In the strife-ridden Middle East, began the first real test of the post-cold war world occurred. In August 1990, Saddam Hussein, dictator of Iraq, invaded the tiny, oiul-rich kingdom of Kuwait. 

• Hussein wanted to be the leader of an Arab empire in the Persian Gulf

• Europe and Japan feared Hussein’s invasion as it threatened their vital oil supplies 

Call for Appeasement

• Under the auspices of the United Nations, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President George H.W.Bush

• Protect the Arab nations 

Operation Desert Storm 

Lead by America, troops support

• By early 1991, about 500,000 American troops had been shipped to Saudi Arabia (including air force and naval units) 

• Troops and air units came from Britain, France, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc too

• Saddam Hussein ignored a final ultimatum to surrender his forces and withdraw from Kuwait

Operation Desert Storm began on January 16,1991

• New technology, including highly accurate “smart bombs” and cruise missiles

• A winning strategy. Bush placed General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff in command of Operation Desert Storm

• Iraq, Iran and North Korea are the three countries that President George W.Bush refer to as the “Axis of Evil”

• Bush faced criticism on many fronts because of his decision to invade Iraq. The failure to find any WMD was a major critism of the invasion.

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the Iranian president supported the annihilation of Israel

• Bush Doctrine warned that nations harboring terrorists would be treated as enemies aby the United States

• The Pakistan president that supported the United States againts terrorism was Pervez Musharraf

• Maastricht Treaty in December 1991, resulted in a rise of the global economy and increased competition from foreign regions.

• The Maastricht Treaty planned to form a European central bank with a single, unified currency for all the members of the European Economic Community by January 1, 1999.

• In 1994, the European Union became known when plans were also made for a “European Parliament” with the power to enact social legislation throughout Europe.

• Not all Europeans approved the plan to establish the “United States of Europe”

• Margaret Thatcher (British Prime Minister) insisted that willing and active cooperation between sovereign states is the best way to build a successful European community.

Changes in Western Europe

• Tony Blair, the longest-ruling Labour prime minister, support of the U.S. against terrorism was very controversial within his Labour Party.

• Under Blair, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland were allowed to have their own regional parliaments and Britian’s economy improved.

• Due to criticisms regarding his support for the US’ efforts in combating terrorism, Blair resigned in 2007 and was succeeded by Gordon Brown.

Eastern Europe

• Throughout the Cold War, Yugoslavia consisted of six republics divided among ten ethnic groups.

• The collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe resulted in armed conflict between the Serbs and several of the other ethnic groups.

• After Bosnia seceded, a three-way fight broke out among Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslimes. Serbian forces laid siege to the city of Sarajevo and began to bombard the city with artillery and small-arms fire.

• Reports of “ethnic cleansing” (genocide) of Muslims by the Serbs resulted in the UN condemnation of Serbia.

• After negotiations with the warring factions, the UN sent peace-keeping troops to set up “safe areas” for refugees in Bosnia.

• The Muslim and Croat forces also called a cease-fire and joined forces agaisnt the Serbs.

• Russian President Boris Yeltsin emerged as the most powerful man in Russia and made it clear that the breakup of the Soviet Union did not mean that the former Soviet republics had complete autonomy.

• Russian forces fought in Tajikistan agaisnt groups seeking greater autonomy for their land.

• Vladimir Putin was appointed by Yeltsin to be his successor. Under him, many of Russians’ new freedoms were reversed.

• Putin then became prime minister of Russia and controlled most of the power.

Rise of China

• After the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, China, along with North Korea and Cuba, continued to be Communist states.

• China became a prominent nation as it entered the new millennium with phenomenal economic growth by encouraging direct foreign investment which resulted in involvement with international trade.

• As China continued to expand in the area of economics, they also continued to expand in the area of military, moving from a purely defensive approach to a more offensive posture.

• In 2007, China launched a missile that destroyed an old Chinese satellite orbiting the earth. Much of western communications, including military communications, is dependent upon satellites.

