Current geopolitical climate has regressed to ‘Cold War’ (CW) era thinking, where national security threats to Western Europe were deemed to emanate from the ideologically different Soviet Union. Following Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine, the Russian threat of attack or invasion of its near neighbours and further afield has become a point of focus. Fears of Russia attacking Western Europe are amplified by some think tanks, political commentators and propagated by the media in these countries, who promote greater defence spending to mitigate the threat. This view is intensified among the Europeans by the current American (US) administration’s views on defending Europe unless there is a greater contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) by these countries. America being the largest NATO contributor obviously is the driving force in its policies and activities.
Compounding these fears, the intergovernmental BRICS alliance has put together China and Russia as allies, so unsurprisingly these two countries, along with the Islamic Iran are viewed as a threat. These countries differ in political and religious ideology to the West. Granted that military attack was the perceived, but arguably, it was an unrealistic threat to the West during the CW. However, since the demise of the Soviet Union, the picture has changed. The main protagonists, America and Russia being nuclear powers did not directly engage in armed conflict but expanded their speres of influence through proxy wars. The end of the CW positioned America as the sole global power and it posed a military threat to non-nuclear countries, as exemplified by its high civilian casualty military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and well as the NATO war on Libya. These countries were never a realistic military threat. Russia was involved in supporting of suppressing insurgencies in countries that it bordered and were likely to cause instability in the region as well as to the Russian state, as in the case of Chechnya. Hence, since the end of the CW, it has been the USA and NATO who have largely been military aggressors, but in distant theatres of war.
Hence, covering only inter-state conflicts and not insurgencies or hybrid warfare, it is argued that these Western fears of Russia as a military threat are not realistic, except in the case of Ukraine. Such fears are compounded by exploitation of innate tribalism and biases through official propaganda to demonise the Russians. This subjectively allows for calls for greater defence spending, which primarily serves party political interests and the ‘military industrial complex’. However, the use of an objective threat model will show that Russians particularly pose no realistic direct threat to any country, even those with a limited military capacity if they are part of alliances such as NATO, which has thirty-two members. Adoption of this model would serve to better use taxes for the betterment of the citizenry rather than serving institutions which, at best, provide a good feeling analogous to one from the win of a favourite sports team.
End of the Cold War
To prevent getting directly involved in Afghanistan after the Russian invasion in December 1979, the US, with financial and logistical aid from some Islamic states, conducted a proxy war by supporting the Afghani and Muslim mujahedeen, or holy warriors, against the invaders. This eventually created the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, whose actions drove the Russians out of Afghanistan in 1989 and as it generally accepted was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. As during World War 2, with an anti-German alliance with the Communist Russians, although the Islamic world has traditionally been an anathema to Christendom, the US was not averse to using ‘the other’, in this case the ethnically and religiously and politically different Muslims, through ‘political Islam’ for its benefit. This ‘new’ threat was espoused by political thinkers such as Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington. Consequently, with the demise of the Soviet Union, with a contribution from the Islamic Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, the US became the dominant world power without equal and really had no enemies that could realistically challenge its position economically or militarily.
But its defence spending did not decrease as a new ‘enemy’ was needed by the West. This was conveniently found in political Islam following the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks and was a sequalae as an additional ‘threat’ that had emerged in Iran with the overthrow by religious Iranian clergy of the US and British installed Shah of Iran in 1979. This ouster was supported by the masses and the kidnapping of American diplomats serving in Tehran had further amplified general anti-Islamic and anti-Iran sentiment, which still prevails in the Western world.
With technological innovations and political changes, military threats are now not only the focus of national security strategies. Since the CW, the concept of National Security threats now includes climate induced disasters, cybercrime, migration and pandemics. Hence, the question arises whether Russia, China or even Iran are a real military threat based on force strength and can be objectively assessed by using an accepted methodology to assess the potential of an attack. Cyberwarfare is not covered here as it can somewhat be mitigated by Cyber-defence strategies. Neither are nuclear threats as declared possession by those owning them acted as a deterrent against attack and continue to be a war deterrent between the antagonists. Nevertheless, these fears continue to be publicised.
‘Fears of threat’ – factors
There are several views, which include misperceptions, innate tribalism, leading to the fear of the ‘other’, and propaganda which can contribute to fears. Most of these fears arise out of subjective misperceptions rather than objective analysis.
Misperceptions
Current Western perceptions of the threat of communism arise from the beginning of the CW. As argued by the late Robert Jervis, the CW was enhanced by mutual threat misperceptions. This created an environment of fear politics that is exploited by self-serving politicians to exasperate unrealistic threats. US policy decisions perceived as threats caused Soviet actions that very equally seen as American threats. Following on from the ‘Red Scare’ of Bolshevism after the Great War, as World War 2 (WW2) in Europe was concluding, it was clear that enmity between Russia and Western powers would resume once hostilities ended. This manifested itself through the CW and McCarthyism, where American citizens accused of having communist sympathies were persecuted by their country. Rather than enhance the WW2 co-operation with the Russians, who contributed significantly to defeating the Nazi’s, conditions leading to the CW, arguably based on ‘otherness’, were exploited by the Western powers.
