Co-Authors: Dr. Morris Mottale & Dr. Yiorghos Leventis

At the end of the Cold War, in Washington and Western Europe there was a consensus that a new world order was coming around. Overlooked was the fact that an Islamic revolution in Iran led by an octogenarian Ayatollah brought a series of upheavals in the Islamic world that saw radical terrorism, revolutions in Africa, and civil wars that continue to this day. These events were capped years later by conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, North Africa, and Sub Saharan Africa and eventually a radical Islamic takeover in Afghanistan. In short, the end of the Cold War brought an endless list of conflicts of which the two outstanding ones are the war in Ukraine and the war within the Gaza Strip. There are at least fifty other wars in Africa and Asia but they do not make the news, including conflicts in Somalia, Central Africa Republic, Ethiopia, Sudan, Southern Sudan, and The Republic of Congo among many others.

The preeminence of international news networks such as CNN and the BBC along with social media brings the focus solely on the Arab-Israeli conflict and American politics. By the year 2000, there was a consensus that the new International System would see antagonism between China and the United States. By 2025, Chinese commercial trade preeminence was challenging the European Union and the North American free trade area. From 2000 onward, the Chinese set out to create a new economic block known as BRICS which is composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and by 2025 they included Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The direct challenge to the US in many areas of the International System began with the challenge that Radical Islam, shaped and manipulated by the Ayatollah, posed against the US, France, and Great Britain. The outstanding tool for Islamic expansion was the Arab-Israeli conflict and more specifically the Palestinian issue. Within a few years of the establishment of what appeared to be peace treaties between Israel and some of its neighbors (Abraham Accords), the Islamic world and the Global South saw antagonism to the existence of the Jewish state, with regional conflicts in which conflicting parties took sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Interestingly, the same parties, with some exceptions including India, are also members of BRICS.

The preeminence of the United States – however much challenged by China, Russia, and Iran – did not decrease the importance of the United States presidential elections of 2024. For the world, the US election was bound to be a defining moment in international politics, regardless of the outcome. The outstanding elements in the International System are the resentment and imitation of American cultural trends, including US mass media. What passes for American soft power is affirmative action and the woke ideology. The US stands out as an agent of cultural change. The anti-women movement in Islamic society has been influenced by the globalization of American culture and the preeminent role of women in American and European society. Misogyny has become a political ideology in the Islamic world. The competition between the major powers is compounded by the rise of new technologies, shaped by electronic communication, artificial intelligence, and cyber technology.

In 2013, China proposed changes to global currency to bypass, if not outright abolish the US Dollar. The original BRIC group was dubbed very loosely the “BRICS,” including Brazil, China, Russia, India, and South Africa. In time, other countries also joined. Venezuela and Turkey are seeking entry to the trade group, which has gained momentum.

The official members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are primarily Asian, Arabic and nations within the former Soviet Union, but growing interest across the Middle East and South America is notable. In 2004, the SCO officially established relations with the United Nations as an observer, in addition to other international bodies.

Two principle international conflicts, the Gaza War and Ukraine, along with conflicts in Africa and Asia have sped up the process of this new world order, where the Anglo-American ideal of a rule-based system is being challenged on the grounds that it is fundamentally pro-American, pro-Liberal, and pro-Capitalist. The rise of conflicts within the Islamic world and the widespread anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic positions of many countries from Latin America to Asia to Africa are adding another dimension to this new world order yet to come.

Rise of Islamic Politics in the West

The rise of Islamic politics in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Canada the United States and the United Kingdom has influenced domestic electoral politics. In Europe, for example, the rise of the so-called extremist parties like AfD (Alternative for Germany) or the Rassemblement National in France have given new weight to the idea that liberal democratic order, which has characterized the development of Western Europe and America in the post-war period, is not accepted by large portions of the population. Similar trends are evident across Europe, with the rise of Vox from Spain, 5 Stelle in Italy, and BNP in the United Kingdom.

