At the moment when Italy was joining the New Silk Road during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, it is fitting that the reader be reminded that the strategic and epistemological circumstances of today are similar to those of 1,200 years ago when, Charlemagne, Haroun al-Rashid, and King Bulan united their forces against religious geopolitics for the purpose of securing peace and development for mankind as a whole.