Sentence:  But for the safety of Southeast Asia , and for the sake of the Laotian people - who would not <WSD>be</WSD> well-ruled by either militant minority now engaged in the fighting - this last big effort to seal that country from the cold war had to be made . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)