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If the initiative came from the USSR , it met a favourable response in the West and Washington. By 1954 substantive east-west negotiations had begun again , covering Germany , Austria , Korea and Indo-China (Vietnam).
In one case , Austria a complete solution was found by declaring the country “neutral” , in return for a full complete evacuation of Soviet military troops and forces. In two others , Korea and Indo-China , military hostilities ended and partition of the two disputed countries , Korea and Vietnam, was accepted by both sides , in practice if not in theory.
No solution was found in Germany and some initial willingness on the part of the Soviet Union was rebuffed in the west : but the very easing of east- west tension overall did enable a lowering of conflict in this central European theatre as well.
It was not thought that east-west hostilities had ended , and the unfinished agenda of the first round of the Cold War was later activated and played with delayed force- most remarkably in the Indo-Chinese / Vietnamese conflict.
The easing of confrontation meant that , while East-West confontation and contestation contunued the first segment of the Cold War ended and came to an end.
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For Westerners, the Arabic word jihad has long had an ominous ring—conjuring up a host of images, from turbaned warriors swinging scimitars to wild-eyed fanatics waving Kalashnikov rifles. We instinctively associate the word with “holy war.â€
Given the history of Western-Islamic relationships, that’s not surprising. In the century immediately following the death of Muhammad (632), Muslim forces conquered lands stretching from the borders of China and India to Spain’s Atlantic coast. Historian Bernard Lewis notes:
For almost a thousand years … Europe was under constant threat. In the early centuries it was a double threat—not only of invasion and conquest, but also of conversion and assimilation. All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast majority of the first Muslims west of Iran and Arabia were converts from Christianity. North Africa, Egypt, Syria, even Persian-ruled Iraq, had been Christian countries, in which Christianity was older and more deeply rooted than in most of Europe. Their loss was sorely felt and heightened the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe.[1]
It is not surprising, then, that the word jihad would be understood by most Westerners to mean “holy war.†But is that what it really means? And how does that square with the claim that Islam is a peaceful religion?
WHAT’S IN A WORD?
Muslims claim that jihad does not mean holy war. Technically, they are correct.
In Arabic, the word jihad literally means “struggle†or “striving.†It is related to the word, jahada, defined as “exerting one’s utmost power, efforts, endeavors or ability in contending with an object of [disapproval].â€[2] In the Quran, the word is often part of a larger phrase “jihad in the path of God.â€
Jihad may be waged against a variety of targets: a human enemy, one’s own evil desires, even Satan. Contemporary Muslim societies often use the word jihad the way Americans use the word crusade. Hence, authorities in a Muslim country might declare, say, a “jihad against drugs.â€
So there are several kinds of jihad recognized within Islam: “Jihad of the heart,†which is the struggle against oneself; “jihad of the tongue†or “jihad of the pen,†which involve persuasion, exhortation and instruction for the cause of Islam; “jihad of the sword;†and so on.[3]
Still, the primary meaning of jihad is physical combat. According to Reuven Firestone, professor of medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, “When the term is used without qualifiers such as ‘of the heart’ or ‘of the tongue’ … it is universally understood as war on behalf of Islam (equivalent to “jihad of the swordâ€), and the merits of engaging in such jihad are described plentifully in the most-respected religious works.â€[4]
JIHAD IN EARLY ISLAM
Jihad as physical warfare features prominently in the earliest Islamic writings. The Quran alone contains many verses about it.
Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik, a Muslim, points out that “the Quranic injunctions cover the causes and object of war; its nature and characteristics; limits and extents; dimensions and restraints.â€[5] The Quran even goes into strategy and tactics, and critiques some Muslim battles.
Taken at face value, the verses in the Quran about warfare seem ambiguous and contradictory. In some places, for example, the Quran urges Muhammad and Muslims to confront opposition with patience and persuasion. These have been called “Verses of Forgiveness and Pardonâ€:[6]
Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His path, and who receive guidance. (16:125)[7]
Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel (evil) with what is better. (41:34)
In other places, it gives them permission to engage in retaliatory or defensive fighting:
To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged—and verily, God is most powerful for their aid—(They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right (for no cause) except that they say, “our Lord is God.†(22:39-40a)
In yet other places, the Quran seems to command offensive warfare against unbelievers:
Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not. (2:216)
But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. (9:5)
Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (9:29).
