Which Threat is Worse - Islamic Barbarism or Russian Resurgence?

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

- Robert Frost

In that vein, the writers of Scragged find themselves in an internal debate regarding whether the civilized world is more severely threatened by Islamofascist barbarians or by a resurgent and totalitarian Russia.

Scragged writers are far from monolithic in their views.  Christopher Marlowe, for example, in discussing the threat to America posed by the Soviet Union, said:

The future of Western civilization is under great threat from fundamentalist Islam, and Russia is a second order problem but if they materially assist the enemies of the US, do they really deserve special treatment?

While we all believe that barbarism motivated by militant Islam is the most severe international threat we face at the moment, some of us believe Russia to be the worst of the two in the long term.

There are several reasons why fundamentalist Islam might be thought to be a worse threat than the Russians. Looked at in the long view, though, there are clear limits to the damage Islam can do; these limitations don't all apply to Russia.

Economics

In his comments to an earlier article, Marlowe pointed out:

It is widely acknowledged that Reagan spent the USSR into bankruptcy. The Soviet economy could not match US spending on re-armament, especially in the construction of new warships and high-tech developments.

The Islamic fundamentalists share the communists' inability to manage an effective modern economy, but they don't need to because of their oil wealth.  The realities of modern technology absolutely require an abundant supply of affordable oil; without it, nothing resembling modern life or modern economies is even remotely possible.

Of course, there are alternatives like nuclear power and coal gasification.  Conveniently for the world of Islam, unfortunately for us, Mr. Obama's Democrats have precluded any use of these, leaving us stuck with the same old black goo from under Arab sands.  As a practical matter, we won't be permitted to find alternatives which means that we won't be able to beat the barbarians economically.

Russia, on the other hand, has no such stranglehold on the United States.  For all that their large supplies of oil and other resources are very nice to have on the world market, they are not a majority supplier.

The same, however, cannot be said for Europe: Russia supplies an increasing amount of European energy in the form of natural gas to a Europe which (save the French) is just as allergic to domestic nuclear power as any American green might wish.  Russia has already demonstrated awareness of its own strength by turning off the gas tap and sending Europe into the deep-freeze.  This situation is bad for Europe, but it doesn't directly affect the US.

Access to Women

Islam's less-than-respectful view of women is well known; every depravity imaginable is commonplace in the Muslim world, and some that aren't.  An aged Muslim grandmother famously arranged for terrorists to rape women so as to more easily persuade them to become suicide bombers.

The Russians used specially-trained female KGB agents to involve Westerners in "honeytrap" operations, of course, but because women were given a much higher status under communism than under Islam, they couldn't be simply given out as baubles to reward participants in the struggle.  Russians had to be content with using money and power as rewards; they couldn't offer bevys of heavenly virgins, and even the highest Communist leaders were not noted for their harems as are Muslim sheikhs and caliphs.

If you are a low-level Russian, you have as good odds of finding a wife as anyone else; not so for low-level Muslims.  This gives Islam a greater potential source of motivation, but also an inherent instability.  Desperately horny men are not the most disciplined soldiers; though they make excellent berserkers, making it impossible for men to marry is not so effective in modern war.  Even the 9-11 terrorists just had to swing by a strip joint on 9-10.

Religion as a Motivator

Islamists do what they do because of their religious beliefs.  Atheistic communism, by definition, could not call on religion as a motivator.

The communists appealed to patriotism, of course, but that's not nearly as effective since the power of patriotism mostly ends at death.  We've noted that our leadership elites can't really use patriotism as a motivator either because they don't believe in America as a nation and they don't understand enough about faith to deal with people whose actions are motivated by it.

Vladimir Putin seems to be quite effectively reviving the forces of Russian nationalism and patriotism.  This would not be a bad idea if he applied it to internal improvements, but he seems inclined much more towards channeling his people's fervor into outward aggression.

Islam, on the other hand, suffers from a jurisdictional mismatch.  With ordinary nationalism, the group is the nation and the leader of the nation is the leader of the group.  This doesn't work in the Islamic world, as there are quite a few separate nations, devoutly Muslim individually, but who hate each other.

Most Muslim nations have a fair contingent of citizens who are not Muslim and who are treated as second-class citizens if the Muslims happen to be in the majority.  What happens when one Muslim nation goes to war with another one?  What if a Muslim nation goes to war against its own "apostate" citizens?  Nothing helpful to Muslim fundamentalism as a whole, that's for sure, as al Qaeda discovered when it started killing Muslim Iraqis and wound up getting shot at by darn near everybody.

Long Term versus Short Term

In the short term, the Taliban and their ilk will certainly give us more trouble than the Russians.  The Russians don't want to die any more than we do; the Islamic barbarians don't value their own lives in quite the same way.  The Russians have at least something of an institutional respect for international law in that they aren't likely to invade countries who can fight back; al Qaeda has no such compunction.

Fighting wars in the usual nationalistic way is far more expensive than the occasional terrorist spectacular.  The Russians can't really afford to go to war for now; they are only now getting back on the air after spending some time in the national equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Mr. Putin is well aware of the long term versus the short term, however, and he has no intention of helping us wake up to the problems he intends to cause us as soon as his nation is once more ready to stand forth on the international stage.  By throwing banana peels around such as his efforts to help Iran with its nuclear program, Mr. Putin intends to multiply problems for us without getting directly involved.  That's fair, in a way - we used Islamic militancy against Russia when they occupied Afghanistan, why shouldn't they use Islam against us?