North Korea

• After World War II, North Korea was ruled by the Communist dictator Kim Il-sung, whose regime had been heavily supported by the Soviet Union and China.

• North Korea became more isolated, even from its Communist neighbours.

• Upon Kim Jong-il’s succession, North Korea became the only Communist dynasty

• North Korea faced many challenges with famine and disease, and estimated five percent starved to death. Reports of cannibalism became more prominent. 

• While North Koreans starved, Kim Jong-il continued to build a nuclear weapons program.

• Kim Jong-il named his son Kim Jong-un, continuing the Communist dynasty whose aggressive actions are a growing concern for nations around the world.

Africa

• The collapse of the Soviet Union reduced the amount of terrorist activity in some parts of the African continent.

• In 1991, a civil war broke out in the east African nation of Somalia.

• American troops were included in the peacekeeping forces sent to Somalia.

• Events in central Africa were dominated by bloody conflicts in Rwanda and Zaire.

• One of the most serious conflicts involving Muslim terrorism unfolded in Sudan, Africa’s largest country, where the Islamic government of the north waged a war of perscution agaisnt the Christian and animist Nubian tribes of the south.

• In spite of the unrest and turmoil in many regions of Africa, Christian missions continued to thrive in several African nations. Many were faced with severe persecution and thousands died as martyrs for their faith, but the light of the gospel continued to draw men to Christ.

South Africa 

• The UN continued to sponsor heavy trade sanctions agaisnt South Africa in protest of the racial policy of apartheid, causing widespread suffering and unemployment, especially among black South Africans and immigrants from other African nations.

• These sanctions weaken the legitimate government’s attempts to achieve gradual reform while resisting Communism.

• When the trade sanctions became too heavy for South Africa’s economy to bear, the government released Marxist agitator and head of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, from prison and agreed to share power with the ANC.

• Mandela appointed Communist Party members and “democratic socialists” to cabinet posts in the new government and movd to abolish prayer at the legimilative sessions.

• With such unsettling moves toward Communist tyranny, South Africa’s future remained uncertain.

Cuba

• After the Cold War, Cuba continued to have problems both internationally and domestically.

• The Cuban economy began to decline, especially when the economic subsidies from the Soviet Union stopped.

• After having ruled as the Communist dictator over Cuba, Fidel Castro began to experience poor health and his brother, Raul Castro, took over as president of Cuba.

• During the 1990s, hopeful signs appeared of Latin America was overcoming its traditional problems of political instability, wasteful socialism, and runaway inflation. 

• Attemps made to privatize state-owned enterprises by turning them over to private ownership often resulting in free competition but in private monopolies subsidized by the government. 

• “Hot spots” in the 1900s, Colombia was experiencing a crisis of widespread violence and terrorism launched by “drug lords” and Marxist guerrillas. 

• Peru struggled againts Marxists revolutionaries, who especially worked at squelching Christianity in Peru by brutally harrasing and attacking missionaries and Peruvian Christians

• The success of the Contra freedom fighters in Nicaragua resulted in free elections in 1990. 

• The communist Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was defeated by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, in the elections. 

• Mexico, in 1993 joined with the United States and Canada in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But soon Marxist rebels in southern Mexico againts the Institutional Revolutionary Party, whic had ruled Mexico since 1929. 

Canada

• Canada is the world’s second largest country, achieved complete independence from Great Britain in 1982. 

• Socialism became more prevalent under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada’s Liberal Party, who held power most of the time from 1968 to 1984

• After Mulroney retired in February 1993, Kim Campbell, a member of the Progressive Conservative Party, became Canada’s first women prime minister. 

• After the 2006 election, Stephen Harper from the Conservative Party became the new prime minister of Canada. 

The United States

• The Bush administration. Although the United States had experienced the beginnings of a moral and spiritual revival during the Reagan years, many people had developed a false sense of security. 

• In 1990, President Bush proclaimed that the world was poised on the brink of what he called a “new world order”. 

• International entanglements, in 1993, the Unted States entered NAFTA with Canada and Mexico. 