Early Islamic scholars resolved the conflict by appealing to a kind of progressive “revelation†that was tailored to fit Muhammad’s and his followers’ circumstances.
When Muhammad first began to receive “revelations†from God, in 610, he lived in Mecca, a major center of polytheistic worship. As he preached his monotheistic message, he encountered indifference and then growing resistance. Over 13 years, persecution against him and his small band of followers eventually became so severe that they finally left Mecca and emigrated to Medina (then known as Yathrib) about 220 miles to the north.
In Medina, Muhammad gathered many followers—along with political and military power. After eight years of raids and battles, he conquered Mecca and instituted Islam in place of the city’s polytheism.
According to Firestone, “Muslim scholars came to the conclusion that the scriptural verses regarding war were revealed in direct relation to the historic needs of Muhammad during his prophetic mission. At the beginning of his prophetic career in Mecca when he was weak and his followers few, the divine revelations encouraged avoidance of physical conflict.â€
After the intense persecutions that caused Muhammad and his followers to emigrate to Medina, however, they were given leave to engage in defensive warfare. As the Muslim community grew in strength, further revelations broadened the conditions under which war could be waged, “until it was concluded that war against non-Muslims could be waged virtually at any time, without pretext, and in any place.â€[8]
The later verses, known as the “Sword Verses†(9:5 and 9:29), were considered by Muslim scholars to have cancelled the previous verses mandating kindness and persuasion. Expansionist jihad became the explicit norm.
Rudolph Peters, professor of Islamic Law and Law of the Middle East at the University of Amsterdam, observes, “The crux of the doctrine is the existence of one single Islamic state, ruling the entire umma [Muslim community]. It is the duty of the umma to expand the territory of this state in order to bring as many people under its rule as possible. The ultimate aim is to expand the territory of this state in order to bring the whole earth under the sway of Islam and to extirpate unbelief.â€[9]
After the initial, massive conquests of Islam ended in the eighth century, Muslim jurists ruled that the caliph (the supreme Muslim ruler) “had to raid enemy territory at least once a year in order to keep the idea of jihad alive.â€[10]
This was the dominant view of jihad until modern times. If anything, the last Islamic empire—the Ottoman Empire—was even more zealous about expansionist jihad than the early empires.[11]
CONVERT OR DIE
The Quran teaches that people should not be converted by force: “Let there be no compulsion in religion†(2:256a).
Nonetheless, the doctrine of jihad has led many to allege that Islam was spread by the sword. This is a fair charge, but it needs to be qualified.
Muslims follow not only the Quran, which they believe is a literal transcript of God’s words, but also the Hadith, accounts of Muhammad’s words and deeds. These words and deeds are considered inspired by God and an example for Muslims to follow. According to one widely accepted hadith, whenever Muhammad would send an out expedition, he would admonish his appointed commander:
When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to [accept] Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. … If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.[12]
The jizya, a kind of tribute, was part of a larger deal in which non-Muslims submitted to several conditions. In addition to paying the jizya, non-Muslims were also required to wear distinctive clothing and mark their houses (which must not be built higher than Muslims’ houses), must not scandalize Muslims by openly performing their worship services, nor build new churches or synagogues. Those who owned land were also required to pay a land tax.[13]
According to some Muslim jurists, the jizya had to be paid by each person at a humiliating public ceremony, in which the person was struck on the head or the nape of the neck. According to historian Bat Ye’or, this ceremony “survived unchanged till the dawn of the twentieth century.â€[14]
Both the jizya and the land tax were often extorted through torture, and were frequently so exorbitant that whole villages would flee or go into hiding.
Technically, then, Christians and Jews were not forced to accept Islam at the point of a sword. But their treatment nonetheless placed them under severe pressure to convert.
