Each generation and each civilization needs to unite against a common threat. A vacuum cannot remain a vacuum for long. The power vacuum caused by the end of the cold war coincided with a historical economic shift. Since the end of World War II, newly emergent independent nation states had been involved in national reconstruction. While the economies of the West appeared to have reached saturation point, the economies of the Muslim and Christian world seemed poised for an economic take off.
Resources are finite.
Therefore the transfer of resources from one part of the world to another indicates the enrichment of one part at the expense of another. The demise of Communism lifted the strategic blinkers and opened the optic vision of a world of markets. Suddenly the West realized that the inexorable march of history would announce a reversal of roles. Historical fears reared their heads, for the West meets Islam at the doorway of Europe. Irrespective of whether it looks East or West, it sees the world of Islam.