huntington - Sam on Diigo

It is my hypothesis 
        that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be 
        primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among 
        humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation 
        states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the 
        principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and 
        groups of different 
        civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of 
        the future.

              
            

ideology

Western civil wars

With the 
        end of the Cold War, international politics moves out of its Western phase, 
        and its center-piece becomes the interaction between the West and non-Western 
        civilizations and among non-Western civilizations. In the politics of 
        civilizations, the people and governments of non-Western civilizations 
        no longer remain the objects of history as targets of Western colonialism 
        but join the West as movers and shapers of history.

              
            

group countries

in terms of their culture and civilization.

The civilization to which he belongs is the broadest level 
        of identification with which he intensely identifies.

Civilizations are nonetheless 
        meaningful entities, and while the lines between them are seldom sharp, 
        they are real.

The broader reaches of human 
        history have been the history of civilizations

The most important conflicts 
        of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating these 
        civilizations from one another.

These include Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, 
        Latin American and possibly African civilization.

First, differences among civilizations 
        are not only real; they are basic

Second, the world is becoming 
        a smaller place

Third, the processes of economic 
        modernization and social change throughout the world are separating people 
        from longstanding local identities

In much of the world religion has moved in to 
        fill this gap, often in the form of movements that are labeled "fundamentalist."

Fourth, the growth 
        of civilization-consciousness is enhanced by the dual role of the West.

A West at the peak of its power confronts 
        non-Wests that increasingly have the desire, the will and the resources 
        to shape the world 
        in non-Western ways.

A de-Westernization 
        and indigenization of elites is occurring in many non-Western countries 
        at the same time that Western, usually American, cultures, styles and 
        habits become more popular among the mass of the people

Finally, economic regionalism 
        is increasing.

The importance of regional economic blocs is likely to continue to increase 
        in the future. On the one hand, successful economic regionalism will reinforce 
        civilization-consciousness. On the other hand, economic regionalism may 
        succeed only when it is rooted in a common civilization.

Common culture, in 
        contrast, is clearly facilitating the rapid expansion of the economic 
        relations between the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong, Taiwan, 
        Singapore and the overseas Chinese communities in other Asian countries.

Culture and religion also 
        form the basis of the Economic Cooperation Organization, which brings 
        together ten non-Arab Muslim countries

As people define 
        their identity in ethnic and religious terms, they are likely to see an 
        "us" versus "them" relation existing between themselves 
        and people of different ethnicity or religion.

The clash of civilizations 
        thus occurs at two levels. At the micro-level, adjacent groups along the 
        fault lines between civilizations struggle, often violently, over the 
        control of territory and each other. At the macro-level, states from different 
        civilizations compete for relative military and economic power, struggle 
        over the control of international institutions and third parties, and 
        competitively promote 
        their particular political and religious values.

              
            

As the ideological division of Europe has 
        disappeared, the cultural division of Europe between Western Christianity, 
        on the one hand, and Orthodox Christianity and Islam, on the other, has 
        reemerged.

coincides with the historic boundary between the Hapsburg 
        and Ottoman empires

Conflict along the fault line 
        between Western and Islamic civilizations has been going on for 1,300 
        years.

 first Arab 
        nationalism and then Islamic fundamentalism manifested themselves

This 
        warfare between Arabs and the West culminated in 1990

This centuries-old 
        military interaction between the West and Islam is unlikely to decline

In the Arab world, in short, Western 
        democracy strengthens anti-Western political forces. This may be a passing 
        phenomenon, but it surely complicates relations between Islamic countries 
        and the West.

Those relations are also complicated 
        by demography. The spectacular population growth in Arab countries, particularly 
        in North Africa, has led to increased migration to Western Europe.

On both sides the 
        interaction between Islam and the West is seen as a clash of civilizations.

Historically, the 
        other great antagonistic interaction of Arab Islamic civilization has 
        been with the pagan, animist, and now increasingly Christian black peoples 
        to the south.

On the northern border of 
        Islam, conflict has increasingly erupted between Orthodox and Muslim peoples, 
        including the carnage of Bosnia and Sarajevo

The historic clash between Muslim 
        and Hindu in the subcontinent manifests itself now not only is the rivalry 
        between Pakistan and India but also in intensifying religious strife within 
        India between increasingly militant Hindu groups and India's substantial 
        Muslim minority.

              
            

The same phrase has been applied 
        to the increasingly difficult relations between Japan and the United States

The economic issues between the United States and Europe are no less serious 
        than those between the United States and Japan, but they do not have thesame 
        political salience and emotional intensity because the differences between 
        American culture and European culture are so much less than those between 
        American civilization and Japanese civilization.

              
            

With the Cold War over, 
        the underlying differences between China and the United States have reasserted 
        themselves in areas such as human rights, trade and weapons proliferation. 
        These differences are unlikely to moderate. A "new cold war," 
        Deng Xaioping reportedly asserted in 1991, is under way between China 
        and America.

              
            

The interactions 
        between civilizations vary greatly in the extent to which they are likely 
        to be characterized by violence.

proliferation 
        of ethnic conflict, epitomized at the extreme in "ethnic cleansing," 
        has not been totally random. It has been most frequent and most violent 
        between groups belonging to different civilizations.

