The New Cold War: Implications for Religious Liberty

After World War Two, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO, http://www.nato.int/ ) was created to protect Western Europe from Communist imperialism. The socialist states responded by creating their own military treaty: the Warsaw Pact. A Cold War raged between the two nuclear-armed blocs for nearly half-a- century.

When Communism fell and the Cold War ended (1989-1991) there was great optimism that swords could now be beat into ploughshares (Isaiah 2:4b) -- that an age of global peace, harmony and friendship had dawned. Alas, it was not to be, for sin and human weakness still reigned and the Soviet Union's transition was totally bungled by both Russia and America.

The break up of the Soviet Union (1991) and the devastating collapse of the Russian economy left America as the world's only superpower. The Warsaw Pact dissolved, but NATO remained and pursued eastward expansion. And while America ruled the world (so to speak), Russia transitioned from superpower to gangster-capitalist oligarchy to rising siloviki state.

(The siloviki are mostly former-KGB and military officers who, as the state and socialist system were collapsing, quietly enriched themselves whilst infiltrating every aspect of society, including the democracy and reform movements, with the aim of eventually restoring themselves to power.)

Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia's borders were rolled back almost overnight to roughly where they were in 1613. Islam quickly exploited this unprecedented opportunity and inserted itself into the newly open, chaotic, impoverished spaces. Islamic missionaries bearing oil money from the Gulf were welcomed, as were trained, battle-hardy mujahideen from Afghanistan who adopted the various nationalist struggles (before converting them into Islamic jihads!). Before long, southern Russia, western China and Central Asia were being seriously threatened by imperialistic Islamic revolutionary and terrorist forces.

In response, China, Russia and Central Asia established the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO http://www.sectsco.org/ ), ostensibly for friendship, trade, solidarity and co-operation in security issues, but also and increasingly as a buffer against Western pressure and sanctions.

It is very difficult, especially when you have limited facilities and institutions and all you know is heavy-handedness, to counter Islamic revolutionary and terrorist forces without upsetting Western sensibilities. The task is made all the more difficult because Islamic revolutionary and terrorist forces, being militarily weak, routinely use human shields along with lies and propaganda to manipulate the Western media in order to extract concessions and even co-opt assistance from the West.

(Vietnam's Communists perfected this form of psychological warfare in the early 1970s and shared it with the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation). It has since been used to great effect by Islamic groups from Netzarim, Jenin and Beirut in the Middle East; to Gorazde, Srebrenica and Racak in the Balkans, and in May 2005 to Andijan in the Central Asian state of Uzbekistan (re Andijan, see link 4).)