ABSTRACT
The Cold War between the twin camps of United States (US) and erstwhile USSR began in the late 1940s and continued until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In an ominous reminder of old Cold War politics, Syria has become the current epicenter of a geopolitical showdown in the region with US and Russia having locked horns, and the United Nations content to sit on the sidelines. Apart from the sectarian fissures that Syria is witnessing, there is a larger calamity lurking behind—that of the Islamic State, previously known as Islamic State Iraq and Syria ISIS or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or DAISH—the extremist group that grew out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The projection of the crises as a build up to a new Cold War serves the interests of the military industrial complex well and justifies sanctioning of larger defence investments, both in US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries.
