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“The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order has become one of the most influential books of the new wartime era.” —Patrick Healy, The Boston Globe
About the Author
Samuel P. Huntington was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University, where he was also the director of the John M. Olin Institute for Stategic Studies and the chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He was the director of security planning for the National Security Council in the Carter administration, the founder and coeditor of Foreign Policy, and the president of the American Political Science Association.
The Clash Of Civilizations and the Remaking Of World Order
Chapter 1
The New Era in World Politics
INTRODUCTION: FLAGS AND CULTURAL IDENTITY
On January 3, 1992, a meeting of Russian and American scholars took place in the auditorium of a government building in Moscow. Two weeks earlier the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and the Russian Federation had become an independent country. As a result, the statue of Lenin which previously graced the stage of the auditorium had disappeared and instead the flag of the Russian Federation was now displayed on the front wall. The only problem, one American observed, was that the flag had been hung upside down. After this was pointed out to the Russian hosts, they quickly and quietly corrected the error during the first intermission.
The years after the Cold War witnessed the beginnings of dramatic changes in peoples’ identities and the symbols of those identities. Global politics began to be reconfigured along cultural lines. Upside-down flags were a sign of the transition, but more and more the flags are flying high and true, and Russians and other peoples are mobilizing and marching behind these and other symbols of their new cultural identities.
On April 18, 1994, two thousand people rallied in Sarajevo waving the flags of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. By flying those banners, instead of U.N., NATO, or American flags, these Sarajevans identified themselves with their fellow Muslims and told the world who were their real and not-so-real friends.
On October 16, 1994, in Los Angeles 70,000 people marched beneath “a sea of Mexican flags” protesting Proposition 187, a referendum measure which would deny many state benefits to illegal immigrants and their children. Why are they “walking down the street with a Mexican flag and demanding that this country give them a free education?” observers asked. “They should be waving the American flag.” Two weeks later more protestors did march down the street carrying an American flag—upside down. These flag displays ensured victory for Proposition 187, which was approved by 59 percent of California voters.
In the post-Cold War world flags count and so do other symbols of cultural identity, including crosses, crescents, and even head coverings, because culture counts, and cultural identity is what is most meaningful to most people. People are discovering new but often old identities and marching under new but often old flags which lead to wars with new but often old enemies.
One grim Weltanschauung for this new era was well expressed by the Venetian nationalist demagogue in Michael Dibdin’s novel, Dead Lagoon: “There can be no true friends without true enemies. Unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are. These are the old truths we are painfully rediscovering after a century and more of sentimental cant. Those who deny them deny their family, their heritage, their culture, their birthright, their very selves! They will not lightly be forgiven.” The unfortunate truth in these old truths cannot be ignored by statesmen and scholars. For peoples seeking identity and reinventing ethnicity, enemies are essential, and the potentially most dangerous enmities occur across the fault lines between the world’s major civilizations.
The central theme of this book is that culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilization identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world. The five parts of this book elaborate corollaries to this main proposition.
Part I: For the first time in history global politics is both multipolar and multicivilizational; modernization is distinct from Westernization and is producing neither a universal civilization in any meaningful sense nor the Westernization of non-Western societies.
Part II: The balance of power among civilizations is shifting: the West is declining in relative influence; Asian civilizations are expanding their economic, military, and political strength; Islam is exploding demographically with destabilizing consequences for Muslim countries and their neighbors; and non-Western civilizations generally are reaffirming the value of their own cultures.
Part III: A civilization-based world order is emerging: societies sharing cultural affinities cooperate with each other; efforts to shift societies from one civilization to another are unsuccessful; and countries group themselves around the lead or core states of their civilization.
Part IV: The West’s universalist pretensions increasingly bring it into conflict with other civilizations, most seriously with Islam and China; at the local level fault line wars, largely between Muslims and non-Muslims, generate “kin-country rallying,” the threat of broader escalation, and hence efforts by core states to halt these wars.
Part V: The survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from non-Western societies. Avoidance of a global war of civilizations depends on world leaders accepting and cooperating to maintain the multicivilizational character of global politics.
A MULTIPOLAR, MULTICIVILIZATIONAL WORLD
In the post-Cold War world, for the first time in history, global politics has become multipolar and multicivilizational. During most of human existence, contacts between civilizations were intermittent or nonexistent. Then, with the beginning of the modern era, about A.D. 1500, global politics assumed two dimensions. For over four hundred years, the nation states of the West — Britain, France, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Germany, the United States, and others — constituted a multipolar international system within Western civilization and interacted, competed, and fought wars with each other. At the same time, Western nations also expanded, conquered, colonized, or decisively influenced every other civilization (Map 1.1). During the Cold War global politics became bipolar and the world was divided into three parts. A group of mostly wealthy and democratic societies, led by the United States, was engaged in a pervasive ideological, political, economic, and, at times, military competition with a group of somewhat poorer communist societies associated with and led by the Soviet Union. Much of this conflict occurred in the Third World outside these two camps, composed of countries which often were poor, lacked political stability, were recently independent, and claimed to be nonaligned (Map 1.2).
