politics

Muslim fundamentalism (however you define it) is a major problem.

The fixation on Muslim fundamentalism as a problem only came about after the Soviet Union collapsed. Prior to the Soviet fall, Muslim fundamentalists were a dogged ally of Western Capital - particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkyie, and Pakistan. Hell, the current hand-wringing over Chinese Xinjiang is rooted in the "Why are all the villainous Communist Atheists persecuting these sweet, harmless, beautiful traditionalist Muslims?!" line of propaganda.

What all of it misses is fundamentalism as a reaction to the post-industrial economic tide. Afghani fundamentalists grew out of opposition to the British/US Era opium trade and the Northern Alliance warlord pedophiles, both of which were closely aligned to the American CIA during Operation Cyclone. Egyptian and Iranian fundamentalism emerged from the collapse of liberal democracy in the 1950s, after secular nationalism was undermined by the Great Powers. The mosque became an unassailable bulwark against foreign imperialists of both the Soviet and American stripes, while liberal social and economic institutions were either co-opted or demolished by foreign businesses and saboteurs.

As a general rule, the fairly harsh religious views of Saudi Arabia, the gulf states, and Iran are mostly contained there with their governments not really interested in propagating it elsewhere.

Saudi Wahhabism is very evangelical in practice. You'll find it all across North and West Africa, most notably in Egypt, Syria, and Ethiopia. But much like the Catholic evangelism common to East Asia (the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan most notably), the faith is concentrated in the wealthy professional and bureaucratic classes. It becomes a prerequisite for joining the elite club of economic insiders.

Iranian Shia Islam is much more populist and economically left-leaning, which makes it heterodox to western economic planners. This isn't to say Shia Islamists aren't also evangelical. When the US toppled Saddam's Sunni-aligned Ba'athist party, the Shia evangelicals poured in and aligned the new nation with Iran fairly rapidly (much to the chagrin of Rumfield and Cheney).

But the difference is ultimately rooted in the country's appetite for exporting energy at below-market-rate to Western business consumers. The actual religious practices are incidental to whether we support or oppose the religion itself.

people like Eric Prince who want to make an old school style ‘free army’ like in Medieval Italy and France

American Freebooters are a tradition rooted in America's own history. These "free armies" are how we conquered Texas and California from Spain/Mexico. And how we spread our influence over Hawaii, Latin America, and much of the Pacific Rim states.

If anything survives the next big economic decline in the US, it'll be the freebooters.