A new and untested leader is struggling to make headway against an aggressive and unyielding Tory government.

"How this untested, inexperienced leader will hold the ring between these competing groups is impossible to say."

That would end China's military dominance in East Asia - a disaster for the untested new leader, Hu Jintao.

"Close your eyes and imagine, in a crisis situation, an American leader totally without experience, completely untested, a leader about whom we know very, very little, if you get down to it," he said in Sussex.

Law-enforcement officials now say that the slaying and the events that followed transferred power almost immediately to new and untested leaders in each Mafia group.

Already, the military's growing influence may be adding to subtle pressures on untested civilian leaders to flex the country's military muscle in foreign policy disputes.

But King Abdullah is an untested leader who has spent his entire career in the Jordanian military.

But if Mr. Yeltsin is ever incapacitated, his choice would leave the Government in the hands of an untested political leader.

Mr. Gore, with his customary lack of subtlety, was suggesting that Mr. Bush is an untested leader with half-baked ideas.

The weakened opposition Conservatives with their untested leader, William Hague, present little challenge, and Labor Party leaders have been searching for purpose now that the grip on power is secure.