THE top international story of 2002, in my view, is the growing perception of the world's estrangement from America's role as the world's only remaining superpower. This has not always been the case. There was a time when the United States, despite its power, was looked upon as being somewhat of a benevolent force in the world.

It did not have to go to war in the First World War yet when it did so, Washington through in its lot with those Great Powers opposed to the militarism and imperialism of the Central Powers.

And it is generally accepted that the US fought "a good war" in World War Two, siding against Nazi totalitarianism in Europe and Japanese imperialism in the Pacific. Of course, the United States was considered the bulwark against Soviet-led Communist expansionism during the so-called Cold War.

Today American power manifests itself in cultural influence, economic clout and most of all, its military strength. Yet if I were to use one word to describe the world's view of America, that word would probably be ambivalence.

Interestingly an American-sponsored worldwide survey concluded that despite the fact what could be called anti-Americanism is on the rise across the world, most countries continue to be fascinated with (and not a little bit jealous of) American culture, its technological prowess, its general way of life.

The recent backlash against the US has been sparked by manifestations of an imperial America, prompted by the events of September 11, 2001 and America's reaction to them.

Yet this is not the first time that American foreign policy has not enjoyed complete approval from the international community. Its military intervention in Indo-China in the 1960s and early '70s - Vietnam, Cambdioa, Laos - resulted in the American flag being burnt during protests held in many cities around the world.

It is useful to put these periodic bursts of anti-Americanism into historical perspective; America's flexing of its military muscles is certainly nothing new and has antagonised friend and foe alike over the last 225 years.

In an interesting book called by Max Boot, we find that America has never hesitated to deploy military force in defence of real or perceived interests from its earliest history.

For instance, the Barbary Wars in the early 19th century were fought against Morocco; Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis. All of these North African territories (except for Morocco) were ruled by the Ottoman Empire, all were engaged in privateering and had prompted Americans military intervention by attacking American shipping. In fact the opening lines of the US Marine Corps anthem - "From the Halls of Montezuma/To The Shores of Tripoli" - were inspired by this little known conflict conflict.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries US forces took part in military actions ranging from the Boxer rebellion in China to the temporary occupations of Haiti, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Cuba to the annexation of Hawaii (along with the other Pacific territories of American Samoa, Guam Mariana Caroline and the Marshall Islands) to the colonisation of Puerto Rico and American Virgin Islands. The so-called US-administered Panama Canal Zone was carved out of Panamanian territory to ensure the defence of the American-financed canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (a few years ago America turned over to the control of this zone to Panama). The continued US military occupation of Guant?namo Bay, an ongoing bone of contention between Washington and current Cuba Communist government, is one of the hangovers from the many conflicts and so-called small wars that America has fought.

Interestingly in the post-World War Two period, when the United States emerged as the world power that it is today, Washington was in fact the junior partner of the then superpower of the day, Great Britain. The two often conducted joint military interventions in various parts of the world. Today of course the roles are reversed; now it is America in the lead and Britain plays the junior role.

Another fact that has changed in recent years is the amount of leeway Great Powers now enjoy when it comes to employing military force against weaker nations. Throughout the Cold War the United Nations did not enjoy the prestige or influence it has now; the US and the Soviets (or their surrogates) struck with relative impunity where they wanted to, when they wanted to.

They did not seek the fig-leaf of UN sanction to provide a moral cover for what they wanted to do. And the mass media had not evolved to the point that it had an instantaneous, worldwide reach and could galvanise global opinion one way or the other.

too much of the world was in fact living as someone else's colonial (or quasi-colonial) possession and such potentially great nations as China were humiliated and certainly made to feel powerless to direct its own destiny until the Communists came to power in 1949. The Arab Muslim world, India, Africa as well as much of Asia were all in the same state of powerlessness in relation to the Western countries and the Soviet Empire.

Many of these areas only gained their Independence in the post-World War Two or post-Cold War eras. So today they have historical memories which feed into their peoples' fears that the world is going back to the days when the more powerful held sway and were able to exercise their will upon them with impunity.

Of course the Cold War obscured the realities of this timeless conflict between the weak and the strong. The Non-Aligned Movement which sprang up during the Cold War was an attempt by some of these newly hatched nation states in the Developing World to chart an independent course, a so-called "middle way". But their efforts always collided with the wishes of one superpower or another and many were to pay heavy prices in the wars and conflicts which swept their lands in the name of the ideological struggles of the East and the West.

That's why on a certain level when the United States says it wants to effect so-called "regime change" in Iraq, this sets off alarm bells in those countries that have long historical memories and direct experience of colonial rule and other forms of Western or Soviet domination.

Shades of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilisations! But the fact is that the world has never willingly accepted the prospect of one dominant power or Empire, whether it was Rome with its mighty legions (the ground trembled when they marched, it was said) or a modern day America - no matter what the State Department may say about preventing the rise of any power that will challenge American pre-eminence.

History has shown that the continuing rise of a world power has always at some time been checked by the rise of other, competing power centre. This may yet be America's fate particularly as China, with a population of more than one billion, continues to develop its economic and military infrastructures at an impressively rapid rate.

The world's mixed reaction to American global pre-eminence is therefore my leading news item for the year 2002 - as I am sure it will be for 2003 and perhaps in the years to come.