But just after the war in the European theatre had ended, Americans having developed the atomic bomb first and used it twice against the Japanese, created an imbalance of power between the ideologically opposite countries. During WW2, the Russians had discovered through intelligence that the US, and the British were developing nuclear weapons, followed suit. Consequently, Russian intelligence operations infiltrated the US Atomic project and obtained technical information to build their own counter-bomb. This was the beginning of the ‘arms race’, a significant feature of the subsequent CW. Hence, the Russians had also sought the ‘bomb’, to mitigate this power imbalance and wanted to reinforce its spheres of influence in countries that its army had cleared on way to Berlin.
Conversely, the US also pursued to create a sphere of influence. This was through the ‘Marshall Plan’, which the US used to equally create a European sphere of influence. The Russians responded in kind through control of the Baltic states. which was concerning to the American and British governments creating a political dissonance between the two ideological camps. In 1948 this led to the Russian ‘Berlin Blockade’, which was arguably wrongly interrupted as Russian expansionist ambitions but as Russia had occupied the city, they were arguably retaining influence in occupied. The Americans holding a monopoly for nuclear bombs, sent bombers capable of carrying atomic weapons to East Anglia and made no secret of their desire to use them against the Soviets if the need arose. Additionally, in late 1948 the Western powers created NATO primarily for defence against perceived Russian influence and expansionist ambitions. For example, the Norwegians fearing an approach by the Russians for use of their North Sea coastline for naval bases used to control the North Atlantic, as the German’s had done through invasion during WW2, became a founding member. In 1948 the Communists had taken over the government in Prague. Later in 1955, the Russians created the ‘Warsaw Pact’, originally as an economic block that became a unified Soviet military group, to oppose NATO. The creation of NATO was for defence against misperceived Russian aggression, but it equally misperceived by the antagonists, leading to the creation of the Warsaw Pact and giving fuel to the CW.
These factors added to mutual distrust between the ideologically opposed powers and as America had an atomic bomb, the Russians had naturally responded by carrying out an atomic test in late 1949, to which the Americans responded by developing a much more powerful ‘thermonuclear’ device. This began cycle of misperception and a ‘security dilemma’, where the antagonists entered an arms and technological race to at least support their self-perceived ideological superiority. Notably erroneous American overestimates of Russian air and missile capacities created and impression ‘gaps’ in these two areas. This compelled the Americans, who had remained on a war-footing by retaining the economically beneficial WW2 defence industry, later labelled as the ‘Military Industrial Complex’, to expand their forces to match the misrepresentations of Russian aircraft and nuclear missiles. Obviously, the Russians would respond by advancing their military technology to emulate the Americans, there by perpetuating the CW through misrepresentations of each other’s intentions and military capabilities.
Although the Americans feared Russian expansionism, Stalin did not want a war and feared the rehabilitation of Germany and Japan, which along with NATO power, made them powerful opponents. Anti-Russian and then anti-Soviet sentiment in the West was furthered by Western ‘Black Propaganda’, largely through the American CIA, NATO and the British, where negative public opinion was created and supported by non-attributable false, deceptive and demeaning information. This included the false estimations of Soviet capabilities by the CIA, which apart from being intelligence failures, invariably assisted to create a fear of Soviet capabilities as well as an increase in American defence spending.
Whereas the Americans propagated fear of Communism locally through McCarthyism and spiritual superiority against the ‘god-less’ Communists, now including the Chinese, the Russians only had their ideology as a response. The Soviets too were adept as disinformation campaigns and counters through ‘Active Measures’. The CIA undertook covert actions, such as promoting an American ‘sphere of influence’, in no-communist states. The Russians responded by pursuing similar measures in Communists states. These mutual actions prevented open warfare, but conflict between the two camps were pursued in proxy wars. For example, the Americans, with help from some Islamic States used Muslim mujahidin fighters from around the world to undertake a ‘jihad’ against the Russians who had occupied Afghanistan in 1982. The Russians were equally active in supporting the Chinese inspired conflict in Korea. Given the progress of the ‘Cold War’, It is argued as others have done, that these misperceptions of the antagonists based on disinformation, increasing tit for tat matching or surpassing of capabilities, which were largely based on flawed assessments and disinformation, not only giving false intentions but perpetuated mistrust between the opposing camps.
Seeds of disinformation
How the seed of disinformation or ‘fake news’ germinates in the human psyche can be explained by innate human characteristics. These include tribalism and the ‘psychology of fear’, which leads to ‘otherization’. It has been an evolutionary security and safety necessity for humans to develop social structures from family to kin groups then clans and tribes. This gives trustworthy, like-minded and reliable groups with common survival goals. This innate social factor or tribalism, reinforced by feudal class systems and racial and sexual differences. It is still reflected in the modern world and is manifested in nation states through such organizations such as military units, sports team supporters, religious and ideologically driven political groups and countries. For parochial political interests, those that do not belong to the ‘tribe’ are ‘otherized’ and treated suspiciously and demonized as threats. These views are reinforced, through unbalanced narratives, which are invariable falsely tailored to dissipate, confirm and build on existing views based on previous demonizing disinformation of the ‘other’, thus creating a circle of confirming pre-existing biases.