Speaking of the latter, let’s take a closer statistical look at the upsurge of Islamic politics in the UK. There is an array of hard political facts: Muslims count for four million in a total population of 66 million in the UK. Yet they elect Muslim mayors in no less than nine major urban centres in the country, including the mayor of the capital, London, of the second largest city Birmingham and of the world-renowned liberal university city of Oxford. The other six Muslim-led municipalities are: Blackburn, Leeds, Luton, Oldham, Rochdale, Sheffield. There are now 3,000 mosques, (one mosque per 80 square kilometres roughly) 130 Sharia Courts and 50 Sharia councils in the UK. Seventy-eight per cent of Muslim women do not work and receive state support, 63 per cent of British Muslims are out of work and receive state support. UK Muslim families on the receiving end of state support and free accommodation have on average six to eight children. Every school in good old Christian England is required to teach about Islam. Under such circumstances, guess which is the most common name given to British boys nowadays. You guessed right: it is Mohammed!

Greece: Demographic Collapse

At the other end of the Old Continent, Greece, an ancient nation reborn in 1830, lying at the southeastern fringes of the European Union, has been in deep trouble for the past two decades. Endemic corruption and leadership incompetence brought up mounting external foreign debt. Greece’s government debt hovers around 160 per cent of the GDP. The country’s economic woes are compounded by the hordes of irregular migrants. Periodically, vulnerable segments of Hellas’ 15,000 kilometres long coastline get awash with hundreds of mainly sub-Saharan and Middle Eastern unsolicited destitute visitors. The Hellenic Republic currently hosts a large number of immigrants accounting for over a million or approximately ten per cent of the total population, a considerable proportion of whom are Muslim. Pew Research and other international reports estimate there are 520,000 additional Muslims in Greece who are refugees, regular or irregular migrants, or asylum‑seekers. This number is in addition to the indigenous recognized Muslim minority in Western Thrace numbering around 140,000 people. Sharia law applies for this minority, which enjoys a special status in terms of religious and cultural rights, in derogation to the Hellenic Civil Law, in compliance with the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 governing its status.

Greece’s Muslim immigrants are in the most part Albanians (over 0.4 million) who are not particularly devout Muslims given their socialization for over 50 years in a totalitarian communist regime banning religion. In fact, a number of them, in their everyday life, adopt Greek names – either ancient or modern.

However, what should be underlined, is that the rise in the incoming Muslim population in the Hellenic Republic comes on the sharp backdrop of the flight of an impoverished indigenous Greek Orthodox population. Young Greeks are forced to become economic migrants themselves in the more affluent countries of the northern tier of the EU, the UK, the US and Canada. A rough total figure of migrant Greeks for the first quarter of the 21st century is estimated to be around 1.3 to 1.5 million! This is definitely a generation lost for the country. Brain drainage ad nauseum.

To make things worse, Greek birth rates are falling rapidly. Though a small nation, or perhaps because of this, the sharp demographic decline of Greece, has not escaped the attention of Elon Musk. The flamboyant billionaire businessman reposted, on 2 September 2025, an article that reported over 700 schools in Greece were closing due to falling student numbers. He captioned the post: “The death of Greece.” The actual number of Greek schools shutting down because of failing to reach the threshold of fifteen pupils is 721. Conclusively, in the first quarter of the current century, the Hellenic Republic lost well over a million of highly qualified young Greeks only to be replaced by half a million of unskilled Muslim immigrants.

Development of communication technology, social media

The causes of such new developments have to be found in the development of communication technology and what we used to call rising expectations, which characterized the study of development in the 50s and 60s. Social media and international visual communications have fueled rising expectations in the 21^st century. This New World Order has also been characterized by large numbers of so called “illegal” immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America moving to North America or into Western Europe.

In the case of Germany, for example, the growth of “extremist” parties has been fueled by the presence of illegal immigrants and the ease with which the German government has allowed real and imaginary refugees to move and enjoy the benefits of a welfare society in Germany under Angela Merkel. In fact, by September 2024, Germany had imposed passport controls on its borders, irritating some of its neighbors because this policy is against the idea of an integrated, borderless Europe. Both in Europe and North America, the rise of Chinese exports and the decline of local industries, ranging from the car industry to chemicals and steel, has led the traditional working classes to support nationalist and protectionist parties. American elections have seen both parties talking about protecting American industry. This also seems to be the case in Canada.

