The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington is an extremely well written and insightful book. Samuel P. Huntington is the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University, director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, the chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, and the president of the American Political Science Association. During the Carter administration, Huntington was the director of security planning for the National Security Council.
He is also the founder and coeditor of the highly regarded international affairs publication, Foreign Policy. In 1993 Samuel P. Huntington wrote an article for the respected journal Foreign Affairs titled The Clash of Civilizations?. This article was very controversial and stirred up much debate among scholars, politicians, and anyone interested in the future of international affairs. His book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, is a more detailed exploration of the ideas and predictions put forth in his article.
Huntington believes that with the end of the Cold War, the world is divided along the borders of civilizations and religion rather than the boundaries of countries. He identifies eight clearly distinct civilizations: Western (the United States and western Europe), Islamic, Sinic (primarily China), Orthodox (primarily Russia), Japanese, Hindu, Latin American, and African. A pervasive presumption in the Western world is that with the fall of communism, the West has won and that the rest of the world will now embrace democracy and Western culture.
Huntington disagrees with this presumption. In his book, Huntington shows us how civilizations and cultural identities are shaping the post-Cold War world. In the first part of the book, Huntington describes how the world has gone from being bipolar during the Cold War, to being multipolar in the post-Cold War era. During the Cold War the world was basically divided along the lines of the democracy vs. communism conflict. Now that the Cold War is over, lines are being drawn along various ethnic and religious lines.
Huntington uses many diverse examples such as the fighting between tribes and clans in Rwanda and Somalia, the clash of ethnic groups in Bosnia, and the conflicts in Sri Lanka, India, and Sudan. Throughout his book, for each concept put forth, Huntington gives detailed examples and illustrations. Huntington goes on to explain in Part II how the West is declining in power and influence. He emphasizes that although the West is still strong and growing in many areas, other civilizations are growing at a faster rate.
Asian civilizations are booming both economically and in their military strength and the Muslim culture is spreading demographically, while the West is becoming increasingly preoccupied with its own internal problems such as crime, government deficits, drug abuse, and a declining work ethic. Huntington uses graphs and charts very effectively in this section of his book to visually depict the decline of the Wests population, territory, and economic influence.
Also in this section, the concept of modernization vs. Westernization is discussed. Many cultures desire to become modern, but without the negative trappings of Western civilization such as the perceived lack of morals and weak work ethic of Westerners, and the primarily Western concept of the separation between church and state. Modernization was once equated with Westernization but, according to Huntington, this is now not always the case. His examples include the Japanese and Islamic cultures.
In Japan there has been a return to traditional Asian culture due to the prevailing belief that their economic prosperity is directly linked to their traditional culture and that the problems of the U. S. are linked to our Western culture. Islamic leaders have expressed similar attitudes as well, and Huntington goes into great detail discussing this Islamic Resurgence. Muslims are putting more emphasis on their traditional Islamic cultural mores and are going to great lengths to keep out Western influence while still modernizing and keeping up with technology.
Part III of this book discusses the authors view on the way that the civilizations of the world are aligning themselves with one another along religious and cultural lines. He gives, for example, Orthodox Belarus and Moldova aligning with Russia; Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore developing close relations with China; and the developing relationships within the Balkans. Huntington also notes the increasing economic cooperation and the development of numerous economic and trade unions among states of similar cultures.
Again, Huntington goes into great detail giving examples of these alliances. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Central American Common Market are all examples cited by Huntington of the growing cooperation between countries with similar cultures. In the authors words, In the past the patterns of trade among nations have followed and paralleled the patterns of alliance among nations. In the emerging world, patterns of trade will be decisively influenced by the patterns of culture.
Part IV of The Clash of Civilizations contains the most engaging and perspicacious chapters in the book. It is here that Huntington gives his thoughts on, as he puts it, The West and the Rest. Huntington believes that it is the Wests penchant for meddling in the affairs of others that will make for dangerous clashes between civilizations in the not-too-distant future. As Huntington prognosticates in Chapter 8, The dangerous clashes of the future are likely to arise from the interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, and Sinic assertiveness.
Another intriguing area that Huntington delves into in this chapter is the growing relationship between Islamic and Sinic states. He states that even though Sinic and Islamic cultures have very little in common (probably even less than either has in common with the West) they have cooperated on a variety of issues. As Huntington puts it In Politics a common enemy creates a common interest. This cooperation has occurred on issues such as human rights, economics, and in particular, the development of weapons of mass destruction to counter the conventional military superiority of the West.
The author cites the Confucian-Islamic connection between China and North Korea on the one hand and Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Algeria on the other as an example of Sinic and Islamic states cooperating to counter the West on these issues. In Part V of his book, Samuel Huntington presents some very interesting, yet troubling, ideas about the future of Western civilization and the United States in particular. In these final chapters, Huntington speculates that it is the internal problems in the Western countries that will eventually lead to their downfall.
He believes that the decay of the morals and values within the populations of the United States and many European countries will weaken these countries and leave them open to barbarian invaders from younger, more powerful civilizations. Huntington points out the following examples as evidence of the moral decline of the West:
1. An increase in crime, drug use, and violence. 2. The decay of the family; i. e. , increases in divorce rates, teen-age pregnancies, illegitimacy, and single-parent families. 3. A weakened work ethic coupled with an increase in personal indulgence. 4. A decrease in the levels of intellectual activity and scholarly achievement.
Huntington also cites the rejection of assimilation by immigrants as a problem within Western societies. Muslims in Europe and Hispanics in the United States are cited as examples of this phenomenon in which immigrants adhere to and propagate the values and customs of their home culture. This failure to assimilate in the West, according to Huntington, will cause these countries to become cleft countries, divided along cultural lines. Samuel Huntington also attacks multiculturalism as a threat to the United States.
He states that multiculturalists have denied the existence of a common American culture, and promoted racial, ethnic, and other subnational cultural identities and groupings and have attacked the identification of the United States with Western civilization. He accuses President Clinton and the federal government of promoting this diversity rather than unity. Huntington believes that trying to create a country made up of many civilizations will only weaken the United States and damage its cohesiveness, dividing it from the rest of Western civilization.
If the United States is pulled away from the rest of Western civilization, the West will be reduced to Europe and a few scattered settler countries. Huntington has a prescription to correct the problems that face the West. First, the United States and Europe must renew their moral life and reject the declining morality in Western societies. They must also build on the cultural commonality between European countries and the United States. Huntington also suggests that Western countries must develop economic and political ties to match their collaborated dedication to security issues.
He states that an increased political and economic unity among Western nations will offset the relative decline in their share of the worlds population and economic influence. In summary, Huntington believes that the future of the world depends on understanding and cooperation between the leaders of the worlds civilizations. He is a realist and believes that clashes between civilizations will be the greatest threat to world peace and stability.
Throughout The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order Huntington gives numerous persuasive arguments to convince his audience that he is correct. Huntington has a writing style that is precise and direct. His mastery of the subject is obvious and his use of facts and examples to prove his point is very convincing. This book is a very important text and is recommended to anyone who is involved in the study of international relations or is interested in the current state of world politics.
