Russia has the last laugh: Europe’s new arc of crisis

From Cold War jihad pipelines to Trump’s Muslim Brotherhood designations—and the Gulf split that now runs through London

Europe’s vulnerability to radical Islamism is no longer primarily a question of bombs, camps, or foreign battlefields. It is a question of social cohesion, legal intimidation, foreign patronage, and institutional capture—a slow-burn crisis inside liberal societies that adversaries can exploit without firing a shot. It’s literally fuelling the spectacular rise of the far-right. That is why the late Cold War idea of an “Arc of Crisis” now feels uncomfortably relevant again—except the Islamic arc is no longer a distant crescent around Russia’s southern rim. It runs through European capitals, and London is its operating system.

And yes: Russia has the last laugh—not because Moscow invented radical Islamist networks in Europe, but because Europe’s failure to confront the influence architecture around it has produced chronic instability that Russia can now amplify, exploit, and enjoy. But it’s not just Russia. Europe’s inability to confront radicalism has upset foreign partners in the Middle East; it’s destroying community cohesion in Europe. It’s in real danger of spiralling out of control. The U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025 acknowledges the European crisis, but the prognosis and treatment options are unsettling.

A senior German political figure told me that, “US wars and meddling in the Middle East fuelled the refugee crisis in Europe, which far-right actors are now exploiting.” An astonishing admission is that the European far-right is directly capitalising on American missteps. Is a divorce on the horizon?    

The NSS wants to meddle in Europe’s affairs by supporting far-right nativist and patriotic movements: “American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history. America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.” Radical Islamism isn’t just tearing Europe apart; it’s now got MAGA wannabees trying to import destructive American culture wars. During the Cold War, Europe was often torn apart by American meddling. CIA funds paid for Christian Democrats in Germany and Italy. Americans got directly involved in European politics. Europe usually turned a blind eye because it didn’t like Communism. The new NSS is an incoherent mess, but its ambitions are startling. It’s like something out of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.

The Cold War design: utility first, consequences later

The modern ecosystem was not born from spontaneity. It was built through Cold War pragmatism—when political Islam was often treated as useful, not dangerous.

A central figure in that era was Kamal Adham, head of Saudi Arabia’s external intelligence service (the General Intelligence Directorate) from 1965 to 1979. Adham was not a theologian; he was a geopolitical operator—western-facing, well-connected, and central to Saudi intelligence liaison at a time when Islamist mobilisation was increasingly understood as a tool against secular-left regimes and Soviet influence.

That logic was operationalised through the Safari Club, an informal intelligence alliance created in 1976 by Saudi Arabia, France, Egypt, Morocco and Iran (pre-1979). Its purpose was to provide a mechanism for allied covert action at a time when the United States faced heightened political and legal constraints following Watergate-era oversight of intelligence activities. In that context, the “Arc of Crisis” concept, conceived by the US National Security Council (NSC)—defined as instability stretching from North Africa through the Middle East into South and Central Asia—was not merely a diagnosis. It became a terrain for indirect pressure and covert action.

Pakistan as the engine: Zia-ul-Haq and the institutionalisation of jihad

No state translated this model into durable infrastructure more effectively than Pakistan under General Zia-ul-Haq (1977–88). Zia embedded Islamisation into the state, expanded the madrassa ecosystem, and helped elevate Jamaat-e-Islami—a disciplined Islamist movement with ideological affinities to the Muslim Brotherhood—across education, media, and bureaucratic life.

Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, became the logistical hub of the Afghan jihad. The division of labour was clear: Pakistan supplied logistics and manpower; Saudi Arabia supplied money and legitimising power; Western strategy supplied the umbrella. That is how political Islam moved from movement to system.

London: not a refuge, an operating system

Europe’s enabling role is too often described as passive—“they came here.” That is not accurate. The UK’s particular significance lies in its functions: diplomacy, legality, finance, and reputation.

A key figure in this London network was Salem Azzam, a Saudi diplomat who operated from 16 Grosvenor Crescent in Belgravia, near embassies and the diplomatic core. Azzam’s role was not mass mobilisation but relationship management. He is said to have facilitated and aligned Islamist networks, including Muslim Brotherhood currents and Jamaat-linked South Asian networks, under Saudi diplomatic cover and with Pakistani ideological depth. London was the place where these relationships could be cultivated discreetly and sustainably.

This is also the context in which intelligence-linked reporting—such as Wilhelm Dietl’s claim of a 1979 International Muslim Brotherhood meeting in London, attended by Saudi Intelligence Chief Kamal Adham—sits within a plausible operating logic: London as a convening address where state intermediaries and movement actors could operate under a veneer of legitimacy.

BCCI: the shadow finance rehearsal—and the people who recognised the pattern after 9/11

The financial backbone of this era was briefly exposed with the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). BCCI was not merely a Pakistani fraud; it exposed the mechanics of a shadow financial and intelligence system—offshore shells, political protection, and deniable money movements for the worst and frostiest Cold warriors.

That continuity matters. After 9/11, the people who had investigated BCCI did not vanish. The investigative muscle memory transferred. The same conceptual toolkit—follow the money, map the intermediaries, identify the charity and offshore rails—became central to understanding al-Qaeda’s financial ecosystem.

BCCI was not an aberration. It was a rehearsal.

NATO’s asymmetry: war abroad, indulgence at home

After 9/11, NATO’s Article 5 moment produced a militarised worldview: destroy camps, decapitate leadership, deny safe havens. NATO fought hard in Afghanistan as part of the Global War on Terror. But NATO’s fatal asymmetry was this:

It treated jihadism as an expeditionary threat while allowing its ideological and organisational infrastructure to consolidate within member states.

