Wars Update: The Bad Old Days Make A Comeback, by Jim Dunnigan.

The post-Cold War trend towards less violence is resuming after a brief interruption. In 2014 over a decade of declining violence was temporarily reversed because terrorism deaths were up by about 20 percent that year and nearly as high in 2015. This was mainly because of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) in Syria and Iraq and Boko Haram in Nigeria. …

In 2015 the Islamic terrorist related deaths declined in large part because Moslem nations have finally become less tolerant of the Islamic radicalism, especially when it is practiced on them instead of non-Moslems. …

Even with the rapid growth of religion inspired violence since the 1980s the end of the Cold War in 1991 led to a sharp (by over 20 percent so far) drop in violence worldwide. That decline was not news but the increasing activity of Islamic terrorists was. …

The West managed to get past religion-based wars by the 17th century, as had most everyone else. But not the Islamic world. All that continued religious violence between Moslems meant little to the non-Moslem world until the non-Moslems were attacked. …

Oil money is fueling the upsurge in Islamic fundamentalist violence:

ISIL and over three decades of growing Islamic terrorism is an unexpected side-effect of all the oil wealth Saudi Arabia (and other Moslem states) received after the OPEC oil cartel was formed and oil prices increased in the 1970s. This led to some unsurprising but ultimately tragic moves by newly wealthy Arabs who continue providing cash, and their own sons, to a growing number of new Islamic terrorist organizations.

All that new oil wealth in Arabia made it possible for Moslems to show how pious they were by funding Wahhabi missionaries who went to other Moslem (and many non-Moslem) nations and to preach, establish Wahhabi religious schools and mosques and create the current Islamic terrorism problem.

Billions were (and still are) spent on this and the policy of getting the young boys into these free religious schools and turning many of them into hateful (towards anyone not like them) Islamic religious fanatics led to a major outbreak of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th century. Saddam Hussein had kept this out of Iraq until 1991. Many secular rules of Moslem countries (like Syria and Libya) had also resisted the Wahhabi missionaries and money. But eventually the Wahhabi ideas, if not the Wahhabi cash, go in and created more terrorists. …

While Moslems oppose Islamic terrorism within their own countries Western expatriates working in Moslem nations have been reporting for years that there are often joyful public celebrations when news arrives (often via satellite TV) of a major Islamic terrorist attack in the West.

The military historian acknowledges the role of political correctness in hamstringing the West’s response to Islamic aggression:

Normally, the West does not get involved in these Islamic religious wars, unless attacked in a major way. Moreover, modern sensibilities have made retaliation difficult. For example, fighting back is considered by Moslems as culturally insensitive (“war on Islam”) and some of the Western media have picked up on this bizarre interpretation of reality.

It gets worse. Historians point out, for example, that the medieval Crusades were a series of wars fought in response to Islamic violence against Christians, not the opening act of aggression against Islam that continues to the present. Thus, the current war on terror is, indeed, in the tradition of the Crusades. And there are many other “Crusades” brewing around the world, in the many places where aggressive Islamic militants are making unprovoked war on their Christian and non-Moslem neighbors.

Political Correctness among academics and journalists causes pundits to try and turn this reality inside out. But a close look at the violence in Africa, Asia and the Middle East shows a definite pattern of Islamic radicals persecuting those who do not agree with them, not the other way around.

The whole article is longish, Jim Dunnigan’s semi-annual assessment of armed conflict on the planet. Dunnigan has been doing this since the late 1970s, and knows his stuff well.