This new world order has also been propelled by the so-called “Woke Business,” the rise of racial identification, which has added to racial and identity politics all over the world. In Islamic countries, ranging from Pakistan to North and West Africa, this has meant the persecution of Christians and Jews, to the extent that women who do not wear the hijab face persecution. Paradoxically, Islamic society is also being threatened by radical Islamic societies. Al Qaida and violent subversive groups are propagating across Africa and Asia.

Leadership in Western Europe and North America has sometime faced this issue in response to radical terrorism such as 9/11 and Bataclan. More immediate political concerns and challenges see democratic political systems concentrating on jobs, education, human rights, immigration and, last but not least, climate change. Historically, from the Napoleonic period onward, world orders and balances of power never lasted more than a generation. For example, the Peace of Versailles world order lasted twenty years. The Cold War order in Europe lasted from 1947 to 1989. The relative peace that followed the fall of the Soviet Union lasted fifteen years at most, as NATO expanded into Eastern Europe and the rise of a new Russia set off a renewed arms race and added more weight to the developing BRICS.

The spectacular victory of the Ayatollahs in the Middle East and the rise of radical Shiite politics saw Iran waging ideological and international antagonism against Israel. This was historically due to the fact that Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers were violently opposed to the existence of a Jewish state and Zionism. The war in Gaza, while carried out by Hamas, has been instigated and pushed by the Ayatollahs of Iran, unhinging any attempt by the United States and Europe to bring some degree of a peaceful order in the Middle East.

An interesting facet of this new world order was how India, China, and even some Islamic countries such as the United Arab Emirates became interested in a race to the moon. The increasing competition for status and prestige saw an explosion of international sports. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar bought themselves international competitions and famous European players to attempt a change in global perspective towards them, with mixed success.

One approach to studying these new developments would focus on the idea of cultural and political resentment by non-European countries, which for the last two centuries have seen France, Britain and the United States shaping the international order and cultural and political values, ranging from the status of women to economic protectionism and the assertion of secular Euro-American values. For example, the decline of Indian socialism has meant the rise of a new Indian identity which focuses on Hinduism, and the reassertion of Indian heritage against Islam, creating further violent conflict with Pakistan. Cultural trends from the United States, such as radical feminism, transgenderism, the acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual marriages have added even more contentious issues characterizing this new world order. In Russia, Putin’s government has made clear that homosexual values and marriages will not be accepted, and this has of course been the case in countries in Africa and Asia.

An insight into the cultural and economic context of the rise of BRICS and the New World Order should not overlook the fact that many of the conflicts in the world are of cultural origins. At one time, one could have employed the term “ideological,” but culture and ideology overlap each other, as do religious attitudes. While Islam began as a religion, after centuries of theologically based governance, it has also become a foundational cornerstone of the political ideology of the Middle East. In today’s world order, Islam has taken on heavy political connotations and has been used by radical groups to unhinge societies in European and American states.

Trumps administration in Washington in 2025 was attempting to enhance American power and control conflicts in the name of an American regulated international system. Whether that idea was feasible remains to be seen. As it was of May of 2025, India and Pakistan were on a threshold of war in Kashmir. It added even more to the notion of civilization and religious conflicts that characterized the Islamic world. From the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and from North Africa to the Cape.

For several decades the international system has seen a concern about the so-called North-South divide. This divide encompassed a gap between the advanced industrial world and the so-called third-world that encompassed Latin America, Africa, and much of Asia. In more specific terms it was an economic gap, best indicated by a much lower standard of living outside of Europe and North America.

Even before the end of the Cold War, the Mediterranean saw increasing numbers of illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from war zones coming from the Middle East, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and of course Sub-Saharan Africa. Hundreds of thousands of refugees began crossing the Mediterranean fleeing from war zones, civil wars, and of course last but not least economic conditions that were not acceptable anymore given the opportunities that people in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America saw in the advanced industrial democratic world. This gap was compounded by the fact that the demographic growth in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia was not economically sustainable. Rising expectations saw then millions of people trying to move into Europe. In 2019 alone, 2.7 million immigrants from non-EU countries entered the EU.