And many idolaters were not even allowed to pay the jizya. They were forced to either convert or die.
BLUNTING THE SWORD
By the late 1600s, the Islamic Ottoman Empire had pushed the frontiers of Islam as far west as Austria. After being repelled from the walls of Vienna in 1683, however, the empire became less and less of a threat.
With the rise of Western power, expansionist jihad became harder to maintain. Historian Bernard Lewis observes that defense eventually “became the pattern of jihad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as one Muslim country after another was threatened and then conquered by Christian European powers.â€[15]
In addition to being put on the defensive militarily, Muslims were increasingly confronted with Western institutions and ideas. Some Muslim thinkers, notes Peters, were “convinced of the superiority of the West and Western culture [and] tried to show that Islam was a ‘respectable’ religion that fostered the same values as Christendom and Western civilization.â€[16]
Other Muslims were less impressed with Western ideas and resented what they perceived as unfair criticism from Western scholars who viewed Islam as an aggressive religion. After all, during their lifetimes, they had only seen Islam on the retreat. They sought to defend Islam from what they perceived as colonialist propaganda.
Both groups of Muslim thinkers reinterpreted jihad as defensive warfare: The Sword Verses commanding Muslims to slay the pagans were directed not at unbelievers in general, but at the hostile Jews, Christians and Arab polytheists who fought against Muhammad because they hated his religion.
By this view, the Sword Verses do not abrogate the other verses. Rather, according to one of the leading Muslim scholars of the mid-1900s, the Verses of Forgiveness and Pardon remain “fixed and unassailable.â€[17]
This is considered a “modernist” interpretation of jihad, and those who embrace it consequently attach a great deal of importance to the nonmilitary forms of jihad (e.g., jihad of the heart, pen and so on).
It is unclear, however, just how many people subscribe to this view. For one thing, some of the writings were designed to make Muslims look better to their colonial rulers. In India, for example, the British tended to favor Hindus over Muslims partly because of the doctrine of jihad. Some Muslim writers tried to counter that problem by denying expansionist jihad—and even some aspects of defensive jihad.[18]
Moreover, these writings exist side by side with other writings that expound the traditional view. Such traditional writings euphemize expansionist jihad, but include it as a legitimate option. One often-cited text calls it warfare for “idealistic†reasons, and justifies it by arguing, “Every nation has its own ideals which constantly inspire it. The deeper a nation is convinced of them, the greater is its effort to realize them. … It is this mission to uproot godlessness and [polytheism] that is referred to in Islamic literature by the expression, ‘in the path of God,’ which we have translated as ‘idealistic’ reasons for waging war.â€[19]
THE REVOLUTIONARIES
The modernist interpretation is also taking heat from growing numbers of Islamic fundamentalists, who contend that those promoting that interpretation suffer from “defeatist and apologetic mentalities.â€[20] They have recast jihad as an ongoing “Islamic world revolution.â€[21]
The intellectual father of Islamic fundamentalism is Sayyid Qutb (1903-1966). According to Bassam Tibi, professor of international relations at the University of Gottingen, his writings “can be compared, in terms of spread and influence, with the Communist Manifesto.â€[22]
An Egyptian teacher, Qutb came to New York in 1948-1950 for further training. During his stay he was stung by Americans’ anti-Arab sentiments and repulsed by their materialism and sexual looseness.
As a result of this experience, Tibi said, Qutb “returned to Egypt as a furious anti-American and anti-Western Muslim intent on laying the groundwork for a vision of Islam that would offer an alternative to that of the West.â€[23] His writings captured the imagination of many Muslims, and his status only grew when the Egyptian government executed him in 1966 for subversion.
Qutb believed that “mankind today is on the brink of a precipice … because humanity is devoid of those vital values which are necessary not only for its healthy development, but also for its real progress.â€[24]
He asserted that mankind will never find salvation in manmade laws—whether those of Western Europe and North America or those of the Communist countries. Salvation can only be achieved by replacing manmade laws and institutions with God’s rule alone. Mankind must adopt Islamic law in total, and give up such notions as democracy, which derives its authority from people rather than God.
