[GOP_1900AD]

Increasingly, small players such as Cuba, who are client states of the Russian - Chinese Bloc, and Iran, who are now the big kahuna in the Islamist Bloc, are overt in their cooperation. What has been largely covert since the early 1990s (although, in fairness, read Bodansky, it was never completely covert) is now out in the open. We (the US and our allies) are being publicly tuanted much in the same way we were during the 1970s. Yes, we have made progress on certain fronts such as Afghanistan and Iraq. However, what we now see is that same old alignment between the large anti Western nation states such as Russia and the PRC, small "socialist" and Communist "developing nations" and an increasing number of "non aligned" nations who predictably mouth an anti Western screed. Deja Vu again.....

[Frank_Discussion]

Thanks for the analysis. I have seen some of these factors myself, though not so distinctly. In particular:

"However, what we now see is that same old alignment between the large anti Western nation states such as Russia and the PRC, small "socialist" and Communist "developing nations" and an increasing number of "non aligned" nations who predictably mouth an anti Western screed.

Quite so. The players changed names a little, and layed low for about a decade. Our human intelligence had better grow at a record pace to counter this situation.