• In 1994, the U.S. Congress approved the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It created a world tribunal known as the World Trade Organization (WTO) which coordinates international trade policy. 

• President Clinton also committed U.S. troops to the UN “peace-keeping” effort in Bosnia and sent troops to Haiti to reinstate Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a ruthless dictator supported by the UN. 

• In December 1996, the Clinton administration chose Madeline Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, as secretary of state. Albright was the first woman to hold that position. 

• The second Bush administration. In the 2000 elections, George W.Bush, the son of George H.W. Bush, was elected president. The republican candidate identified himself with the traditional values and the interests of conservative mainstream Americans. 

• Time of change, the War on terror and a decrease in the economy promoted the American people’s desire for change. 

• When Barack Obama was elected the 44th President, he became the first black American President of the United States.

• In 1867, Japan entered the modern age under Mutsuhito.

• Japan quickly became an industrial power.

• Japan’s desire to expand farther into the Pacific and on the Asian mainland eventually culminated in World War II.

• Hirohito, emperor of Japan, symbolized the role of tradition in Japanese life, which has kept the Japanese in bondage to the religions of BUddhism and Shintoism.

• The Japanese began a major transformation of their economy as a result of the rise in oil prices initiated by the OPEC (Arab) nations.

• By the 1980s, Japan had become a major economic power in the world. Japan gradually assumed the role of an economic powerhouse and by raising the economics of all of non-Communist Asia, hindered the spread of Communism in the region.

• Japan boasted the second largest GDP in the world after the US.

• By the end of the 20th century, Japan was a powerful economic and political presence in Asian affairs.

Taiwan and Hong Kong

• In 1996, Lee Teng-hui became the first democratically elected leader in Chinese history when he was elected as the new president of Taiwan.

• The Communist Chinese view Taiwan as a “renegade province” that must be reunited with Communist China.

• After an American presence of force, the Communists ended their military exercises but still vowed that Taiwan must eventually be integrated into Red China.

• The Communist plan to take over Taiwan hinged on their treatment of the British colony of Hong Kong.

• Hong Kong emerged as a showcase for free trade and the success of capitalism with a minimum of government regulation.

South Korea

• South Korea enjoyed the fruits of capitalism, becoming one of the most prosperous nations.

Southeast Asia

• The Philippines did not receive its independence from the US until 1945, when it became the Republic of Philippines.

• Widespread poverty and discontent became prominent among the Filipinos due to a Marxist revolution and later Communist agitation.

• South of the Philippines lies Indonesia, known as the Spice Islands or East Indies to European explorers.

• After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Indonesian nastionalists declared their country to be independent.

• Singapore is a tiny country at the southernmost tip of the Malay Peninsula.

• Chinese are a strong majority in Malysia and form an ethnic majority in Singapore.

• After WWII, Thailand strengthened its ties with the US, and even supplied troops to fight alongside American and South Vietnamese forces in the Vietnam War.

Australia and New Zealand

• Economic growth in Australia was not as spectacular as in the rest of the Pacific Rim, largely because the Labor Party held power.

• Australia was the first nation to place itself under UN jurisdiction regarding internal matters, giving the UN authority over domestic issues within the country.

• New Zealand also experienced a high degree of government control and regulation of its economy, giving way to more free enterprise by 1996.

India

• India has enjoyed considerable economic growth due to its move away from socialism and the introduction of some market reforms.

• Much of the credit for the economic success is given to Manhoman Singh who has been prime minister since 2004.

• While many have benefited from the introduction of some free enterprise, many in India still suffer poverty and estimated that half of the children in India suffer from malnutrition.

The Middle East

• After the Persian Gulf War, miillions of Kurds fled to Turkey and Iran, seeking refuge from hostile Iraqi forces.

• Iraqi aggression propmted American military aciton agaisnt Iraq in 1996.

• Israel and the PLO attempted to negotiate the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

• Tensions soon arose over the planned increase of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank while preserving the integrity of Jewish settlements already there.

• Israelis were now most concerned with security matters.

