Hope for the best but expect the worst! This seems to be the motto of this year’s World Economic Forum that opened in the Swiss ski resort of Davos last evening.

This year’s program is focused on the various threats that loom over international security. Terrorism is no longer regarded as an aberration that concerns a handful of nations only. Those who designed the forum’s program assume that terrorism is now a global threat and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

The first sign of this new attitude comes in the shape of the biggest security operation ever in Swiss history. Some 10,000 Swiss soldiers, policemen and undercover agents have been mobilized to protect the event from terrorist attacks. Many are stationed in Zurich, the point of arrival for most of the participants. There has also been a buildup in other cities that have nothing to do with the event, including Geneva and the Swiss confederal capital of Bern. The village of Davos itself has drawn 2400 soldiers and policemen, a figure larger than that of the participants.

FBI and other American undercover agents have been in or around the village for weeks. Local Davosians have seen them skiing on occasion, but it is clear that they are keeping an eye on would-be troublemakers.

The draconian security measures, that included barbed wire fences that cordon off large portions of the surrounding mountains, wee mostly taken under pressure from Washington. The Bush administration had made it clear to the organizers that it would not be sending any emissaries unless the newly created Department of Homeland Security gave the event a clean bill of health.

The Americans insisted that the number of participants be cut by 10 percent and that all be thoroughly checked and approved, or rejected, by Dec. 7, 2002.

Rather than facing an American boycott the organizers agreed to foot a hefty security bill, believed to ran into $12 million.

In the end the Bush administration is not sending all the big shots that the organizers had hoped for. But the fact that Secretary of State Colin Powell will spend almost a whole day here is seen by many as significant.

Powell’s chief mission will be to reassure the political and business leaders present that the administration knows what it is doing vis-à-vis Iraq.

“There is the perception that we are acting like a bull in a china shop,” says an aide to Powell. “It is our task to show that our policies are based on rational and realistic grounds.”

Powell will have to be back in Washington on Jan. 27 at the time that the United Nations’ weapons inspection team, headed by Hans Blix, is due to present its crucial report to the Security Council. Many believe that the report could trigger a war aimed at toppling President Saddam Hussein’s regime.

It would be Powell’s task here to sell the idea to hundreds of leaders from 98 countries across the globe.

So cumbersome were the measures proposed by the Americans that the Helvetic authorities for a while toyed with the idea of asking the organizers to take their show elsewhere. It was not until last August that the idea of moving the event outside Switzerland was abandoned, at least for the time being. (One alternative site that had been debated was the Moroccan resort town of Skheirat.)

The subdued mood in Davos this year is in sharp contrast with what was a long period of “irrational exuberance” at the forum. The organizers have tried to pick up some of the pieces by devoting one panel to what they call “rational exuberance”, in the hope that the boom years of the past can be brought back, but this time on a rational, and hopefully, lasting basis.

For the third year running there is some talk here of “winding down Davos.” The idea is that the forum has outlived its usefulness. It reached its peak in the 1990s when the global economy was moving, the leadership elites were trusted, if not actually respected, and decision-making mechanisms responded to fresh ideas. “We live in a far more complex world,” admits Klaus Schwab, the Swiss economics professor who crated the form over 30 years ago. “People who come here cannot influence events as they used to a few years ago,” he said.

Nevertheless, he insists that the forum can still play a useful role as a platform for political, business and intellectual leaders to exchange ideas and, hopefully, help minimize areas of conflict.

“The world still needs Davos,” says American banker Felix Rohatyn. “Where else can so many leaders talk openly and hear contrary views without being offended?”

One thing is sure: Davos will not be as fun as it used to be. Many ought programs, including all-night revelries, have been canceled, and the usual skiing sorties are limited in time and space. In any case, it would hardly be fun to ski while soldiers holding machine guns keep watch and helicopter gunships fly overhead.

This year Davos it will be a frugal affair, more like a gathering of monks than bib-shot bon-viveurs.

The sight of Davos almost under siege might remind visitors of war movies. But the only threat looming on the horizon so far comes from some 200 anti-globalization militants who plan a demonstration tomorrow in a corner of the village. The US security services have checked the identities of all protesters and approved their presence. The worst that can happen would be for the protesters to break the windows of the local MacDonald hamburger joint, as they did three years ago.

After Sept. 11 attacks against New York and Washington, the siege of McDonald’s at Davos need not worry anyone.

Arab News Opinion 24 January 2003