The Cold War ended, as T. S. Eliot might have put it, both with a bang and a whimper. The bang did not result, as many had predicted, from the final clash of ideologies and nuclear weapons. Rather it was the sound of both surprise and satisfaction over the triumph of democracy, the free market, and consumerism. The whimper, on the other hand, followed the recognition that just when the Soviet Empire had collapsed on its own, ethnic and religious conflicts were now becoming a major threat to world peace. Included in the whimpering was perhaps the lament, by many, that the enemy was no longer recognizable. With the Gulf War, the confusion ended: Hollywood's next film would be called "The Muslims are Coming."