As more developments come along in our chaotic world, it becomes clearer that ISIS is just a bogeyman for the real matter at hand: an existential clash of civilizations between East and West, specifically between Eastern and Western Christianity.
Maverick Russia expert Professor Stephen Cohen (my onetime NYU teacher) argues convincingly that the US and NATO are intensifying their confrontation with Russia in the wake of the Paris and San Bernandino attacks - far from joining with the Kremlin to tackle the common threat of terrorism and ISIS. This is truly Cold War II, as he correctly points out; but he doesn't seem to understand that Russia is every bit as intent to exploit Islamic extremism to damage US interests as the US is to exploit it to damage Russian interests. War is, after all, only possible when the hostility is a two-way street.
There now seems to be zero chance that ISIS will be eliminated, whether by Russia or by the West, but even more impossibly by an alliance of the two. The fact is, both Moscow and Washington see ISIS as a useful tool or even proxy to advance their interests against the other. It could even end up with both of them racing to cut a deal with ISIS first - despite more terrorist attacks and mass civilian casualties, including their own citizens.
Or to put it another way, even if ISIS is in fact dismantled, it will only be replaced by another Sunni fundamentalist power in the desert hinterlands of Iraq and Syria that will, at best, have a less overtly anti-Western or anti-Russian - that is, less anti-Christian (whether Eastern or Western) - strain of violent jihadism. But whatever succeeds ISIS will also be a pawn in the real war for global domination waged between Eastern and Western Christianity, i.e. between Russia and the US.
It's useful to remember that the Cold War (1945-1989) was itself a battle between Eastern and Western Christianity, in which the East pretended to be atheist (communist) and the West professed to stand for God and the church, but in fact, under the ideological covers, the Orthodox Christian faith was never even remotely snuffed out in the Slavic heartland of the USSR; just as the most rampant, hedonistic consumerism and materialism were allowed to flourish in the supposedly God-fearing US, which led Western Europe down the same pit of decadence.
Today, Cold War II is similarly nuanced and confused - but with the roles neatly reversed. It is the West that now stands for everything profane and anti-religious, whilst Russia poses herself as the defender of traditional values and especially of Christianity and the holy Apostolic Church; but in fact, the West continues to promote dignity for historically disgraced classes of people like homosexuals and migrant aliens, whereas Russia stands at the head of the neo-authoritarian, neo-fascist global axis that despises open borders and open society.
As during Cold War I, China stands in the middle ground between Eastern and Western Christianity - and stands to capitalize from both sides' need for its goodwill and favors. The communist party seems to have a bright future, and the "China dream" of imperial rejuvenation seems increasingly achievable in a world where Chinese bureaucratic authoritarianism seems tame, sane, and rather orderly in comparison to the lunacy and chaos, whether physical or psychological, that now engulfs so many societies simultaneously. It's a brave proposition to bet against the party when East and West, north and south, not to mention Left and Right, all want Beijing's good graces and have to kowtow to the emperor to get it.
Meanwhile, for a good description of the "seven-front" world war between Russia and the West, from a Russian ultranationalist perspective, check out this excellent piece by the neo-fascist Alexander Dugin.
Professor Cohen has previously asserted that despite the recent attention on Syria, it is Ukraine that remains the geopolitical epicenter of the Russia-NATO confrontation. I would qualify this with Dugin's observation: the epicenter is now Turkey, which is the geographic link between the Syrian and Ukrainian crises, which themselves represent the simultaneous civil wars within Islam (between Sunni and Shia) and Christianity (between Orthodox and Catholic/Protestant).
All eyes should be on the developing Russo-Turkish standoff...if it becomes an actual shooting war, all hell will break loose. It will finally come to the broad daylight that it's a genuine clash of civilizations, in which Western Christianity supports Sunni Islam against Eastern Christianity and its minions of Shiite Islam.
Alas, perhaps the only thing that can avert this outcome is if we in the US recognize what's happening and how our insistence on saber-rattling right in front of the Russian bear's lair is making disaster a less and less unlikely eventuality. Read: don't expect much help on our part.
As both Professor Cohen and Dugin point out, the spark will most likely come in Ukraine: the time is running out on the US-installed government there to make some meaningful reforms, after which window closes it can only resort to war to recover Crimea and eastern Donbas as the basis of legitimacy, thus surrendering to the far-right fascist (heavily Catholic) radicals.
It's already looking pretty bad. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was physically assaulted by fellow Ukrainian parliamentarians a few days ago - a clear indication that the revolutionaries are fed up with their leaders' pretenses of reform. If the reality is that Ukraine is becoming a giant version of neighboring basket case Moldova - where "reformers" have used the threat of Russian invasion to plunder what's left of the already pathetically depleted national treasury, thus forfeiting all credibility - it's only a matter of time before the fascist warmongers seize power.
That is, only a matter of time before Putin's tanks will have a pretext to make a dash for Kiev.
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