Of course, some may argue that we do not need to do any of this. It is quite possible, indeed highly probable, that at some point the appeal of fundamentalism, everything else staying the same, will wane on its own accord. People will eventually see that jihad -- or whatever its functional equivalent may be -- does not produce the intended results. However, even though this may indeed happen, for the time being, the lack of appealing, credible spiritual and cultural alternatives leaves the field open to radicalism.

We may not have the luxury of confidently waiting for the time in which flawed ideas will collapse because of their own inherent weaknesses. Soviet-style communism was also flawed and therefore doomed to failure. Yet, it took decades for these flaws to be finally exposed. In the meantime, the West, confronted with an enormous existential threat, spent immense resources in protecting itself against the power of this ideology, however flawed.

The West is not in a position to offer its own ideas as credible ideological alternatives to Islamic fundamentalism. As the recent checkered history of nation-building strategies in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrates, Western-style representative democracy cannot be easily introduced in societies historically unaccustomed to the Western notion of liberalism.

There may be some truth to the belief proclaimed by the Bush administration that ultimately all human beings want to be free; however, there is no universally accepted interpretation as to how freedom should be established and exercised.

Therefore, a prerequisite of credibility and viability is that the new ideas that will lead developing countries out of backwardness have to be genuinely home-grown and promoted by people who cannot be deemed to be agents of foreign interests.

We cannot ascertain the intensity of the will to create such home-grown alternatives. However, the West could and should do something aimed at improving their chances of success.

Indeed, the one thing that the West can do is to create a more open and more equitable international environment that will substantially increase opportunity and thus hope and optimism on a basis of fairness for many developing countries that today see themselves excluded, marginalized or victimized by the new global economy.

From this vantage point, international trade agreements are needed to create real markets for local enterprise. Meaningful development programs are needed to increase the chances of capitalizing new enterprises. Real support for education is essential, so that it may increase the quality and the quantity of human capital.

All these processes could change the fundamentals and therefore help reorient the focus of the national debates away from a radicalism that thrives in hopelessness, creating instead the ground for something more constructive.

Of course, there is nothing new in any of this. But what could be new is the level of the effort and the amount of resources allocated. Clearly, helping to build new forward-looking societies is a monumental task. But this is no justification for devoting literally pennies to this effort while we are perfectly capable of allocating hundreds of billions of dollars to deal with the consequences of radicalism after it has infected entire countries.

This strategy is not about juxtaposing "soft power" versus "hard power." In order to be credible and effective, the West needs both. However, in the case of radicalism, while this may sound piously quaint, attacking a disease at its sources, providing meaningful alternatives to its appeal, thus decreasing its ability to find new converts, is more cost-effective than fighting a full-blown epidemic.

With or without the threat of radical ideologies, it is a worthwhile goal to build a more equitable international environment. This will increase the chances of active participation of many societies that are currently relegated to the role of weak onlookers. The international community does better when most of its actors are healthy.

(Paolo Liebl von Schirach is the editor of SchirachReport.com, a regular contributor to Swiss radio and an international economic-development expert.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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