Analysis Of The Clash Of Civilizations

A rational explanation of war: An examination of The Clash of Civilizations

The Clash of Civilizations is a postulate by political scientist, Samuel P. Huntington; moreover, it seeks to provide a rational explanation for post-Cold War conflict: cultural identification. The United States of America has endured as the last great hegemon of the Cold War era making it the principal actor of a unipolar global order. Though the U.S. continues to be the undisputed economic and military power in the world, Huntington instead chooses to focus his exposition on the importance of multiculturalism to a valuation of modern war and conflict. The renowned political scientist recognizes the socio-economic strength of the United States and of other great nations

As the economic and regional power of these groups expands, their sociopolitical interests will further separate them from the culturally assimilative efforts of the West. According to Samuel P. Huntington’s hypothesis, the conflicts yet to come will be incited by differing cultural identities, for example: religion, race or the “highest cultural grouping of people”, civilizations (Levy 2010: 127). The Clash of Civilizations’ explanation is in direct opposition to modern theories such as Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, which takes a more assimilationist view to America’s Cold War triumph. While I cannot critique all aspects of Huntington’s postulate, I will be focusing on the validity of some of his arguments, and the quantitative and qualitative deficiencies of

Huntington’s postulate references the future of civilization. It is important to note that he sees our current nation-state model as enduring, yet The United States of America appears to be on a collision course with“the rest” of the civilizations in the non-westernized world. Though there is some evidence to support the diminishing role of the U.S. in Carroll Quigley’s model, loss of power is certainly not an inevitability. Huntington calls for cooperation and coexistence between the major world civilizations as a way to stem future culturally based conflict. While the West must appreciate it’s own unique culture, Samuel calls an imposition of those values, “in the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western : belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous” (Huntington 1996: 21). Modernization will be a powerful tool to build the socio-economic, political and military power of non-Western civilizations, but the instruments of modernization should be used toward peaceful and multicultural aims. Achieving these aims will benefit the citizens of the world and avoid a cultural clash of