Mr. Pipes thinks the main challenge for America today is militant Islam. "This is difficult to fight with because it is not a direct threat. A direct threat you can stand up to. It is also different because you are dealing with fanatics," he points out.
"The communists were not fanatics. They were vicious people, but you could reason with them . . . and when the going got tough, they retreated." For instance, he says, "You had the Cuban missile crisis: Castro wanted the Russians to actually launch a nuclear attack on the United States, and he said 'OK, Cuba will be destroyed but socialism will triumph in the world.' And Khrushchev said no, nothing doing."
The communists "were never suicidal," either, Mr. Pipes adds, "and the ordinary Russians . . . they wanted to live. So this is a different danger. It's not as bad as the communist danger was because they don't [control] the arsenals of power, of military power. But they are fanatical, and they are irrational. We have to stand up to them and not be frightened of them. But we may be in for decades of the Muslim threat."
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