Qutb declared that anyone who doesn’t accept God’s law in every respect—including professed Muslims—is an unbeliever: “Whoever observes something other than God’s revelations in his judgment not only rejects a particular aspect of Godhead but also claims for himself certain qualities of Godhead. If that is not unbelief, I wonder what is. For what use is a verbal claim of being a believer … when such action denies such a claim?â€[25]
As unbelievers, such people may be fought by physical means. Indeed, they must be fought because they will not peaceably relinquish the ability to legislate for themselves:
It is not that Islam loves to draw its sword and chop off people’s heads with it. The hard facts of life compel Islam to have its sword drawn and to be always ready and careful. God knows that those who hold the reigns of power are hostile to Islam and that they will always try to resist it.[26]
This was the ideology followed by the militants who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. It is also the ideology that is behind most Islamic terrorism today—including that of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.
Sphere: Related ContentBy 1949 , the focus of the international conflict had shifted from the Far East . October 1949 was the time period when the Chinese Communists with Mao came to power in Peking. In June 1950 the North Koreans attempted to unify the Korean peninsula. The pro-American South Korea was invaded by the North Koreans.
Similarily the Indo-Chinese communist guurillas , emboldened by the victory of their Communist allies in China , intensified the struggle that was to culminate with the defeat of the French forces in the valley battle of Diem ben Phu .
It has been said that in 1954 the first phase of the Cold War ended as the result of two distinct developments. First was the death of the Russian Communist dictator and benefactor Stalin in March 1953. The second , on the American side of the Cold War equation , was the election of Eisenhower. Eisenhower was the former supreme military commander of the Anglo-British alliance during world war II.
Together these two events less to the cessation of Cold War driven hostilities in the Far East . The Korean Armistice was drawn up and signed July 1952 . Ceasfire in the former French Indo-China (Vietnam) occured shortly after in 1954.
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Map of the Korean “Police Action ”
The ‘”Truman Doctine” or “Truman Doctrunes” declared the abject willingness of the United States to put it great resources to fight the spread ofCommunism throughout continental Europe in a major economic and integrated development foreign aid support fashion and enterprise.
The “Marshall Plan: ( named after General George C. Marshall) aimed to revive European capitalism under its American United States influence.
No sunstantive progress in east - west negotiation was made from early 1947 onwards , and the London Foreign Ministers Conference of December 1947 marked the end of meaningful talks and discussion between the former allies. Six years of almost complete breakdown of communication between east and power power blocks followed. In Europe at the height of the Cold War was the Berlin Blockade . The “Berlin Blockade began in the spring of 1948 - June 1948 . The Berlin Blockade was not an isolated incident in the strategies and integration of the Moscow led Communist Eastern European integrative political and geopolitical strategies , plans , planning and efforts.
The Berlin Blockade was accompanied by forcible takeovers of power by Communist forces in Greece . The Communist forces had already been removed and relieved of government power structures in the southern European countries of Italy and France. Nato ( The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization ) , was established in 1948 when the division of Germany into two rival states was established.
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G2 Analyst audio and textual information hub
Cold War II is the most recent of four major phases into which a post 1945 history can be divided. In the broadest terms, it can be said that postwar politics have gone through these major phases , which are defined primarily by the character of Soviet-American U.S.A. relations at each individual stage.
The defined phases of the Cold War in geopolitical political analysis analyst terms are :
1) The time period of the First Cold War 1946-53
2) The time period of Ocillatory Antagonism 1953-1969
3) Political Detente
4) The Second Cold War
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US captures top al Qaeda operative Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, Abu Abdullah, described as senior global lieutenant to Osama bin Laden
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A Pentagon statement does not say where he was captured, only that he was caught attempting to return to Iraq, his native country, to take charge of al Qaeda’s affairs and possibly overseas operations. On his way he met an al Qaeda operative in Iran. The CIA handed a-Hadi to the Pentagon which has confined him in Guantanamo Bay.
