, in effect, make the selection through their own actions. Once the Russian “partisans” used force to seize a Moscow television station after a prolonged holdout in Parliament, Yeltsin had grounds to rationalize some form of counterstrike. The same case can be made against Aidid, whose forces are held responsible for attacks, particularly on American and Pakistani U.N. forces.

Yet, while striking back may bring immediate gains, it can also simultaneously create complications, such as hostages, or longer-term problems, such as full-scale strife.

Military options also don’t easily eliminate the problems of the spoiler’s power bases. None of these men emerged in a vacuum. Each is backed by at least a minority, which often has disproportionate clout--and which is not necessarily maliciously motivated or inherently evil, even when they stand in the way of what is deemed to be progress.

Khasbulatov and Rutskoi probably had indirect support far beyond the partisans--not on ideological grounds, but because hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, have been alienated or impoverished by Russia’s democratization or scared by the use of tanks at Moscow’s Parliament. Aidid’s constituency in Mogadishu is probably limited to fewer than 100,000, but the principle of foreign forces attacking Somali clan leaders on Somali soil can draw temporary empathy from far more.

The most effective way to deal with the new spoilers and their constituencies is a two-pronged policy:

First, in cases where they refuse to convert or cooperate under either local or international pressure, isolate them.

In the case of Aidid, that could mean, for example, physically cordoning off his stronghold in southern Mogadishu. Economically, cut off access to the growing trade within the Somali capital and to humanitarian aid. Anyone wanting out has to agree to disarm, to participate in the rebuilding process and to obey the new ground rules. In other words, up the ante for supporting Aidid.

Politically, revive and help expedite the process of reconciliation, which has been stalled in Somalia for months, to strengthen other leaders. In other words, create alternatives.

This phase begins to switch the initiative, so that the game is no longer played by a spoiler’s rules or on his turf.

Second, after applying the stick, offer the carrot--specifically, incentives that will lead spoilers’ constituents to defect.

The goal of this “strategy of inclusion” is to offer sufficient enticement or opportunity that will draw parties into new systems rather than continue to allow them to confront from the outside.

To prevent another challenge slowing Russia’s democratization, for example, supporters of Khasbulatov and Rutskoi have to be brought into the process. Those alienated, fearful or excluded have to be coaxed or lured into the mainstream. The options include everything from encouraging their political participation, even if in opposition, and publicly acknowledging or considering their agendas to providing jobs. Often, merely acknowledging the opposition’s problems offers a face-saving device for them to begin switching sides or at least test the waters.

The first step is classic strategy with new twists. What’s really new--and more critical to the new democratic processes at stake--is the deliberate effort to bring opposition into the participatory process. The examples made in key places may even discourage potential spoilers from making the final grab for power.

But spoilers are virtually certain to account for other coming crises; any place now undergoing or about to face change is vulnerable. Not one but several spoilers could emerge from among Palestinians once allied with the Palestine Liberation Organization who are now opposing the accord with Israel.

The process may involve some political discomfort, much as Israeli and Palestinian leaders felt about dealing with longstanding nemeses. But as the post-Cold War world is too slowly learning, exclusion merely creates adversaries and deepens the gap. And then rough, even bloody transitions last even longer.