No, we are told, the current Washington-Moscow standoff is a turf war, nothing more. Unlike the 1945-1991 rivalry it "lacks an ideological dimension" beyond the authoritarian determination to elevate "the Russian state, ruled by him and his clan."
Such a view totally dismisses the fact that following the demise of communism as a global power bloc there has been an eerie spiritual role reversal between East and West. While it's true that during original Cold War the nonreligious ruling cliques in Washington and Moscow held basically compatible progressive values, ordinary Christian Americans (mainly Protestants, with a large number of Roman Catholics) perceived communism as a murderous, godless machine of oppression (think of the Knights of Columbus' campaign to insert "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance). Conversely, today it is western elites who rely upon an ideological imperative of "democracy" and "human rights" promotion to justify a materialist global empire and endless wars, much like the old Soviet nomenklatura depended on Marxism-Leninism both as a working methodology and as a justification for their prerogatives and privileges,. In that regard, promotion of nihilist, post-Christian morality - especially in sexual matters - has become a major item in the West's toolkit.
Comment: See: Israel's Gaza blockade is illegal - and so is the use of force to maintain it