The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

As year 2024 begins, wars are raging in Africa, Israel and Gaza and Ukraine.  These are indeed explosive and most troubling.  In addition, the US presidential race has begun, with two diametrically opposed political parties.  The isolationist tilt of some in the Republican Party is worrisome.  This will be a “make-or-break year for the post-1945 world order.”  The new dynamic is one of increasing instability.  The Economist argues that “In the 1990s many countries aspired to a self-reinforcing cycle of freedom, market economics and rules-based globalization.  Now there is an unpredictable cycle of populism, interventionist economics and transactional globalization.  As a result, three threats loom in 2024.”

1. There is a growing zone of impunity where international rules and global order do not seem to apply.  “You can walk [3,700 miles] from the Red Sea to the Atlantic through six African countries that have faced coups in the past 36 months.  Azerbaijan has just fought a war against Armenia involving ethnic cleansing, without much blowback.  Iran’s proxies thrive in failing states across the Middle East.”
2. There is a new axis of evil centered in Russia, China and Iran.  “All want to undermine American legitimacy and to evade actual or potential sanctions.  Their collaboration is likely to expand into tech.  China is pioneering ways to bypass Western finance:  half of its trade is now in [the Chinese] yuan.  Iran exports drones to Russia; China and Russia collaborate on nuclear-warning systems and patrols in the Pacific.”
3. The Western coalition is quite fragile.  In dealing with Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, America and Europe united, “public opinion was supportive and the principles of 1945 order were defended, even if non-Western countries were not fully onboard.  Now, with a military stalemate, cracks are showing.  In America, Republicans are divided over funding for Ukraine.  Israel’s invasion of Gaza is even more divisive:  It has split the [European Union] and America, which has vetoed a UN ceasefire resolution, fueling claims of double standards and Western legitimacy.”

Because of these three looming threats, the US needs to be reminded of important lessons from the Cold war.  Indeed, Niall Ferguson and Condoleezza Rice, both of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, argue that there are four lessons to be learned:

1. Allies matter: The alliance of Russia and China is somewhat fragile because of the war in Ukraine.  But the alliances of interest to the US appear stronger.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revitalized NATO, which is stronger than it has been in decades.  Furthermore, China’s aggressive behavior in Asia has strengthened the ties of the Philippines and Japan to the US.  But these alliances must be continually cultivated and strengthened.
2.   Deterrence is more important than ever.  “China has been improving every aspect of its military capability, just as the war in Ukraine and wargamming about Taiwan have revealed weaknesses in the West’s.  The West must respond by procuring more advanced weaponry, developing secure supply chains for critical materials and components, and rebuilding the defense-industrial base.  Peace through strength works.”
3. It is important to do everything to avoid accidental war.  The lesson of August 1914 is that leaders can engage in actions that have unintended consequences.  Leaders can “sleepwalk” the world into war.  Discussion, meaningful dialogue and substantive warning systems can guard against accidents that lead to larger conflicts.
4. Nothing is inevitable.  America must work hard to preserve its democratic institutions; its system of checks and balances; and its role as the champion of democratic values in a world challenging these.  Russia and China believe that democracy is a failure and only authoritarian regimes will be the wave of the future.  That is not inevitable, but just as Russia and China have severe contradictions in their respective regimes, so does the US.  We are a polarized, fractured nation—and that is dangerous for the stability of the world.

In this cracking post-1945 world order, consider the role of Russia.  In March, Russia will hold a presidential election.  It will not be free, fair or democratic.  Putin will win by a landslide.  That is how totalitarian dictators hold elections.  But his war on Ukraine has had severe consequences for Russia:  Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions displaced.  Most of them are Ukrainians fleeing Russian missiles.  But as many as 1 million Russians have fled their country, fearful of repressions and mobilization for the war.  Most of them are well-educated.

The Economist summarizes the costs of Putin’s war:  “Putin has strangled Russia’s nascent civil society, isolated the country from the West, made it more dependent on China and strengthened NATO.   Russia’s budget for 2024 shows a 70% increase in military spending, to 6% of GDP and a third of all spending.”  Oil and gas revenue for Russia has funded the war so far.  But the longer the war goes on the harder this will be.  To fight a long war, Russia needs more men, officers and weapons.  That in turn will require mass mobilization and central planning of military production.  Will the Russian people tolerate this?  Will Putin need to further crackdown on dissent and opposition?  Will all this threaten his legitimacy?

