SIGNALLING the end of an era in which the US viewed itself as the world's policeman, President George Bush outlined a shift in foreign policy yesterday, by offering to put vast military resources at the disposal of United Nations peace-keeping operations.

'I want to draw on our extensive experience in winning wars and keeping the peace to support UN peace-keeping,' he told the UN General Assembly. His speech sent a ripple of excitement through the Western camp, but many third world countries fear that UN peace-keeping will eventually turn into an instrument of US foreign policy.

Mr Bush said he had ordered the Defense Department to place a 'new emphasis on peace-keeping' because of its growing importance 'as a mission for the United States military'. There will be a peace-keeping curriculum in military schools and the US will offer facilities for multi-national peace-keeping training.

The President fell short of committing troops to new UN missions, or of agreeing to a more ambitious proposal by the UN Secretary-General to have a standby UN fighting force, ready to be dispatched at 48 hours' notice, to halt aggression. But he did speak of the need for 'co-ordinated command and control', multi-national planning, and intelligence sharing - until now anathema to the US.

Nor did he offer to pay the dollars 757m (pounds 445m) owed to the UN in unpaid dues and peace-keeping contributions. President Bush did hint that in future peace-keeping contributions would come from the defence budget, ensuring that they would be paid on time.

Mr Bush also proposed a much more aggressive role for the Security Council in stemming the spread of nuclear and chemical weapons, as well as the long-range rockets to deliver them. He also proposed a transformation of foreign aid, saying that 'the notion of the handout to less-developed countries' needed to be abolished in favour of policies to promote the private sector and free markets in developing countries.

And he suggested creating a dollars 1bn fund to subsidise US businesses 'in providing expertise, goods and services' to desperately poor countries co-operating with IMF economic restructuring programmes.

The President's speech was made with a firm eye on domestic politics. His offer to involve the military in areas of UN peace-keeping that it has traditionally spurned as being beneath a super power stole the thunder of his presidential rival, Governor Bill Clinton. 'The Bush speech was simply Bill Clinton's foreign policy by another name,' one commentator said.

Mr Bush, US ambassador to the UN in 1971 when the US was hostile to the organisation, also proposed that the Security Council become the 'key forum' to enforce efforts to stop the spread of nuclear and chemical weapons, and that it should be ready to use sanctions against proliferators. The US has always seen disarmament as a bilateral issue, but Mr Bush was articulating an aggressive new policy of using the UN to police the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, he said that the Security Council should protect any country, party to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, that is under nuclear threat.