The world's attention is riveted on financial crises in East Asia and now Russia. But there are signs of looming crises of a far more dangerous sort in three regions. PNS editor Franz Schurmann, a professor emeritus of history and sociology at U.C.-Berkeley, is author of numerous books on world affairs.

Historians agree that mounting fear creates the explosive material for wars. They also agree that a sudden change in the geopolitical balance of power can ignite that material.

Thus on August 23, 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a friendship pact. One week later, World War II began.

In January 1950, the Sino-Soviet alliance was signed. Five months later, the Korean War began.

In February 1979, the Khomeini-led Islamic Revolution erupted in Iran, ending the Shah's strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia. In September, 1980, the Iran-Iraq war began, followed two years later by Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

On August 1, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Five months later, Operation Desert Storm was launched by a U.S.-led coalition of states.

This August, we are seeing another fateful geopolitical shift as the radical Islamic Taliban consolidate their hold on Afghanistan, a country which strategically interfaces the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and the Middle East. According to the rules of the "Great Game" agreed on by the powers surrounding Afghanistan, the Taliban were not supposed to win. Now their victory could set off at least three major conflagrations in South and West Asia.

The Taliban won the Afghan civil war when they re-took the key northern city of Mazar-i Sharif. It took the Taliban only three years to get 80 percent of the country and another year to get another 10 percent. The rest will soon fall. During that time they have brought law and order to the parts they rule. Most spectacular is the way they persuaded the heavily armed multi-ethnic population to turn in their weapons.

America, Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and Uzbekistan are all involved in the great Central Asian power game. Last year they thought they could cobble together a peace agreement between the Talibans and their "northern opposition." They figured that would keep the Taliban busy at home for years to come.

Instead, opposition troops went over to the revolutionary Talibans inspired by their religious ideology, handing them another of the many bloodless victories they had earlier scored.

Each of these seven powers is terrified of the Taliban. They fear that the latter's "Wahabism," puritanical Islam, could spread far and wide the way Communism did in earlier times.

In the earlier part of this century revolutionary Communism undermined geopolitical power balances wherever it came to national power. In the latter years of this century the biggest force destabilizing power balances is revolutionary Islam. In South, Central and West Asia the mounting fears of states are opening up dangerous sores.

The most dangerous sores are those of India and Pakistan over Kashmir, festering for over 50 years. Recent atomic tests by both countries made them worse, but the Taliban victory is creating new rage on both sides -- as revealed in this recent statement by Pakistan's foreign minister Jauhar Ayub Khan. "Pakistan is not an aggressive state but if India attacks us we'll respond militarily in a way it will take them centuries to forget."

India blames "Afghans" for the killings of Hindus in the state bordering Afghanistan. And the national daily "The Hindu" charges Pakistan is "determined to control the access to Central Asia from the South."

The Indians claim Pakistan runs the Talibans. Afghanistan is close to 100 percent Muslim but Pakistan is not far behind with around 95 percent. What -- the Indians worry -- if Wahabism spreads to a conflict-riddled Islamic Pakistan? How will the 100 million Muslims in India's close to a billion population react?

Fears like these bit by bit add more explosive material to the geopolitical pile.

Syria is another place that merits international concern. No one is more worried about war than the reclusive Syrian leader Hafiz al-Asad. Recently the French-speaking Asad made his first visit in 30 years to any Western city to plead with French President Jacques Chirac to help get the Israeli-Arab peace process back on track.

Syria now finds itself caught in the vise of a powerful Turkish-Israeli military alliance. The Turkish military -- which calls the shots in Turkey -- is enraged with Asad. They charge him with harboring Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the two decade old Kurdish PKK guerrilla movement. And Turkey's Prime Minister Mes'ut Yilmaz threatened to hit Syria hard if it continued to champion the cause of the large Arab population in southeastern Turkey.

Asad sees Israel as tirelessly agitating to break up the fragile unity in Lebanon achieved a decade ago through Saudi money and Syrian occupation. Now, with Lebanese Maronite Christians increasingly hostile to Syria, Asad fears he may soon become the main target of alliance action. And -- to make things even worse -- he does not feel secure in power any longer, though he has surrounded himself with aging comrades he trusts.

Both Turkey and Israel are extremely worried about the spread of revolutionary Islam. The Turkish military recently ousted the top vote-getting Muslim "Welfare," party. And Israel fears the radical Islamic Hamas could become the real power among Palestinians, replacing the corruption-ridden Arafat-led PLO. Destabilizing Syria and provoking the overthrow of Asad would suit both Turkey and Israel fine.

The third danger spot in the region is Iraq. Dismissing reports that the White House was taking a muted position on Iraq's decision to halt weapons inspections, Secretary of State Albright warned the U.S. will respond to any threat from Iraq when and where it chooses. China, increasingly involved in the Middle East, issued its own warning : "The rising storm building up over the inspection issue won't only affect the Gulf region but destabilize the entire world."

What makes a new American strike against Iraq now more likely is that the Clinton administration has decided to seek the overthrow of Saddam Hussein -- a stance fully supported by Congress. Earlier, Washington worried that Saddam's overthrow might lead to a break-up of Iraq -- with a pro-Iranian Shi'ite state in its southern regions and the PKK as the most powerful Kurdish faction in its north.

Now those two threats have lessened. U.S.-Iran relations are mending, and Iran can be counted on to avoid involvement with the large Shi'ite Arab population in southern Iraq. And recent Turkish military operations have weakened the PKK, even as the Iranian-supported Jalal Talebani faction has weakened. The pro-Turkish Mas'ud Barzani faction is apparently now finally in control of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Some months ago, when Defense Secretary Cohen announced troop withdrawals from the Gulf, he added that those forces "could come back in 48 hours." With Washington increasingly worried over the strength of America's "special relationship" with Saudi Arabia, it's conceivable that the White House later this year may decide to complete Desert Storm's aborted "march on Baghdad."

If one or more of these three possible wars should erupt it is pretty certain that oil prices will rise. It is even more certain that such wars will only accelerate the spread of revolutionary Islam as similar wars against Communism in earlier days once served to accelerate the spread of Communism.