The Next 100 Years

t h e i s l a m i c e a rt h qua k e
The U.S.–Soviet confrontation spanned the periphery of the Soviet Union. 
At the end of the Cold War, there were three sections to this border. There 
was the European section, running from Norway to the German–Czech 
frontier. There was the Asian section, running from the Aleutians through 
Japan and into China. And there was the third section, running from north­
ern Afghanistan to Yugoslavia. When the Soviet Union collapsed, this last 
section was the most heavily affected. Yugoslavia collapsed first, but the 

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BOSNIA AND
BOSNIA AND
BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA
HERZEGOVINA
HERZEGOVINA
CROATIA
CRO
CROATIA
ATIA
SERBIA
SERBIA
SERBIA
CHECHNYA
CHECHNY
CHECHNYAA
KAZAKHSTAN
K
KAZAKHSTAN
AZAKHSTAN
AZERBAIJAN
A
AZERBAIJAN
ZERBAIJAN
MONTENEGRO
MONTENEGRO
MONTENEGRO
GEORGIA
GEORGIA
GEORGIA
MACEDONIA
MA
MACEDONIA
CEDONIA
BULGARIA
BUL
BULGARIA
GARIA
UZBEKISTAN
UZBEKISTAN
KYRGYZST
KYRGYZST
UZBEKIST
AN
AN
AN
KYRGYZSTAN
ALBANIA
ALBANIA
ALBANIA
TURKEY
TURKE
TURKEYY
TURKMENISTAN
TURKMENIST
TURKMENISTAN
AN
ARMENIA
ARMENIA
ARMENIA
TA JIKISTAN
T
TA JIKISTAN
A JIKISTAN
CYPRUS
C
CYPRUS
SYRIA
SYRIA
SYRIA
YPRUS 
LEBANON
LEBANON
LEBANON
IRAQ
IRA
IRAQ
Q
IRAN
IRAN
IRAN
AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANIST
AFGHANISTAN
AN
PAKISTA
P
P
AN
AKISTAN
AKIST 
Earthquake Zone 
chaos eventually ran the entire length of the sector and engulfed even coun­
tries not adjacent to the front line. 
The region from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan and Pakistan had largely 
been locked into place during the Cold War. There was isolated movement, 
such as when Iran moved from being pro-American to being both anti­
Soviet and anti-American, or when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, or 
the Iran–Iraq war. But in a strange way, the region was stabilized by the 
Cold War. No matter how many internal conflicts there were, they never 
grew into full-blown, cross-border crises. 
With the Soviets gone, the region destabilized dramatically. This is pri­
marily a Muslim region—one of three major Muslim regions in the world. 
There is North Africa, there is the Muslim region in Southeast Asia, and 
then there is this vast, multinational, highly divergent region that runs from 
Yugoslavia to Afghanistan, and south into the Arabian Peninsula (see map, 
page 36). This is certainly not a single region in many senses, but we are treat­
ing it as such because it was the southern front of the Soviet encirclement. 
It’s important to remember that the demarcation line of the Cold War 
ran straight through this Muslim region. Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turk­
menistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan were all predominantly Muslim re­
publics that were part of the Soviet Union. There were Muslim parts of 
the Russian Federation as well, such as Chechnya. 

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This entire region is historically unstable. Traversing the region are the
great trade and invasion routes used by conquerors from Alexander the
Great to the British. The region has always been a geopolitical flash point,
but the end of the Cold War truly ignited a powder keg. When the Soviet
Union fell, its six Muslim republics suddenly became independent. Arab
countries to the south either lost their patron (Iraq and Syria) or lost their
enemy (the Saudis and other Gulf states). India lost its patron, and Pakistan
suddenly felt liberated from the Indian threat—at least temporarily. The en-
tire system of international relations was thrown up in the air. What little
was solid dissolved.
The Soviets withdrew from the Caucasus and Central Asia in 1992. Like
a tide receding, this revealed nations that hadn’t been free for a century or
more, that had no tradition of self- government and, in some cases, no func-
tioning economy. At the same time, American interest in the region de-
clined. After Operation Desert Storm in 1991, American focus on places
like Afghanistan seemed useless. The Cold War was over. There was no
longer a strategic threat to American interests, and the region was free to
evolve on its own.
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