At the time of Trump’s unexpected election victory, there was much speculation over who would really run the US Government, given the incoming President’s notorious lack of patience and attention to detail. Now that question has been answered: this White House is Steve Bannon’s.

The one element that unites every executive order and every speech the President has given since assuming office is the Bannon world view. So if we are to understand the trajectory of this new American administration, we need to invest some time in trying to understand Bannon, his outlook, and where he plans to take us next.

Having studied radical Islamists for more than a decade, as I started to look into Bannon’s perspective and philosophies I started to notice significant parallels between the two mindsets. According to Bannon, based on his responses to a series of interviews granted in recent years, our world is in the midst of an epic battle. It is a battle between good and evil, and the force of pure good is the Christian civilisation that was bequeathed to the West over 2000 years ago. Bannon’s belief is that this Christian society, the greatest civilisation known to man, has been eroded, corrupted and brought to the brink of destruction over the last several decades.

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Where his attitudes merge most closely with those of the radical Islamist, however, is on strategy. Both see conflict as the only way to win. In an interview last year Bannon stated unambiguously, “We’re going to war in the South China Sea... there is no doubt about that”. A few months before that he stated, ”We’re clearly going into, I think, a major shooting war in the Middle East again.”

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This apparent bloodthirst for an epic philosophical and cultural struggle is what finally and indelibly bonds Bannon to the radical Islamist.

The most dangerous people are those who cannot locate their demons within themselves and instead see them everywhere they look. The frenetic activity we are experiencing from the Trump administration is already feeling to many like a prelude to something altogether more grave. What we are witnessing is a drum beat.

Now we know who is really running the White House, it is time to be vigilant and perhaps start to plan proactively for the horrors that – if we take Bannon at his word – may well lie ahead.