Born in Mosul in 1960, a million dollar-reward was offered for his capture. He is 29th on Iraq’s most wanted terrorist list. In the 90s, he was a paramilitary leader in Afghanistan. During 2002-04, the captured man led efforts to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan from Pakistan. He is also said to have plotted Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf’s assassination.
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The crisis attendant upon Cold War II was however not just a matter of the tone of east-west relations , but was given special importance because of the role played within it by the nuclear arms race and the dangers which are rightly seen as flowing from this military and geopolitical competition .
It is indeed too simple to present the nuclear arms race and east west conflicts as two parts of the same process . Very few people believe that the present leadership of either east or west would seek suddenly to launch an all out nuclear attack on the enemy.
However both Washington and Moscow are closely interwoven so that worsening a political climate between east and west is seen as increasing the dangers and probability of war both conventional and nuclear.
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The Cold Wars : The Years From 1979 to 1982
In the years from 1979 to 1982 an emphasis upon the search for common ground gave way to one of strength and military preparedness as one based on international order to an earlier acceptance of the complexity of world and global financial and geopolitical, geostrategic factors and stategic political analysis and analysts.
The responsibility for problems in a widespread strategic political and geopolitical manner was distributed between the various idiffirent opposing sides and countries as well as blocs and replaced by a straightforward indictment of the opposing side.
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From the middle of the 1970’s the world witnessed the onset of a Second Cold War , a period of east - west hostility and of the international focus upon this conflict was comparable , in its political essentials , to the First political Cold War of 1946 to 1953. Whatever accomodations the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R. were to seek in political and geopolitical terms following this - the Cold War had been launced.
The gravity of this political development was plain enough from the very tone in which international relations were being conducted . In contrast to the more cooperative and cautious tone of east west relations evident during the detente of the early 1970’s Moscow and Washington now engaged in threats , challenges , self justifications and vilifications of each political and geopolitical and strategic sides.
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A Jihad Case in Point
Can the case ultimately be proved in court? It could well be seen outside the courtroom that the substantially increased security was visible. Barricades and more barricades with somewhat apparently heavily armed
Prosecutors have long presented their cases and argued that Al-Arian was involved in money laundering. The evidence casti the professor and other defendants as Tampa-based conspirators operating front groups supporting the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (IJMP), a group labeled groups, and was closely linked with IJMP leaders. Much of the prosecutors’ work will consist of presenting alleged ties between Al-Arian and leaders of Islamic Jihad.
Prosecutors say that the 1994 public television documentary “Jihad in
Another landmark in legal and media queries happened in 1995, when the director of Sami al-Arian’s think tank emerged as the new leader of the terrorist group. While a professor at USF al-Arian had founded the think tank called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE). Ramadan Shallah served as director.
Media covering the current trial report that in October 23, 1995 a letter on WISE stationery was sent to the British consulate in
Emerson commented, “When Al-Arian said, ‘How could I know this person [Shallah] was connected to the Jihad?’ he knew exactly what was going on.” Hatina’s meticulously footnoted monograph, which references numerous Arab-language interviews with Islamic Jihad leaders, may provide a piece to the puzzle.
The Investigative Project (IP) and other sources report the following from the trial:
· Prosecutor Walter “Terry” Furr said investigators found “trophy shots†photos of dead Jews and martyr lists on a defendant’s computer.
· Investigators found lists of dates of the deaths of Islamic Jihad suicide bombers for sending money to their families.
· Al-Arian transferred money to the families of Islamic Jihad martyrs.
