Analysis of Huntington

Dr. Samuel P. Huntington's provocative and incisive essay, "The Clash of Civilization's?" was perhaps the most influential intellectual response to the challenge of forming a new view of geopolitics and world society following the end of the Cold War and the dual power system that that conflict had formed.

Huntington's thesis was that the source of new conflicts would spring forth from cultural differences, not ideological, religious, or economic as they had in the past.

Using historical analysis, Huntington describes these transformative patterns of conflict. The Westphalian settlement of 1648 that ended the 30 years war brought about states dedicated to the maintenance of absolute monarchs. Conflict between those states led to the rise of national identity and thus to states devoted to the success of the nation. Conflict thus engendered culminated in the carnage of World War I, the Russian Revolution and the rise of the great ideologies of Fascism, Communism, and Liberalism's modern form. States became dedicated and founded upon these ideologies. World War II brought an end to Fascism, at least at the state level. The Cold War brought an end to Communism or more precisely Communism's transformation into autocracy in Russia and China, now led by "former" Communists in the former and "market" Communists in the latter.

Huntington goes on to describe a civilization as the broadest level of cultural identity that people have short of species differentiation. He posits an emerging world order where the conflict is driven by differences between eight civilizations: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, and African.

Huntington believed that conflicts would occur along the fault lines of culture that separate civilizations from each other. This would happen for six reasons. First, civilizational differences are basic, leading to vast differences in peoples. Secondly, as people communicate more between civilizations, their identification with their own increases as they see the differences. Third, vast economic and social changes are weakening local and national identifications. Regional identities are filling the void. Fourth, as the West is perceived to be dominant, this stimulates competition with other civilizations that wish to keep from falling behind. Fifith, cultural differences are more difficult to bridge than opthers because they are fundamental to a person's identity. Lastly, the economies of civilizations are rapidly integrating within themselves, but not among themselves. Trade wars and protectionism become more prevalent between civilizations than within them.

One of Huntington's most profound points is that Western civilization is different from all the others. Unfortunately many in the West think the opposite of this. They believe other peoples are fundamentally Western or aspire to be. Others civilizations view the West as unique and this draws all the others closer to each other, in opposition to the West. This will potentially create a great deal of conflict as non-Western nations coordinate their actions to confront and oppose the West. Huntington coins this as "the West vs. the rest."

Another important Huntington makes is that even as the rest of the world, to some extent, competes against the West, they also begin to emulate it. Western liberals see this as a sign of hope that Western notions of democracywill move east. Huntington believed that the east will try to modernize, not Westernize. That is to say that the eastern civilizations, the Confucian and Islamic principally, will try to use Western technology and its derivatives in order to serve eastern notions of autocracy and oligarchy, most notably the Chinese Communist Party.

I found much to agree with in Dr. Huntington's broad view of the way the world is transforming geopolitically. THis essay, written in 1993, was expanded into an influential book in 1996. Much that has occured in the fifteen years since Huntington wrote has borne his ideas out.

One might say that for the West in 1993 there were broadly two possible outcomes to Huntington's hypothesis. The optimistic outcome was one of conflict that could be managed by world trade institutions and multilateral organizations such as the G-7/8 and the UN. The pessimistic path is the one that is unfolding under present circumstances this very minute. The multilateral institutions have become sclerotic and powerless. Trade agreements are becoming less popular and therefore harder if not impossible to formulate. Institutions such as the G-8 and the UN security council are hopelessly divided along civilizational lines. The one being the divide between the West and Russia, the other being the divide between the West and a new Russian-Confucian cooperation signified by the friendship treaty signed by Russia and China in 2001. This was implicitly anti-American and, to be honest, probably secretly a military alliance as well.

Huntington wrote of a Confucian-Islamic cooperation. Russia, since 1993, has move decisively and definitively into the cooperation. Moscow has embarked upon a military expansion and has revived many of the aggressive tactics of the Cold War. This cooperation between Russian, Islamic and Confucian worlds has the potential to supplant the West as the dominant civilization of the world. If its leadership has the will to dominate, as I believe it does, and the West resists, as I think it eventually must, a profoundly catastrophic world conflict will occur, perhaps sooner than Western policy makers might be prepared for as most of them have fantasized and dreamed about "one world". As they dreamed, the east planned and seethed.

The situation is not hopeless yet, but the world is moving into a dark valley made darker still with conflict, potential conflict and economic distress. Only by seeing the world as it is and not fantasizing about post-Cold War neo-Conservative "one world" end of history fantasies can disaster be averted. The world will emerge eventually from this dark valley but it will be transformed in ways, for better or ill, that are impossible to predict.

John.