THE KIN-COUNTRY SYNDROME 
        GROUPS OR STATES belonging to one civilization that become involved in 
        war with people from a different civilization naturally try to rally support 
        from other members of their own civilization.

First, in the Gulf War one 
        Arab state invaded another and then fought a coalition of Arab, Western 
        and other states.

The rallying of substantial 
        sections of Arab elites and publics behind Saddam Hussein called those 
        Arab governments in the anti-Iraq coalition to moderate their activities 
        and temper their public statements.

Muslims contrasted 
        Western actions against Iraq with the West's failure to protect Bosnians 
        against Serbs and to impose sanctions on Israel for violating U.N. resolutions. 
        The West, they allege, was using a double standard. A world of clashing 
        civilizations, however, is inevitably a world of double standards: people 
        apply one standard to their kin-countries and a different standard 
        to others.

              
            

Second, the kin-country syndrome 
        also appeared in conflicts in the former Soviet Union.

Russian troops fought on the Side of the Armenians, and Azerbaijan 
        accused the "Russian government of turning 180 degrees" toward 
        support for Christian Armenia.

Third, with respect 
        to the fighting in the former Yugoslavia, Western publics manifested sympathy 
        and support for the Bosnian Muslims and the horrors they suffered at the 
        hands of the Serbs. Relatively little concern was expressed, however, 
        over Croatian attacks on Muslims and participation in the dismemberment 
        of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

              
            

Islamic governments and groups, 
        on the other hand, castigated the West for not coming to the defense of 
        the Bosnians.

The governments of Saudi Arabia and other countries felt under 
        increasing pressure from fundamentalist groups in their own societies 
        to provide more vigorous support for the Bosnians.

In the 1990s the Yugoslav conflict 
        is provoking intervention from countries that are Muslim, Orthodox and 
        Western Christian.

Conflicts and violence 
        will also occur between states and groups within the same civilization. 
        Such conflicts, however, are likely to be less intense and less likely 
        to expand than conflicts between civilizations.

Common membership in a 
        civilization reduces the probability of violence in situations where it 
        might otherwise occur.

In the coming years, 
        the local conflicts most likely to escalate into major wars will be those, 
        as in Bosnia and the Caucasus, along the fault lines between civilizations. 
        The next world war, if there is one, will be a war between civilizations.

THE WEST IS NOW at 
        an extraordinary peak of power in relation to other civilizations. In 
        superpower opponent has disappeared from the map. Military conflict among 
        Western states is unthinkable, and Western military power is unrivaled. 
        Apart from Japan, the West faces no economic challenge. It dominates international 
        economic institutions. Global political and security issues are effectively 
        settled by a directorate of the United States, Britain and France, 
        world economic issues 
        by a directorate of the United States, Germany and Japan, all of which 
        maintain extraordinarily close relations with each other to the exclusion 
        of lesser and largely non-Western countries.

              
            

The West in effect is using international institutions, 
        military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will 
        maintain Western predominance, protect Western interests and promote Western 
        political and economic values.

Differences in power and struggles for 
        military, economic and institutional power are thus one source of conflict 
        between the West and other civilizations. Differences in culture, that 
        is basic values and beliefs, are a second source of conflict.

Western concepts differ fundamentally from those prevalent in 
        other civilizations. Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, 
        human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, 
        the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic, 
        Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or Orthodox cultures. Western efforts 
        to propagate each ideas produce instead a reaction against "human 
        rights imperialism" and a reaffirmation of indigenous values, as 
        can be seen in the support for religious fundamentalism by the younger 
        generation in non-Western cultures. The very notion that there could be 
        a "universal civilization" is a Western idea, directly at odds 
        with the particularism of most Asian societies and their emphasis on what 
        distinguishes one people from another.

              
            

The central axis 
        of world politics in the future is likely to be, in Kishore Mahbubani's 
        phrase, the conflict between "the West and the Rest" and the 
        responses of non-Western civilizations to Western power and values.

IN THE FUTURE, as 
        people differentiate themselves by civilization, countries with large 
        numbers of people of different civilizations, such as the Soviet Union 
        and Yugoslavia, are candidates for dismemberment. Some other countries 
        have a fair degree of cultural homogeneity but are divided over whether 
        their society belongs to one civilization or another. 
        These are town countries.

              
            

Mexico has stopped defining itself by its opposition to 
        the United States and is instead attempting to imitate the United States 
        and to join it in the North American Free Trade Area.

Mexico as in Turkey, significant elements in society resist the redefinition 
        of their country's 
        identity. In Turkey, European-oriented leaders have to make gestures to 
        Islam (Ozal's pilgrimage to Mecca); so also Mexico's North American-oriented 
        leaders have to make gestures to those who hold Mexico to be a Latin American 
        country (Salinas' Ibero-American Guadalajara summit).

              
            

Globally the most important torn country 
        is Russia.

President Yeltsin 
        is adopting Western principles and goals and seeking to make Russia a 
        "normal" country and a part of the West. Yet both the Russian 
        elite and the Russian public are divided on this issue.

