We are closer to nuclear disaster than at any point in the Cold War

The great battle of the last century was between ideologies that could understand one another. There is no common ground now

Could the world now be more dangerous than it was during the Cold War? Those who lived through that infamous time before the collapse of the Soviet Union will recall that there was a general expectation – not a vague fear but a literal expectation – that there would be a third chapter in the 20th century’s saga of world wars, and that it would be a final life-extinguishing event.

Then, with astonishing suddenness, the Communist empire imploded, apparently taking with it the apocalyptic threat of a global nuclear cataclysm. Liberated from this mortal danger, the Western countries proceeded to turn their swords into ploughshares. Trading in their spending on defence for bountiful domestic projects presented a vision of heaven on earth. Not only would we have indefinite peace abroad, but a “peace dividend” at home in the form of expanded social welfare and renewed infrastructure.

A generation on, where are we? In a volatile, anarchic void where the great superpower stand-off has given way to regional conflicts which threaten to explode in uncontainable ways. As I write, it is unclear whether the strikes and counter-strikes between Israel and Iran will ignite wider conflict, or are deliberately designed to avoid it.

Who is equipped to analyse this? What the West faces now is like nothing that the late 20th century anticipated. Back then, when two overwhelmingly powerful blocs competed for world domination, the confrontation revolved around a comprehensible argument. This was a dispute about how people should live: which system, communism or capitalism, was most conducive to the greater good – which was generally taken to mean human happiness and fulfilment.

There were sincere adherents in both camps who, at various points, changed sides because they had been persuaded by the opposing view, or become disillusioned with their original ideals.

Of course, the purity of the ideological positions became corrupted by the eternal frailties of personal greed or the temptations of power. But nonetheless, at its heart this was a recognisable debate about what made life worth living. Communism and capitalism were both products of the Age of Reason. Their followers understood the force of evidence and the need to persuade, which is why the tools of propaganda and infiltration became so crucial.

So this was a fight (to the death, so we thought) about how life could be made better – more comfortable, more rewarding – for more people. How does this compare with the struggle between Islamism and the West?

The Iranian state, which presents itself as the embodiment of the purest form of Islamic doctrine, not only persecutes, and occasionally murders, those who defy its repressive commands, but sponsors forces in the region (and beyond) who seek to impose those commands on other populations. Communism did this too at one time. But it did so in the name of an idealised better life.

Extreme Islamism is a cult which, according to its own statements, regards this life as having no value. You may recall the statement from the terrorists who perpetrated murderous attacks in Western cities: that they would inevitably triumph because, “you love life, we love death”. So our love of life – the motivating force of the previous global power struggle – had now become our greatest weakness.

There can be no point in disputes about what is most valuable in life when life itself is considered without value. How do you argue with such a belief? How do you even begin to come to terms with the meaning of it? This is not a political battle in any sense that we can recognise: it is a confrontation between the modern era and a Dark Age whose principles are unintelligible within the moral frame of reference that prevails in the West.

But it is not just Iran itself and its peculiar interpretation of Islam that presents a mortal challenge. Its rulers have joined an alliance with Russia, which has reinvented itself as the spiritual guardian of the Eastern Orthodox church, China, whose government is running an imperialist form of state capitalism that calls itself communist, and North Korea, which operates an absolutist totalitarian regime that harks back to medieval Asia. What do these disparate societies have in common? Only one thing: the wish to undermine and ultimately destroy the West.

From their various and often contradictory philosophical positions, they come to a useful agreement: the liberal democratic way of life, which permits social freedom and economic self-determination, must be defeated.

For Iran, this is to do with religious prohibitions, particularly the treatment of women whose personal liberty is anathema to fundamentalist Islam. For Russia, it is the embittering legacy of the lost prestige and influence of the Soviet dissolution. For China it is a ruthless determination to displace America’s domination of the world economy.

What North Korea’s bizarre ruling family want, apart from their own perpetuation, is difficult to see, but they are making themselves indispensable by providing armaments for some of the most unsavoury military actions of the moment.

All of this certainly does seem to suggest that there is more danger today than when the developed world was carved up into spheres of influence that could be carefully monitored through back channels. The worst moments of the Cold War – over the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis – were defused by backroom operations; while the great powers may have been openly antagonistic to one another, they shared an understanding of what government – whether it was democratic or authoritarian – was for. Above all, they accepted as a basic proposition that everybody wanted to live.

It is that fundamental desire for a life worth living which will – because it must – get us through this frightening time. It is the direction of travel that matters. There are no hordes of migrants risking everything they have, to get into Russia or Iran or China. The young for whom the lust for life is most urgent are rebelling against the regime in Iran, and they are leaving Russia in such numbers that it is producing a demographic crisis. The most basic and essential human instinct will not be defeated.