As refugee and immigration crises in the European Union have shown neither national governments nor the European Union institutions have been able to develop a systematic or coherent approach in dealing with constant conflicts in the Middle East or Africa. The end of the cold war had welcomed the idea of peace in our time, but as Samuel P. Huntington prophetically outlined in his essay and eventual book The Clash if Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, the international system was going to see a constant conflict between the secular democratic Euro-American world and as it turned out, the Islamic and Chinese world. The wars in the Persian Gulf, the Near East and the rise of Islamic terrorism in Africa, Europe and Asia followed the traumatic attack by a handful of radical Islamic terrorists on New York. By 2021 the consequences could be seen through the American retreat from Afghanistan. That country had been the breeding ground for the attacks on New York. The United States, Britain and other Western countries came to be humiliated by the Taliban’s victory. 

The Taliban victory in Afghanistan saw hundreds of thousands more refugees trying to enter Europe principally through Turkey and Belarus. Radical Islam wrote a new chapter in the history of the Islamic world. 

The constant international crisis that precipitated a flow of immigrants and refugees to Europe demonstrated increasingly the inability of the European Union and the United Kingdom to resolve an issue that challenged in the final analysis European culture, European economic wellbeing and societal sustainability. The rise of political parties that articulated the apprehension, fears and anxiety of widespread strata of the European population accepting non-European and Islamic newcomers, legal and illegal in France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany for example, were symptomatic of future political instability. The inability of European countries to agree on common policies of protecting European borders and even developing a defensive mechanism outside the framework of NATO speaks of structural deficiencies in European strategic decision making.

Immigration was in the final analyses fueled by demographic growth in   Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Governments in Europe were unable to respond to the increasing expectations of the populations of those regimes. The population of Egypt had reached by 2020 102.3 million, Pakistan 220.9 million, Bangladesh 164 million, Ethiopia 115 million, and Nigeria 206.1 million; these are examples of what Europe was going to face. Increasing mass communications and transportation allowed millions of people to enter Europe. 

European governments seem unable to coordinate a policy that could cope with the increasing movement of people from the developing world towards Western Europe and North America. The issue of illegal immigration was of concern to many societies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to the extent that economic concern lead many people to move from one nation to another. For example, the case of Bangladesh stands out, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis were moving into India generating social, economic and social conflicts. And in the case of Africa, millions of people were moving across the continent with spill over into North Africa and Libya. In turn, hundreds of thousands of Africans were trying to cross the Mediterranean into Italy, Spain and Greece to reach the promised land: the European Union.

The sustainability of such movements did not and does not seem to concern international organizations and NGOs that were and are interested in bringing refugees to Europe. Inevitably, the issue of settling refugees, providing employment and preventing cultural clashes was the subject of much debate but with no solution in sight.

Critical debates on sustainability and climate change did not necessarily address themselves to the catastrophic problem of population growth and food supplies. In fact, the reluctance of some countries such as India, Indonesia and China to comprehend the anxieties of industrial states and European and North American activists was to be expected. Beijing, Delhi and Jakarta were by far more concerned with their populations and their standard of living. Rising expectations could not be postponed because they could be a cause of political instability. The demand for fossil fuels was not decreasing as energy was crucial to the creation of a higher standard of living for hundreds of people in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Immigration is bound to be the biggest challenge for the European Union and Britain. Illegal immigrants from the Middle East were coming to France to cross the channel as others were trying to come through the Italian peninsula to enter Switzerland and Germany. The soft underbellies of the European Union, Italy, Spain and Greece continue to be so. Countries such as Belarus and Turkey use the movement of immigrants into the European Union as a tool for gaining concessions from Brussels and individual European countries. The president of Turkey Erdogan had been successful earlier (in 2015) in gaining financial support from the European Union and Germany to stop the flow of Islamic immigrants into the continent. Hundreds and thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan could become a great tool for gaining concessions from the European Union and single European states whose power is becoming ever more marginal. 

The trend in international conferences shaped by Western powers and NGOs on climate change, sustainability, energy and food security, and human rights should be understood in the context of an overwhelming demographic shift that does not seem to enter into the political calculus of Western decision makers and their constituents.