To redefine its civilization 
        identity, a torn country must meet three requirements. First, its political 
        and economic elite has to be generally supportive of and enthusiastic 
        about the move. Second, its public has to be willing to acquiesce in the 
        redefinition. Third, the dominant groups in the recipient civilization 
        have to be willing to embrace the convert. All three requirements in large 
        part exist with respect to Mexico. The first two in large part exist with 
        respect to Turkey. It is not clear that any of them exist with respect 
        to Russia's joining the West.

              
            

Australia's future, they argue, 
        is with the dynamic economies of East Asia. But, as I have suggested, 
        close economic cooperation normally requires a common cultural base. In 
        addition, none of the three conditions necessary for a torn country to 
        join another civilization is likely to exist in Australia's case.

              
            

Those countries that for reason of culture and power do not wish to, or 
        cannot, join the West compete with the West by developing their own economic, 
        military and political power. They do this by promoting their internal 
        development and by cooperating with other non-Western countries. The most 
        prominent form of this cooperation is the Confucian-Islamic connection 
        that has emerged to challenge Western interests, values and power.

              
            

One result is the 
        emergence of what Charles Krauthammer has called "Weapon States," 
        and the Weapon States are not Western states. Another result is the redefinition 
        of arms control, which is a Western concept and a Western goal

In the post-Cold War world the primary objective 
        of arms control is to prevent the development by non-Western societies 
        of military capabilities that could threaten Western interests. The West 
        attempts to do this through international agreements, economic pressure 
        and controls on the transfer of arms and weapons technologies.

              
            

The West promotes 
        nonproliferation as a universal norm and nonproliferation 
        treaties and inspections as means of realizing that norm. It also threatens 
        a variety of sanctions against those who promote the spread of sophisticated 
        weapons and proposes some benefits for those who do not. The attention 
        of the West focuses, naturally on nations that are actually or potentially 
        hostile to the West.

              
            

The non-Western 
        nations, on the other hand, assert their right to acquire and to deploy 
        whatever weapons they think necessary for their security.

Nuclear 
        weapons, chemical weapons and missiles are viewed, probably erroneously, 
        as the potential equalizer of superior Western conventional power.

Centrally important 
        to the development of counter-West military capabilities is the sustained 
        expansion of China's military power and its means to create military power. 
        Buoyed by spectacular economic development, China is rapidly increasing 
        its military spending and vigorously moving forward with the modernization 
        of its armed forces.

              
            

A Confucian-Islamic military 
        connection has thus come into being, designed to promote acquisition by 
        its members of the weapons and weapons technologies needed to counter 
        the military powers of the West.

A new form of arms competition 
        is thus occurring between Islamic-Confucian states and the West.

In this new form of arms 
        competition, one side is developing its arms and the other side is attempting 
        not to balance but to limit and prevent that arms build-up while at the 
        same time reducing its own military capabilities.

differences between civilizations are real and 
        important; civilization-consciousness is increasing; conflict between 
        civilizations will supplant ideological and other forms of conflict as 
        the dominant global form of conflict; international relations, historically 
        a game played out within Western civilization, will increasingly be de-Westernized 
        and become a game in which non-Western civilizations are actors and not 
        simply objects; successful political, security and economic international 
        institutions are more likely to develop within civilizations than across 
        civilizations; conflicts between groups in different civilizations will 
        be more frequent, more sustained and more violent than conflicts between 
        groups in the same civilization; violent conflicts between groups in different 
        civilizations are the 
        most likely and most dangerous source of escalation that could lead to 
        global wars; the paramount axis of world politics will be the relations 
        between "the West and the Rest"; the elites in some torn non-Western 
        countries will try to make their countries part of the West, but in most 
        cases face major obstacles to accomplishing this; a central focus of conflict 
        for the immediate future 
        will be between the West and several Islamic-Confucian states.

              
            

In the short term it is clearly 
        in the interest of the West to promote greater cooperation and unity within 
        its own civilization, particularly between its European and North American 
        components; to incorporate into the West societies in Eastern Europe and 
        Latin America whose cultures are close to those of the West; to promote 
        and maintain cooperative relations with Russia and Japan; to prevent 
        escalation of local 
        inter-civilization conflicts into major inter-civilization wars; to limit 
        the expansion of the military strength of Confucian and Islamic states; 
        to moderate the reduction of counter military capabilities and maintain 
        military superiority in East and Southwest Asia; to exploit differences 
        and conflicts among Confucian and Islamic states; to support in other 
        civilizations groups sympathetic to Western values and interests; to strengthen 
        international institutions that reflect and legitimate Western interests 
        and values and to promote the involvement of non-Western states in those 
        institutions.

              
            

West will increasingly have to accommodate these 
        non-Western modern civilizations whose power approaches that of the West 
        but whose values and interests differ significantly from those of the 
        West. This will require the West to maintain the economic and military 
        power necessary to protect its interests in relation to these civilizations. 
        It will also, however, require the West to develop a more profound understanding 
        of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other 
        civilizations and the ways in which people in those civilizations see 
        their interests. It will require an effort to identify elements of commonality 
        between Western and other civilizations. 

              
            

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