Presaging conflicts of the future

Samuel Phillips Huntington has been ridiculed and vilified, but in the decades after, his view of the world is indeed the way it really looks.

In the realm of political science and international relations, few theories have stirred praise and criticism in equal measure as Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (The Clash…). Published in 1996, Huntington proposed that the post-Cold War world would be marked by clashes between distinct civilizations, where cultural and religious identities would replace ideological and economic factors as the driving forces behind international conflicts.

Samuel Phillips Huntington (1927-2008) was an American political scientist and academic who spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was a Professor and Director of Harvard’s Centre for International Affairs. Huntington was by all accounts a mild-mannered man whose sharp opinions -- about the collision of Islam and the West, about the role of the military in a liberal society, about what separates countries that work from countries that do not -- have proved to be prescient as they have been controversial. Huntington has been ridiculed and vilified, but in the decades after, his view of the world is indeed the way it really looks.

The central theme of The Clash… is that culture and religious identities are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world. Huntington points out that for the first time in history, global politics is both multipolar and multi-civilisational; modernisation is distinct from Westernisation and is producing neither a universal civilisation in any meaningful sense nor the Westernisation of non-Western societies. Emphasising the shifting balance of power, the decline of the West in relative influence, and non-Western civilisations expanding their economic, military, and political strength, Huntington’s focus is on what he sees as the Islamic civilisation’s demographic explosion, with destabilising consequences for Muslim countries and their neighbours.

Huntington asserts that religion is the societal factor that has filled the vacuum created by a loss of political ideology. Major religions around the world “experienced new surges in commitment, relevance, and practice by erstwhile casual believers.” In particular, Huntington focuses on the assertion that Muslim societies have asserted cultural identity through the reaffirmation and resurgence of religion. Huntington argues that the resurgence of Islam “embodies the acceptance of modernity, rejection of Western culture, and the recommitment to Islam as the guide to life in the modern world.” Religion is the primary factor that distinguishes Muslim politics and society from other countries.

Huntington also argued that the failure of State economies, the large young population, and the authoritarian style of governance have all contributed to the resurgence of Islam in society. He predicted the great clashes that would occur among civilisations and forecast a coalition between Islamic and Sinic cultures to work against a common enemy, the West.

Huntington defines the Soviet-Afghan War and the First Gulf War as the emergence of civilisational wars, interpreting the Afghan War as a civilisation war because it was seen as the first successful resistance to a foreign power, which boosted the self-confidence, and power of many fighters in the Islamic world. The war also “left behind an uneasy coalition of Islamic organisations intent on promoting Islam against all non-Muslim forces.” In other words, the war created a generation of fighters that perceived the West to be a major threat to their way of life. That “Islamic fundamentalist groups denounced [the war] as a war against ‘Islam and its civilisation’ by an alliance of ‘Crusaders and Zionists’ and proclaimed their backing of Iraq in the face of ‘military and economic aggression against its people.’”

The Clash… began as a response to Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man, which made the case for the eventual triumph of liberal democracy throughout the world. Recent global events have, to some extent, validated Huntington’s predictions. The book was published five years before the 9/11 tragedy but foreshadows the historical moment.

Huntington had great suspicion about Islamic culture. Among his concerns is the lack of a civilisational anchor that has the legitimacy to keep rogue actors in line. The deep divisions among Islamic states have made it impossible for a nation like Turkey, Iran, or Saudi Arabia to have credibility within the entire civilisation. Huntington’s concept of the ‘kin-country syndrome’, though much criticised, has proved prophetic. His argument that States may support ethnic or religious groups in other countries based on cultural or civilisational ties can be seen playing itself out across the world in the current Hamas-Israel conflict. A decided turn towards authoritarianism, to offset popular dissent, is becoming a feature of politics in Asia, the Middle East, and in the West.

Read The Clash... You wonder whether Huntington was right that “in the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilisational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false, it is amoral, and it is dangerous.”