These innate biases have been easily exploited by the Western authorities through demonising propaganda against the ‘other’, giving common national unity. This can lead to development of political support of the citizenry through ‘rallying around the flag’, where citizens having been influenced by the ‘politics of fear’, will support their political leaders in unjustified actions against the ‘other’. perpetuated through false, selective or emotive propaganda, which exploits innate biases which though providing easily available information, through politically polarised privately owned press and media, at least in Western capitalist states which confirm and reinforce pre-existing views, through ‘anchoring’ and ‘confirmation bias’, that add to creating a cycle of misinformation. Political decision makers will not be immune from innate perceptions, but will have access to objective analysis. However, these politicians tend to be led by parochial personal biases rather than independent threat assessments. Hence, it is argued that innate and biased perceptions among the citizenry and political decisions makers to ingrained and thus difficult to address.
In an era where information is easily available, some people adopt the ‘expert’ position based on selective and biased information. This invariably leads to ‘cognitive dissonance’, where counter evidence is not readily considered. Such news consumers select information sources that confirm their world view. Moreover, the development of the internet has created ‘lay experts’, where sparse subject knowledge and news, obtained from social media, not always based on truthful facts, which is mostly subjective opinion and false information gives rise to ‘fake news’. This leads to the ‘Dunning–Kruger effect’, where the lay expert’s own knowledge literacy is over estimated. Granted, with the advent of social media, traditional news sources are no longer the only ones available for information, but these social media conduits are still under legal and proprietorial umbrella control any opposing or truthful balancing narratives. Although lay social media analysis may be biased, the base information and any images may not be. But if social media news is against the political narrative or propaganda, it will need controlling. Due to innate psychological factors, the rejection of objective evidence and information can lead to misinformation. These factors are exploited by political narratives and reinforcement of ‘otherness’. These innate perception forming characteristics are difficult to mitigate against except by using objective assessment tools, which the ‘lay expert’ will not, even if aware of, necessarily use.
Hence, it is unsurprising that differing political ideology and religious beliefs are viewed with suspicion by the ‘democratic’, ideologically different ‘Christian’ Western powers. The root of Western fear, based on the dualist Manichean philosophy adopted in Christian ideology, espouses only good and evil. Western countries such as America, being based on Christian ideology, take on the ‘good’ role against the ‘evil’ autocratic ‘godless’ Communist states. Following the CW and the ‘defeat’ of communism, a new ‘evil’ was needed by the ‘victors’ and was found in Islam. It became the focus of the West following the 9/11 attacks, generally targeting Muslims those that embrace Islam as a political ideology or its followers living in non-Muslim states. This has been done through propaganda and Islamophobic Manichean political rhetoric. That is not to say the wider Muslim community is not subject to ‘otherization’ from within the religion through the ‘takfiri’ ideology espoused by political Islamists such as the Wahhabi and Salafist sects. The ‘evil’ countries are ‘, such as those having had or having a communist political ideology as well as Islamic states, are punished by the more powerful ‘good’, through sanctions and indirect military actions, sometimes through Private Military Companies, allowing the states to circumvent international conventions on warfare. The political, racial and religious disparity between the currently powerful Anglo-Saxon based Western ‘democracies and the ‘others’, such as the politically Islamic theocratic Iranians and ‘non-democratic’ states based on Communist ideology has amply been demonstrated through military and economic actions and sanctions.
Economic benefits to the Western ‘democracies’ also provide an explanation for the demonization and fear of the ‘other’. These economic benefits come from defence spending and in the case of the US, foreign invasions. The end of the CW was supposed to bring a decrease in military spending, but this has not been the case in the US it has continued the high defence spending before and after the 9/11 attacks. Much of the defence budget goes to service the Military Industrial Complex. For example, the American defence budget for 2024 was 825 billion American dollars (USD) of which, about an estimated 755 billion USD went to NATO. The US contribution, combined with NATO’s, totals to about 1.47 trillion compared to Russian and Chinese combined spending of 390 billion USD. Of the US defence budget, 20% or about 172 billion USD is allocated to research and development as well as procurement of armaments, which goes to the politically powerful private ‘military-industrial’ group of companies as warned by Eisenhower in 1961. These companies have powerful political lobbies which they use to influence policymakers through disinformation and misunderstanding of real military threats. Hence as others have argued, it is contended that demonization of the ‘other’, is in the interests of these companies or countries for parochial financial interests where available objective threat assessments, as in part 2, would not be in their interest.
Dr M. Hanif Majothi, a retired British Army officer and former Metropolitan Police Special Operations officer, entered academia after obtaining his PhD from Brunel University under Professor Phillip Davies. During his time in the Metropolitan Police, he gained experience in national security intelligence operations and provided security services for British ministers and visiting dignitaries in challenging environments and war zones. He is currently completing his monograph on the advent of political policing in mainland Britain.
A list with the corresponding endnotes can be requested directly from the author: dr.hanif.majothi@gmail.com
Stephan Blancke 
Bodo Wegmann