· In opening statements, the prosecution revealed a letter written by al-Arian to a Kuwaiti financier praising an Islamic Jihad bombing as a sign of what the group could accomplish and soliciting funds for further attacks. Al-Arian says he never mailed the letter, but according to the prosecution they will present proof that it was hand-couriered out of the
· Witness Muneer Arafat alleged al-Arian tried to recruit him to serve in IJMP. Arafat said of Islamic Jihad leaders in the 1990’s: “They are sending their kids to
Al-Arian and the other defendants deny all charges against him, and his defense attorneys portray the case as persecution of the professor for his pro-Palestinian and religious beliefs. After arguing that a statute referenced by the prosecution did not prohibit one from being a member of an illegal group, and that people are free to praise terrorist groups and their goals, attorney Moffitt stated that the “outstanding feature of this case is Freedom of Speech.” He contends that Al-Arian was helping to “educate” Americans on the Palestinian view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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It was not appeciated until after the September 11 that Al Qaeda’s international components and divisions - the German, British , Spanish , Dutch and Belgium cells acted in concert. Only in the post de facto analysis did the significance of these actions appear. The investigations into Mohammed Atta and the other 911 conspirators reveal the extent of this integration and coordination for final coordinated action.
By perpetrating the world’s greatest tourist outrage on September 11 2001 , Al Qaeda demonstrated the magnitude of the escalating threat and the apparent sophistication of its methods, technologies available and tactics.
Al Qaeda pioneered the operational vanguard of a global Islamist threat posing the likelihood of long term , more or less , continuous conflict with the western world. To manage and counter that threat , a comprehensive in depth understanding of Al Qaeda is essential.
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Sphere: Related ContentThe convential wisdom among intelligence specalists was that emerging terrorism shared a premise of autonomous terrorist component cells each one working independently and unwares of the others. This was the conventional wisdom a the time and not unreasonable in any manner or thought. If one component of the chain was caught the rest were safe and could function onwards and upwards in their struggle.
Al Qaeda and other groups had cleverly revered to one - to - one contact , primarily via couriers as a means of keeping in touch with each other in a manner that circumvented the typical government’s technical means of intelligence gathering.
This new and innovative strategy and tactic of Al Qaeda was born in the Afghani Mujahideen experience where the fighters were the proxy of western intelligence systems and western powers. Through their interaction with these systems they learn to discover the holes and shortcomings of the intelligence and tactical systems of the ” advanced western world” better referred to as “The Infidels”
Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Muslims claimed he had insulted their religion.
I created this satirical commentary image because it seems to me that it takes very little to upset a large portion of the Islamic community. For a religion that claims to be one of peace, the current evidence of paranoid aggression speaks against this theological claim. While Muslims claim that their religion was never spread by the sword, one can imagine that perhaps the religion was spread by responding to minor slights to their religion. The question remains whether there is something within the internal theological logic of Islam which gives rise to religious expansion through paranoid aggression. Here a link to a site demonstrating the historical violence of Islam.
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Al Quaeda confronts the world with a new kind of threat.
The perspectives of the historian and the political scientist are both essential in understanding and addressing Al Qaeda and can lead to an understanding of the nature of the threat facing the western world.
It is as if the western world got rid of the threat of “Communism” and now a new threat has emerged. Rather it was there all along and has just come back to “haunt us”. Some things change , others remain the same.
Since the contemporary wave of terrorism , in the Middle East began in 1968 - after the end of the “Six Day War” , no groups resembling “Al Queda” have previously emerged.
Al Quaeda has moved beyond terrorism, or the status of terrorism and protest and turned into a global insturment with which to compete and challenge Western influence in the Moslem world. Al Qaeda is a worldwide movement capable of mobilizing a new and hitherto unimagined global conflict.
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 Cold Wars : Old and New
From the middle 1970’s the world witnessed the onset of a Second Cold War, a period of east-west hostility and of international focus upon this conflict was comparable. In its essentials to the first Cold War of 1946- 53.. Whatever accomodations the USA and USSR were to seek after this Cold War had been launched , the gravity of this development was plain enough to the last tone in which international relations were being conducted . In contrast to the more cooperative and cautious tone of east west relations evident during the detente of the early 1970’s we could now hear Moscow and Washington engage in threat and counterthreat. challenge , justification and villification of each other.
In the years from 1979 to 1982 at least and emphasis upon the search for common ground gave way to one of strength and military preparedness as the basis of world affairs. This was due to the fact that responsibility for the problems was distributed between different countries and was replaced by a straightforward indictment of the opposing side.
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