A closing word about Iran in 2024:  The year 1979 was a decisive year, for revolutionary Islam burst on the world scene: Political Islam erupted onto global consciousness with the Iranian revolution that produced the Ayatollah Khomeini.  Robert Nicholson, President of the Philos Project, captures the distinctive assumptions and ideology of modern Islam:  “The political scientist Samuel Huntington was right:  Islamic societies belong to a distinctive civilization that resists the imposition of foreign values through power.  We may believe that argument or not, but trillions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, and two decades of warfare have not proved otherwise.”  Where does Iran fit into all this?  Of all the Islamic nations in the world, why is Iran so vehement in its hatred of America?  Why is Iran such a crucial pillar in the emerging new world order?  Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations argue that the mood in Iran is triumphal.  “The Islamic Republic has survived severe sanctions, widespread and violent anti-regime demonstrations, the targeted killing of its officials and scientists, nuclear sabotage, a costly war in Syria, anti-Iranian unrest in Iraq, and a grossly mismanaged pandemic that broke the country’s healthcare system.”  In Iran, the office of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has fully subsumed the presidency.  The theocracy in Iran has shed any pretense of internal debate—a centuries-old tradition within the religious schools—in “favor of a modern Middle Eastern dictatorship inextricably wedded to an increasingly Islamist creed . . . The war in Ukraine has paradoxically reinforced the Islamic Republic’s paranoia.  Iran’s diplomats ritualistically support Russia while calling for a cease-fire.  Yet in the hardline Iranian echo chamber, the war is another indication of the cost of trusting America.  In this conspiracy theory, Washington deliberately made Ukraine believe that it could be part of the West, dangling before it membership in NATO.  That US ruse was meant to provoke a Russian invasion.  Ukraine is simply another American plot to weaken Russia and galvanize Europe against Mr. Putin.”

As with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, Khamenei views America as a nation in decline and he consistently mocks the US as a former Middle Eastern power.   Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that under Khamenei’s leadership, “anti-Americanism has become central to Iran’s revolutionary identity, and indeed few nations have spent a greater percentage of their finite political and financial capital to try to topple the US-led word order than Iran.  On virtually every contemporary American national security concern—including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chinese threats to Taiwan, nuclear proliferation and cyberwarfare—Tehran defines its own interests in opposition to the United States . . . Iran’s successful entrenchment of powerful proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, coupled with America’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, have further convinced the country of its own success as well as America’s inevitable decline.”

Iran is, therefore, doubling down on religion, repression and revolution. This is quite evident in its relentless pursuit of nuclear power.  When the US under President Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement to halt Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian mullahs were some 17 months away from threshold status; today they could be as little as 17 days away.  “For Iran, nuclear capability is actually about the survivability of the regime.  It assures that no one will dare to intervene on a wide scale in Iran, no matter how vulnerable the regime appears.  Nuclear capability will also balance its positioning vis-à-vis Israel and give the Iranians more freedom to sow conflicts and disorder all over the region.  Once Iran goes nuclear, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will all feel compelled to go nuclear as well.  As Bret Stephens correctly concludes, “the 42-year old crisis with Iran is about to get worse.”

Due to the loss of US influence in the Middle East, the US is no longer feared; indeed, it is increasingly perceived as irrelevant.  This new reality in the Middle East has caused me to think biblically about this region.  The prophetic Scriptures in Daniel chapters 9 and 11-12 and in Revelation 12-14 speak of powers to the north and to the immediate east of Israel.  [“Gog and Magog” may refer to these geographic areas.]  A resurgent Russia under Putin and a resurgent Persia under Iran fit this description perfectly.  Furthermore, as one studies prophetic Scripture, one struggles to find any reliable section that even remotely refers to the Western Hemisphere, specifically to North America.  The world order put together by the United States after World War II is coming apart.  Who is filling that vacuum created by US withdrawal?  In the East it is clearly China.  In the Middle East it is clearly Russia and Iran.  Since 1945, the US has been the arbiter of a “rules-based” world order, and the war in Ukraine has caused the US to once again assume leadership in countering the brutality of Russia.  Europe, for example, is more united than it has been since the dangerous days of the Cold War in the early 1950s; and the US has helped foster that unity.

In conclusion, the new world order that is emerging centers on Russia, China and Iran challenging the world order organized by the US.  It is also a challenge that focuses on democracy versus authoritarian dictatorship.  Putin, Xi and Khamenei argue that democracy does not work.  People, they argue, are willing to surrender their rights in exchange of order and stability.  If the US in years to come chooses a policy of isolationism and protectionism, the forces of authoritarianism will succeed to a degree.  The US is the only nation that serves as a buffer against the forces of evil represented by Russia, China and Iran.  In many ways, the US is facing unchartered waters.  Our leaders in 2024 and especially the next president will need wisdom and thoughtful discernment to navigate these uncharted waters.

See The Economist’s The World Ahead 2024, p. 8; Ibid., p. 28 and p. 58; Robert Nicholson in the Wall Street Journal (13 May 2022); Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh in the Wall Street Journal (14 May 2022); Ehud Barak in Time (29 July 2022), pp. 31-32; Bret Stephens in the New York Times (22 June 2021); Karim Sadjadpour in the New York Times (14 August 2022).