The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is an influential and controversial book on grand strategy and world futures, by the late political scientist Samuel Huntington.

The central theme of this book is that culture and cultural identifies, which at the broadest level are civilization identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration and culture in the post-Cold War world.

It takes a darker view than some alternative models, such as that of Thomas P.M. Barnett in The Pentagon's New Map, suggesting that major conflict is likely; "avoidance of a global war of civilization depends on world leaders accepting and cooperating to maintain the multicivilizational character of global politics." He bases this on five corollaries to the central theme:

1. Global politics is multipolar and multicivilizational; modernization is distinct from Westernization
2. "The balance of power among civilizations is shifting; the West is declining in relative influence"
3. "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
4. "The West's universalist pretentions increasingly bring it into conflict with other civilizations, most seriously with Islam and China"
5. "The survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal"

He specifically rejects the "end of history" model of his student, Francis Fukuyama:

we may be witnessing..the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.

Note that Fukuyama has sometimes been strongly identified with neoconservatism, which has this ideal of liberal democracy, although his position keeps evolving.

Cultures and civilizations

Huntington's basic premise is that a number of great cultures are in unavoidable conflict:

1. Western: Beginning in AD 700, Huntington says it still has three subcomponents: European, North American, and Latin American. It also includes European-settled countries such as Australia and New Zealand
2. Latin American: While the civilization has European and North American roots, it has a distinct identity. Huntington's rationale for separating it is its political interactions more than its cultural ones
3. Islamic: Clearly beginning in the seventh century, while it has an inherent concept of unity (i.e., Dar al Hab and Dar al Islam), there is still strong factionalization into Arab, Turkic, Persian, Malay and other subcivilizations
4. Sinic: dating back at least to 1500 BC and perhaps a millenium earlier, Huntington referred to this as Confucian in earlier works but considers Sinic more accurate, to include Vietnamese and Korean civilizations — although Vietnamese and Koreans might have hearty objections
5. Hindu
6. Orthodox
7. Japanese: an offshoot of Sinic, which was recognizable somewhere between 100 and 400 AD.

A pan-African civilization does not now exist, but may form.

Some of his lists include a Buddhist civilization, but he argues that it is largely extinct in India and has been absorbed in China and Japan. The places where the strongest arguments can be made are Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka and Thailand (Therevada Buddhist subcivilization); Bhutan, Mongolia and Tibet (Lamaist Mahayana Buddhist). He does not include Vietnamese culture as Buddhist.