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Keynote speech at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Honolulu at the conference on "The Asia-Pacific: A Region of Transitions" made by Minister for Economic Reform, Science and Technology and Deputy Minister for Policy Development and Implementation Milinda Moragoda on 5th November.

I plan to share with you now some thoughts on the role of the United States seen from the perspective of an Asian state of some 19 million souls - by world standards, one of medium size; one of the earliest in recent times to choose the path of free enterprise, which we did in 1977, after decades experimenting with planned economics; resource-poor, except for its people; and a country in which internal security has been severely shaken by fratricidal violence.

From every point of view, we are a country - to use the label of today, "in transition". In this delicate process, we may look for inspiration to an ancient and glorious past; but equally we search for guidance from those whose strengths and achievements are those of today. In particular, we look to the United States, where the high principles enshrined in its Constitution continue to shine forth as a beacon to the rest of the world.

As Margaret Thatcher once said:

"The modern world began in earnest on July 4th, 1776. That was the moment when rebellious colonists put pen to parchment and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour in defence of truths they held to be self-evident: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights... and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". Hence forth patriotism would not simply be the loyalty to the homeland, but a dedication to principles held to be both universal and permanent."

Today, the United States is the world's undisputed - and I dare to use the word - "hegemon", a descriptive term which it should welcome, categorically rejecting the negative connotation given to it in socialist political discourse. A 'hegemon' in the sense of the original Greek, meant "seeker", and eventually "guide" and "leader": the one who searches for the way, and in whose footsteps others may choose to follow. If the term implied a certain firmness, it did so advisedly. Firmness is, surely, an essential attribute of leadership, and rightly so; but, of course, it is not leadership's only attribute. Walter Lippman is quoted as saying:

"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him

in other men the conviction and the will to carry on."

I believe that what he said of the individual leader is equally true of a leading nation. Firmness is important, but firmness by itself cannot create an enduring legacy of commitment. To achieve that, it is necessary to make the effort - indeed to deploy time and other resources, to establish a level of mutual understanding between the leader, and those who follow: among the latter, we may hope, are many who will themselves one day emerge as leaders.

By co-incidence, I am addressing you on the 5th of November - a day remembered in the English-speaking world as one of both infamy and triumph. On this day, almost five centuries ago, on the 5th of November 1605, a terrorist conspiracy was foiled in the nick of time. Many of you who are both historians and experts in security, will recall that on that day, one Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding some 36 barrels of gun-powder that had been placed in the cellar below the palace of Westminster, and was about to blow the mother of parliaments to kingdom come. British spirit would, no doubt, have survived such destruction, but we cannot know what such a catastrophe might have meant for the development of parliamentary democracy, which Britain later transplanted to may parts of the world. Happily - at least for the prospective victims - betrayal by a co-conspirator enabled the plot to be foiled. Less happy was the fate of the conspirators: they were all hanged. As for Mr. Guy Fawkes, his was a particularly brutal execution; not only was he hanged - he was also drawn and quartered.

Many would be tempted to do the same to the modern, spiritual successors of Guy Fawkes around the world. But we need to remember that Fawkes was dealt with according to the law of his time, and that the era of such punishments is long gone. Today, equipped with modern tools, including electronic communication, we are in a position to be more subtle, and thereby at once more human, and more effective. We may have an impact on the causes of warped and lethal behaviour, and, being forewarned, act to prevent catastrophe.

There are many psychological links among the purveyors of terror down the ages, but it is likely that only a very few are driven by pathological hatreds or lust for power. Most are likely to have been duped into making some private anguish into a travesty of heroic martyrdom in a humanitarian cause.

We ought to bear in mind that not all within a violent group are motivated by some single captivating idea such as God, or country, or the people. Many, if not most, have drifted into their calling because of some real or imagined personal grievance or indignity, personal or family allegiance or simply from an exaggerated sense of failure in more traditional pursuits. The scatter-gun methods of dealing with the group may not, therefore, be the most efficient way.

While not discounting the value of trial and punishment according to law, we should recognise that today we have access to other efficient and lasting methods of moulding human behaviour, for example through education in the broadest sense of the term, through promoting travel and cross-border contacts, dissemination of information, and every other means of dispelling the prejudice that often generates suspicion and hatred and eventually a life without a future, intoxicated and dedicated to violence and terror.

In the application of such methods, the religions of all denominations have a significant role to play. The world's great religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity - still influence the great majority of humanity and the central message of all of them is the injunction to love God and to love your neighbour. But, paradoxically, the purveyors of terror also claim to act in God's name or the name of humanity, when carrying out their deadly plans. Then let the religious authorities unite in publicly denouncing this heresy, this aberration, and let the truly faithful know that such conduct can only lead to eternal damnation.

In a recent work, 'The Ideas that Conquered the World' Prof. Michael Mandelbaum places emphasis on three values: democracy, market economics and peace. These are the very values that the constitution of the United States seeks to protect, and the values which should be globalised, if organised violence and terror are to be controlled, if not banished for ever. As a world leader, wielding the widest influence of any single country, and with access to substantial resources, the United States is particularly well-placed to propagate those values. But when "globalisation" is mentioned, it is often a darker side of the process that is seen: the imposition of the values of a group of powerful, formerly imperial countries, that is designed to destroy the indigenous values of the rest of the world.

It is possible that the powerful today indeed feel that they are propagating "their" values, thus re-enforcing the perception of others, that those are alien values. But are they? Surely, on closer examination, these values are universal, indigenous by now, to all populations regardless of so-called cultural differences. Is there any country whose people would deny the value of democracy? Is good governance a western value? Could we say with conviction that bribery and deceit are the monopoly of the poor?

The values that the so-called "west", with the United States as the leader, seek to propagate, are in fact universal and often have their several origins in the countries of the so-called "east".

The world's religious philosophies, which are the vehicles, if not the foundations, of all ethical systems, came from what we know geographycally as "Asia".

In my opinion, preventive measures would be the most effective, and the least costly, of any that may be taken in defence of the security of the world's peoples; and among those measures would be that of deploying resources with the aim of bringing home to communities around the world the universality of the values often characterised as "western". Academic approaches to cultures are often fraught with subtle traps: some observers may try to cast the behaviour of the observed in terms of their own communities' patterns; others may emphasise differences between the observed culture and theirs. Similar traps await us in dealing at the political level.

A western country or west-dominated international organisation may, in dealing, for example, with an Asian country, seek to implant values which are thought to be different from those that are indigenous; this, in turn, could provoke local sensitivities, quick to detect a hint of patronage, of condescension, sparking an often disproportionately bitter protest of what is then perceived as "imposition" of values, thought of as "alien".

Both sides may need to reconsider their positions. They need to see that these values are in fact, universal. Cultural differences do exist, of course, but they operate at the margins and should not be allowed to obscure, as they so often do, the fact that all of us, regardless of race and culture, recognise the same values: we want our views to count, and therefore, a democratic setting; we want to make a decent living; we want a peaceful environment in which to nurture our children. We have to recognise that we are, after all, on the same side.

The effort to "educate" in its broadest sense must be undertaken with care and sensitivity, always according to the other, due deference and dignity, and never approaching the threshold of patronage. This calls for a knowledge of the culture of the other, possibly of the other's language as well. The United States, itself a nation of immigrants, seems uniquely qualified to undertake this effort. Not only is its constitution the repository of the most valued of global ethical principles, but it also possesses the human and other resources to deploy so as to make the effort a success.

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