As camps were hit abroad, networks professionalised at home. Where kinetic pressure increased, influence tactics expanded. The battlefield shifted from deserts to courtrooms, charities, lobbying, and identity politics, while European governments often resorted to legalism and “community cohesion” optics rather than strategic confrontation.

The Gulf split: Saudi/UAE versus Qatar/Turkey—and why it runs through London

The Gulf has not been monolithic in its approach to political Islam for over a decade. In 2014, Saudi Arabia designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, a dramatic reversal from earlier toleration, haven, and patronage. The UAE formally listed the Brotherhood and affiliated organisations as terrorist groups later the same year.

This was not a moral awakening. It was regime logic: for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, the Brotherhood had become a threat to sovereignty—a rival claim to political legitimacy.

Qatar moved in the opposite direction. The 2017 Gulf crisis—when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar—was driven in significant part by allegations of Doha’s support for the Brotherhood and related networks. The dispute formally ended with the Al-Ula Declaration signed in January 2021, but the underlying strategic disagreement did not disappear; it was managed rather than resolved.

Turkey, meanwhile, emerged as a political sanctuary and amplifier for Brotherhood-associated actors following the Egyptian crackdown after 2013, even as Ankara later recalibrated its tactics amid regional rapprochements.

Put simply: Saudi Arabia and the UAE suppress; Qatar and Turkey protect. And London—because it offers legal and reputational cover—becomes a natural rear base where these conflicts are laundered into “civil society” and investment flows.

Trump’s designations: the American debate comes back with teeth

For years, the question of whether the United States would designate the Muslim Brotherhood was discussed as a hypothetical. In late 2025, it became policy reality—though not in the sweeping, monolithic way activists on either side often demanded.

On 24 November 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order initiating the designation of specific Muslim Brotherhood chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organisations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The order directed the State and Treasury Departments to assess and recommend named chapters within a defined timeline and was subsequently published in the Federal Register.

That chapter-by-chapter approach matters because it signals the direction of travel in North America. The debate is no longer about whether the Brotherhood constitutes a concern; it is about scope, legal thresholds, and collateral consequences—charities, campus networks, diaspora activism, and influence operations.

Congressional pressure has also been evident, with members reintroducing legislation in 2025 calling for Muslim Brotherhood designation while explicitly citing crackdowns undertaken by allied states.

Europe’s parallel debate: France, “separatism,” and the reluctance to name ideology

Europe has its own version of this argument, and it is increasingly explicit. In France, a government-commissioned report and the broader debate on Islamist separatism reflect a growing willingness to describe Brotherhood-style politics not primarily as terrorism, but as long-term infiltration and influence within institutions and communities.

But Europe’s problem is structural. Legal environments are often permissive, political incentives encourage denial, and foreign capital—particularly from the Gulf—creates a lattice of hesitations.

This is why the Qatargate scandal resonated so sharply. It provided a crude but clarifying reminder that foreign influence can be purchased inside democratic systems—sometimes literally.

Pakistan today: not a patron like Qatar, but not disengaged—and India rejects the distinction

Pakistan is not a present-day patron of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Qatar–Turkey sense. But it remains a legacy enabler with a persistent Islamist ecosystem—ideological, charitable, and political.

India has explicitly rejected Western hedging on this point. New Delhi argues that Pakistan continues to tolerate and protect jihadist infrastructure, pointing to the enduring presence of UN-designated terrorist networks operating in parts of Punjab, including around Muridke and Lahore. From India’s perspective, operations such as Sindoor demonstrate that what is often described as “managed ambiguity” constitutes a form of hostile state responsibility.

Pakistan no longer orchestrates jihad as declared state policy in the Cold War style. But it continues to preserve and tolerate the infrastructure that enables coercive militant leverage, while outsourcing moral legitimacy to Islamist actors when politically convenient.

Russia’s windfall: Europe’s internal Arc of Crisis

This brings the argument full circle. Moscow did not design Europe’s Islamist influence networks. It does not need to. Russia benefits when Europe is polarised, paralysed, consumed by identity conflict, and trapped in constant internal crisis management.

Radical Islamist tension produces far-right backlash; far-right backlash validates Islamist grievance narratives; governments retreat into denial; institutions lose legitimacy; and alliance cohesion weakens. This is not a single conspiracy. It is an ecosystem—and Russia is highly adept at exploiting ecosystems.

Europe has become its own periphery.

The last trap: culture war as strategy

The final danger is misdiagnosis. When parts of the West respond to a strategic challenge by framing it as a culture war, they collapse radical Islamism into an identity conflict—the very framing Islamist networks use as both shield and recruitment fuel. This approach silences reformist Muslim voices, entrenches ideological gatekeepers, and drives governments back into paralysis.

The choice facing NATO societies is not between appeasement and provocation. It lies between competence and theatrics: the calm enforcement of civic norms, sustained scrutiny of foreign influence, an end to outsourcing representation to ideological actors, and recognition that this is not a cultural dispute but an issue of influence architecture.

Otherwise, the West will not simply face “blowback.” It will confront something more enduring and corrosive: an internal Arc of Crisis that its adversaries did not create—yet can exploit indefinitely. Europe’s political future is uncertain. Its inability to handle the Muslim Brotherhood and the wider extremist problem is fuelling fractures that are already destabilising governments and political systems across the continent. Can Europe save itself?