The Clash Of Civilizations: And The Remaking Of World Order Paperback – 5 Jun 2002

It is over 10 years since I read Samuel Huntington's full length expansion of his classic Foreign Affairs article. This was read during my final year at university, and back then, it was fashionable amongst many to refute, or outrightly mock Professor Huntington's disturbing piece of work. The work was derided amongst my fellow students, it was frequently derieded amongst academia, it is something of a fashion statement to deride Huntington's work. Why?
Could it be, perhaps, because of a deep, inbuilt feeling that we just know that he was right?
In the 10+ years since I read this monumental study, I have encountered very little in current events to refute his argument. Time has vindicated Huntington, and will continue to vindicate him.
Huntington identifies 9 civilizations, Western, Orthodox, Islamic, Latin American, African, Sinic, Hindu, Buddhist and Japanese.
The 2 civilizations that Huntington considers to be the most potentially antagonistic toward the West are Islamic and Sinic, however, as this book was completed in 2006, various conflicts had not yet played out between the West and the Orthodox World, and this is deserving of a special place as a potential faultline civilization.
Huntington considers the value systems of Sinic and Islamic culture as essentially incompatible with the West, and attempts to assimilate or reconcile Western values with these cultures is ultimately futile. Therefore, Huntington advocates a careful, cautious approach to foreign policy, wherein Western powers should try to mediate civilizational disputes, but not directly involve themselves with them.
Why do I think Huntington has been vindicated? The list is not exhaustive.
Firstly, attempts through that ill conceived 2003-? War in Iraq to democracize Iraq has proved a colossal failure. The Arab Spring led to an outright dead end for all countries involved except Tunisia, and Turkish membership of the EU remains a pipe dream.
However, while Huntington's work was written before the full democratization of South Korea and Taiwan, we have seen little progress in China toward any kind of accountable or open system, and China has recently given Hong Kong a half-baked, managed democracy.
If anything, the civilizational faultline that has become more pronounced is the Orthodox World. Russia and US relations are at the worst they have ever been since the end of the Cold War, and the continuing support of Putin's strongman leadership amongst the Russian population shows a general preference in Russia at least for strongman leadership, rather than a more pluralistic approach.
The situation in Ukraine is perhaps the Western-Orthodox divide being played out within a single, fragmented state, and is in many ways the result of naive Western attempts to push Western Institutions (NATO and the EU) into the Orthodox World.
A further example was the almost universal Western support (exception Spain) for the unilateral independence of Kosovo, and then the complete reverse of this foreign policy toward the Russian unification with Crimea.
This is not to distract oneself with current issues. Huntington's original work was written in response to the 1991 Gulf War, and the expanded book was based on events in the 90s, such as the Yugoslav wars, Chechnya, and the very nature of Sino-Western relations.
However, very little has transpired to prove Huntington wrong, and few would argue that his main policy proscription, that the West only mediate, not directly involve themselves with disputes involving other civilizations.
I think the dust will never settle on the debate over Huntington's thesis, but Huntington has convinced this reader at least.

Reading this book has influenced the way I look at world politics and also my own personal view of `self`. It is perhaps easy to be imbued with the culture of one`s own civilization - I speak as a Westerner - and to regard your world view as irrevocable. `Clash of Civilizations` has modified my world view. I feel I now understand a little more what it may be like to see the world from a Chinese or a Russian perspective.

I did not find this a particularly easy read. It is dense and will no doubt populate the book shelves of political academics. It is also a bit dated now - written in 1996 and a lot has happened since then. But it concerns more the mechanisms and machinations of global politics as well as the history of some of the more significant conflicts and so remains relevant.

This clash of civilizations might be abstracted into a world of tectonic collision - a morphing map of dominions, dancing a sarabande of evolving allegiances and political manoeuvres to fuse new and ideally mutually beneficial relationships with one another.

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.

A book I have meaning to read for years - one of the most controversial, interesting and thought provoking texts of its kind published over the last 50 years. For me a test of such work is that I find it fascinating and challenging even when I am not fully persuaded by its argument. Having said this, Huntington is looking more and more prescient as the years pass.