In the late 1980s the communist world collapsed, and the Cold War international system became history. In the post-Cold War world, the most important distinctions among peoples are not ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural. Peoples and nations are attempting to answer the most basic question humans can face: Who are we? And they are answering that question in the traditional way human beings have answered it, by reference to the things that mean most to them. People define themselves in terms of ancestry, religion, language, history, values, customs, and institutions. They identify with cultural groups: tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities, nations, and, at the broadest level, civilizations. People use politics not just to advance their interests but also to define their identity. We know who we are only when we know who we are not and often only when we know whom we are against.
Nation states remain the principal actors in world affairs. Their behavior is shaped as in the past by the pursuit of power and wealth, but it is also shaped by cultural preferences, commonalities, and differences. The most important groupings of states are no longer the three blocs of the Cold War but rather the world’s seven or eight major civilizations (Map 1.3). Non-Western societies, particularly in East Asia, are developing their economic wealth and creating the basis for enhanced military power and political influence. As their power and self-confidence increase, non-Western societies increasingly assert their own cultural values and reject those “imposed” on them by the West. The “international system of the twenty-first century,” Henry Kissinger has noted, “… will contain at least six major powers — the United States, Europe, China, Japan, Russia, and probably India — as well as a multiplicity of medium-sized and smaller countries.”1 Kissinger’s six major powers belong to five very different civilizations, and in addition there are important Islamic states whose strategic locations, large populations, and/or oil resources make them influential in world affairs. In this new world, local politics is the politics of ethnicity; global politics is the politics of civilizations. The rivalry of the superpowers is replaced by the clash of civilizations.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Must read to understand how the world works now. A little too long-winded. The original article by the other in "Foreign Affairs" is also available on Amazon, is a more concise read and covers all the main points equally memorably to this book.
Although the book is starting to age, many of the author's predictions from the mid-1990s have largely come true. This demonstrates the level of mastery Huntington had of international relations. There is a reason he is required reading in war colleges from all the US military services.
I’m a very contemplative reader. And this book needs that time and attention. This is an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT bridge of understanding that so many people don’t seem to really understand today. Please read this, and have your children or any younger people in your world read it. Have that in depth conversation about what real political foundation is, and what it was all about. GOD only knows where things will go in this world, but we all need to definitely pay close attention to where our civilizations have been and how they’ve changed through the years.
Is religion an essential ingredient of civilization? Is susceptibility to religion built into human DNA? Is susceptibility to religion by the majority essentially the willingness to except leader ship? Is willingness to except leader ship an essential survival / dominance characteristic of humanity?
Is a multicultural civilization inherently weak? Can a collection of monocultural civilizations exist in peace and harmony? Will the development of enhanced mutual Tolerance be essential to the survival of a collection of Increasingly technically advanced civilizations?
The Clash of Civilizations became a key book in the discussion of future American Foreign Policy for all the right reasons. Huntington's argument is well-constructed and his predictions proved very prescient. Huntington could have coordinated with a psychologist or socialogist to right a second book discussing identity theory to bolster his argument but his work stands on its own as work of political science. I found his discussion of the Bosnian War interesting, as the war happened while I was still a child. He predicted the current crisis in Ukraine and described Russia's strategy with remarkable clarity. In his work, Huntington hypothesizes that the relative distribution of power and source of identity after the Cold War will spread to the 9 centers of civilization he describes in his book. The resulting shift will make the next century one of "fault line wars" between the civilization.
Samuel P. Huntington's 1996 "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" was the bestselling book version of a controversial "Foreign Affairs" article, a big-picture look at the world which dared to imagine that a bi-polar competition between communism and democracy/capitalism was about to be replaced by a multi-polar world of competing civilizations.
Huntington's book was thought-provoking and controversial. It denied the "End of History" thesis popular at the time. It refused to conflate modernization with westernization or democracy. It predicted that "civilizations" would replace ideologies as a basis of national and regional identity and as a source of international conflict, an affront to those expecting the imminent demise of the nation state.
From the perspective of 2010, Huntington did about as well as most predictors of new and different international orders. His concept of civilizations as an international organizing principle was imprecise, and some of his examples haven't held up. The nature of the current multi-polar world is driven by a number of causes and effects, of which "civilization" may be only one. On the other, Huntington predicted the (relative) decline of the West, pointed out the hazards to the nation state of unassimilated immigration, and identified some fault lines of competition and conflict around China and the Islamic world.