• The Israeli Defense Force launched Operation Defensive Shield, a series of attacks agaisnt the terrorists with the goals of reducing the terrorist threat in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and isolating Arafat at his compound.

• By giving statehood to Palestine, Israel greatly reduced its response time to any attack and most Palestinians do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, an attitude not likely to change simply because Palestine received statehood.

• The rise of the internet. While the internet has been used by the public at large since 1993, technology for the internet was in development long before then. 

• Scientists developed the technology of packet-switching which allowed for a message to be routed in another direction should the initial communication channel be blocked. 

• By the mid-1970s military and University computers were linked together in a system called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET).

• Invention and integration. Recent years have seen an explosion of technology to be sold on the market. 

• Another devicem the cellular phone, represents the degree that different kinds of technology can be integrated into one device. 

• Consequences, the dependence on computers has brought with it problems such as online pornography, identity theft, cyberstalking, etc.

• RFID, Radio Frequency Identification chips,one of the various precision tracking systems associated with GPS technology, are used as tracking devices on patients and expensive equipment, in animals, on retail inventory, and in traffic monitoring systems. 
  

An Age of Discovery

• The space race of the Cold War era between America and Russia yielded to a multinational effort in establishing the International Space Station (ISS). 

• On october 15, Taikonaut (Chinese astronaut) Yang Liwei blasted off from the Gobi desert and orbited the earth for 21 hours. 

Darwin in Decline

• As the new millennium begins, Darwin’s theory of evolution is still pervasive in western universities

• Darwinism and ethics. Darwin’s teaching that man shares a common ancestry with primates has spilled over into ethics and has undermined civilization’s ability to distinguish between right and wrong. 

Intelligent Design

• One of the main studies emerging from bio-chemistry is Intelligent Design (ID), the belief that order in the universe is not the result of random combinations, but the design of an intelligent being, though not necessarily the God of the Bible. 

• Michael Behe recognize that a designer was necessary for the existence of life. Behe advanced irreducible complexity, the idea that some biological systems, like the eye, are irreducibly complex, that is, its components could not have evolved to perform their basic function. 

Justice for All?

Even though the atheistic views of Darwinism are under attack, they are still widely embraced. 

• Abortion. For some time, many governments have relinquished the responsibility to defend the life of the unborn child by either allowing or sanctioning abortion. Groups like Planned Parenthood and even organizations like the United Nations widely embrace the slogan “pro-choic”, which is used as means of population control. 

• Euthanasia. Another attack on the innocent that is a growing global concern is euthanasia, the killing of the weak or infirmed. 

• Stem cell research. Bioethics is the study of the moral implications and applications of biological research, predicting the impact of new scientific changes on mankind and planet earth. A highly controversial topic in the area of bioethics is stem cell research. 

• Stem cells are those cells whose future type has not yet been determined. 

• Postmodernism. Most anti-biblical philosophies throughout history have their roots in humanism. Postmodernists reject the idea of metanarrative, a God-given absolute standard of ethics; but they embrace the idea that each person has his own narrative, his own story, and there is no standard to distinguish whether a belief or action is right or wrong. 

Environmental 

• The sanctity of human life has given way to modern environmentalism. This pantheistic and evolutionistic view places animals and plants on the same level as humans. 

• Environmentalists claim a reduction in emissions by fossil fuels burning vehicles and factories will also help stop global warming, the belief that the general temperature of the earth and its oceans is being warmed due to pollution and greenhouse gases. 

• International pressure came from the Kyoto Protocol.

• The move toward world government is being fostered largely through the United Nations. 

• The past record of the UN and it’s plans for the future clearly show that the UN leadership favors totalitarian government over individual freedom. 
  

History’s Last Page

• The movement toward world government and the ongoing conflicts in the middle east have great significance to those who study world history and cultures in Christian perspective 

• Christians can view current events with confidence, thrilling at the fulfillment of prophecy and continually endeavoring to be salt and light to a needy world until Christ, the Center of all history returns for His own.