Given the Taliban's potential to get nuclear armaments by buying them or by being given them by an Islamic nuclear power, why do we believe that the Russians are a more severe long-term threat?

First, the Muslims don't have enough bombs to destroy America; the Russians do.  If the Muslims touch off any weapon of mass destruction on US soil, whether it be biological or nuclear, any President would be forced to turn the Middle East to glass from the Israeli border to the border between India and Pakistan.  Whether this would happen if Iran destroyed Israel with a nuclear attack instead of attacking the US is not as clear, but it's the next logical step in terrorism.

Anything less than a weapon of mass destruction would merely persuade Mr. Obama (or the overwhelming majority of the American people and thence Mr. Obama's quick replacement) that Mr. Bush was right in declaring that Islamic terrorism is, indeed, a real problem.

Second, the Russians have far more technical resources than militant Islam.  Islamists have plenty of money and are able to buy whatever weapons technology is available but they lack the technical expertise to come up with anything new.  The Russian economy is down just now, which is why Mr. Putin is deferring parts of his rearmament until 2011, but the Russians are smart people who are capable of amazing endurance and spectacular technical competence.

They also learn from experience; they aren't likely to repeat the economic mistakes they made under communism now that the central planning apparatus has been swept away. We've seen how a whiff of capitalism made the Chinese economy take off.  If Mr. Putin pulls off an economic revival while we dabble in socialism Obama-style, we won't be able to out-spend them next time 'round.

Third, the Russian people are patriotic whereas American leadership thinks patriotism is old-fashioned and irrelevant.  The Russian people revere "Uncle Joe" Stalin because, although one might quibble with his human rights record, he fought off the Nazis during WWII.

Americans who enjoy the safety of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have no clue how citizens of a land power which has been invaded repeatedly from East, West, and South feel about the essential need for a strong national government.  Many Russians argue that democracy is not muscular enough to defend their nation from the surrounding hordes; history would imply that they have a point.

Mr. Putin has no sympathy for militant Islam within his borders; events in Chechnya show that he'll stamp it out using whatever level of violence is needed should Islam threaten his core interests.  In the meantime, of course, Islam serves as a welcome distraction to keep us from noticing that he's rebuilding his intelligence apparatus and continuing with economic espionage while he gets his economy back in shape.

Mr. Putin knows how hard it was for America to maintain focus on fighting communism the first time.  He knows how extremely difficult it has been for America to focus on fighting terrorism given the treasonous nature of our domestic politics.  He's clearly intelligent enough to let us waste resources fighting terrorism while he builds up his country's strength for Cold War round II.  We'll be even less prepared than we were the last time.

Fourth, Islam may have a reformation and wind up less militant .  A less militant Islam would be hardly any threat at all, whreas there's very little chance that Russian nationalism will be reformed so long as the Russians are located in what they see as a dangerous neighborhood.

Who Can Win?

Imagine, for a moment, the day Muslim terrorists conquer the United States.  You can't, can you?

Sure, they can do a great deal of damage, destroy our economy, and kill millions; but it's totally inconceivable that they would ever be able to conquer and rule America.  It simply won't happen: they lack the organization, the technical sophistication, the industrial economy, really anything you need for world conquest other than the desire and dedication.

How about being conquered by the Russians?  It's already been imagined countless times, from Red Dawn to any number of fictional novels.  Russia, of course, never actually conquered America, or ever seriously tried, nor would it be an easy task - but it's at least conceivable.

Even without a formal military conquest, there's no shortage of analysts who seem to feel that America is on the path of inexorable economic decline.  If that's so, does it really matter whether China or Russia takes the top place?  The result will be the same.

Which brings us to the most serious and plausible fear.  The old Soviet empire was always happy to conquer other nations when the opportunity arose, but was just as agreeable to cutting deals with like-minded allies.

Russia directly controlled Eastern Europe by military means under the guise of the Warsaw pact.  Russia did not directly control Cuba, Yugoslavia, North Korea, or China, yet all those places were clearly Communist in nature and found themselves Russian allies more often than not.

As we have seen increasingly clearly over the last few weeks, those currently in power in Washington believe in the fundamentals of Communism, though not by that name.  What more plainly explains Obama's tax proposals than "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need?"  Who but an out-and-out Marxist would gladly reduce tax revenues by increasing tax rates so as to destroy wealth all round, as Obama specifically recommended during the primary debates?

What sort of free, capitalistic nation is it where the government feels itself qualified to tell banks who to lend to, corporations how much to pay their executives, and car manufacturers what sort of cars they ought to manufacture?  Are these not precisely the hallmarks of Soviet procedure?  Citibank and GM may be privately-held corporations in name, but we are perilously close to them being nothing more than government agencies in fact.

So it may not, in the end, be necessary for Russian paratroopers to land in American high school football fields.  Instead, voters in high school gyms may have led to the Communist conquest of America, just as Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev predicted.

The final joke would be if, as America becomes progressively more socialist and communitarian, Russia becomes more economically free - and its current state of quasi-fascism is definitely freer than it was under Communist days, just as China is far freer than once it was though still Communist in name.

Are the communist world and the "free" world passing each other going in opposite directions?  Who knows - in another half century, those names may have reversed their meaning.