"The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" is still worth a long look for students of international relations.
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2020
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This is an excellent and realistic view of international affairs. It provide deep explorations of past post war conflicts and a method for understanding future conflicts. I would recommend it for anyone who hopes to achieve at least a basic understanding of the driving geopolitical factors of the post Cold War era.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2018
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This book was one that caught my attention for being on a list of books that Ivy League students read compared to other colleges. The book is one that seems, more or less, to have "predicted" the clash of civilizations as Huntington reports in his book. An interesting read, but one that should be taken, as with all things, with a grain of salt.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 12, 2019
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In this ground-breaking and controversial book, Huntington considers civilisations as being more than just cultures. He emphasises religion as a key player even though the West is rapidly divesting itself of its Judeo-Christian roots. The new world order, following the last world war and the cold war, has been shaped by liberal ideologies and politics, where the secularisation of the West is its dominant instrument. Whereas these liberal peace stances have seemingly reduced tensions and conflict, they are facing two civilisations that challenge the concept that all conflict can be resolved through peaceful means. One is the intolerance of the Islamic world, the other the assertive/aggressive stance of the Chinese as they march towards supplanting the USA as the world’s leading superpower. This book pulls no punches and has been widely condemned amongst left-wing ideologues. Nevertheless, it details a world where democracy is under scrutiny and totalitarianism gets a free pass. In minimising the existential threat to the West of two civilisations that seek to dominate, are Tolerance, Multiculturalism, Equality and concerns about Human Rights, all that the West has to offer in what amounts to a fundamental clash of civilisations? Are we facing the end of democracy as appeasement gains ground?
The Cold War was bookended by two articles: "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" (based on the
"Long Telegram"
) in 1947 and the "Clash of Civilisations" in 1993. Both articles were published in the journal Foreign Affairs.
In 1996 Samuel P. Huntingdon expanded his article into this book. Sixteen years later how has this book aged? "
The End of History
" may not have happened, but the "Clash of Civilisations" still seems relevant.
"The Clash of Civilisations" is not an idée fixe. The author proposes his model as a useful tool to replace the previous bi-polar one used during the Cold War. He is careful to present it as a working model that should be applied with all the caveats that present themselves in a real, complex world. In 1996 he defined his civilisations as these broad cultural entities: Western, Latin American, (sub-Saharan, non-Islamic) African, Islamic, Sinic (Chinese), Hindu, Orthodox (mainly Russian), Buddhist and Japanese.
In 1995 the author stated that the clashes of the future ". . . are likely to arise from the interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance and Sinic assertiveness". Modernism, he said, is universal, but modernism is not the same as Westernism. The West was a civilisation before it became modern and the same process is happening with other civilisations. Islam can modernise but it does not have to Westernise. The author thought that the future is a world which is more modern, but less Western. Many will disagree, but many will disagree because they think that modernism and Westernism are the same. That they are not the same is the author's point.
Today, Russia is only superficially western and the Han Chinese Empire has continued to rise; Hindustan has kept a low profile. The American Empire has overreached itself and continues to project power, but on borrowed money. Dominating all this is the economic implosion of the western financial system, the clash with Islam and the clash within Islam. The multi-polar, multi-civilisation world continues.
5.0 out of 5 starsScholarly, insightful and timely
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 11, 2014
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This is one of those books that everyone who thinks and cares about the future should read. You probably won't agree with everything in it, but Huntington's thesis is powerful and, I fear, has a lot of truth in it. I don't think this means that 'one world' liberals should give up, but it does show that the route to a future peaceful world will be a difficult one. (But what a grand challenge for bright, well-meaning people in the next generation!)
To me, the most interesting point is the continuing role of religions in defining supranational boundaries. Rather than getting fanatical at spreading our own faith, or going down the Dawkins route of rubbishing all religion, we need to get used to this basic fact.
It's a shame this wasn't on the bookshelves in the White House and Downing Street in 2003.
Huntington seems prophetic, writing from his vantage in the 90s. Korea hasn't yet unified, but played the 2018 Olympic Games under a unified banner. Australia never became an Asian country. The West is increasingly at odds with Islam and China. He expressed concern that Islamic immigration would make Europe a "torn country", and this is even more relavant now. Multiculturalism in the USA is increasingly shrill and divisive. Anxiety about Western decline are ever more present with the election of Trump. He is insightful to point out the link between feel-good western universalism and feel-bad western imperialism. Western values are not universal: they are unique. This book can be read as a call to defense of the West from undermining forces both within and without the civilization. To liberals, the West is our only home. Let's preserve it.