locate and describe Huntingtons main thesis clearly. You will then explain what he means by a civilization, after which you

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The Clash of Civilizations? Author(s): Samuel P. Huntington Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Summer, 1993), pp. 22-49 Published by: Council on Foreign Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20045621 Accessed: 20-08-2015 17:53 UTC

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The Clash of Civilizations?

Samuel P. Huntington

THE NEXT PATTERN OF CONFLICT

World politics is entering a new phase, and intellectuals have

not hesitated to proliferate visions of what it will be?the end of his

tory, the return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the

decline of the nation state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and

globalism, among others. Each of these visions catches aspects of the

emerging reality. Yet they all miss a crucial, indeed a central, aspect of what global politics is likely to be in the coming years.

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 dominate global politics. The fault lines between

civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

Conflict between civilizations will be the latest phase in the evo

lution of conflict in the modern world. For a century and a half after

the emergence of the modern international system with the Peace of

Westphalia, the conflicts of the Western world were largely among

Samuel P. Huntington is the Eaton Professor of the Science of

Government and Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. This article is the product of the Olin

Institute's project on "The Changing Security Environment and

American National Interests."

[22]

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The Clash of Civilizations?

princes?emperors, absolute monarchs and constitutional monarchs

attempting to expand their bureaucracies, their armies, their mer

cantilist economic strength and, most important, the territory they ruled. In the process they created nation states, and beginning with

the French Revolution the principal lines of conflict were between

nations rather than princes. In 1793, as R. R. Palmer put it, "The wars

of kings were over; the wars of peoples had begun." This nineteenth

century pattern lasted until the end of World War I. Then, as a result

of the Russian Revolution and the reaction against it, the conflict of

nations yielded to the conflict of ideologies, first among communism, fascism-Nazism and liberal democracy, and then between commu

nism and liberal democracy. During the Cold War, this latter conflict

became embodied in the struggle between the two superpowers, nei

ther of which was a nation state in the classical European sense and

each of which defined its identity in terms of its ideology. These conflicts between princes, nation states and ideologies were

primarily conflicts within Western civilization, "Western civil wars," as William Lind has labeled them. This was as true of the Cold War as it was of the world wars and the earlier wars of the seventeenth,

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 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 peoples and governments of non-Western civiliza

tions no longer remain the objects of history as targets of Western

colonialism but join the West as movers and shapers of history.

THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATIONS

During the cold war the world was divided into the First, Second and Third Worlds. Those divisions are no longer relevant. It

is far more meaningful now to group countries not in terms of their

political or economic systems or in terms of their level of economic

development but rather in terms of their culture and civilization.

What do we mean when we talk of a civilization? A civilization is a cultural entity. Villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, reli

FOREIGN AFFAIRS – Summer 1993 [23]

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Samuel P. Huntington

gious groups, all have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural

heterogeneity. The culture of a village in southern Italy may be dif

ferent from that of a village in northern Italy, but both will share in a

common Italian culture that distinguishes them from German vil

lages. European communities, in turn, will share cultural features that

distinguish them from Arab or Chinese communities. Arabs, Chinese and Westerners, however, are not part of any broader cul

tural entity. They constitute civilizations. A civilization is thus the

highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural

identity people have short ofthat which distinguishes humans from other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such

as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the sub

jective self-identification of people. People have levels of identity: a

resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees of inten

sity as a Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, a

Westerner. The civilization to which he belongs is the broadest level

of identification with which he intensely identifies. People can and do redefine their identities and, as a result, the composition and

boundaries of civilizations change. Civilizations may involve a large number of people, as with China

("a civilization pretending to be a state," as Lucian Pye put it), or a

very small number of people, such as the Anglophone Caribbean. A

civilization may include several nation states, as is the case with

Western, Latin American and Arab civilizations, or only one, as is the

case with Japanese civilization. Civilizations obviously blend and

overlap, and may include subcivilizations. Western civilization has

two major variants, European and North American, and Islam has its

Arab, Turkic and Malay subdivisions. Civilizations are nonetheless

meaningful entities, and while the lines between them are seldom

sharp, they are real. Civilizations are dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide and merge. And, as any student of history knows, civilizations

disappear and are buried in the sands of time.

Westerners tend to think of nation states as the principal actors in

global affairs. They have been that, however, for only a few centuries.

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

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The Clash of Civilizations?

lizations. In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee identified 21 major civilizations; only six of them exist in the contemporary world.

WHY CIVILIZATIONS WILL CLASH

Civilization identity will be increasingly important in the

future, and the world will be shaped in large measure by the interac

tions among seven or eight major civilizations. These include

Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization. The most impor tant conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines sep

arating these civilizations from one another.

Why will this be the case?

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

basic. Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, Ian

guage, culture, tradition and, most important,

religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between

God and man, the individual and the group, the

citizen and the state, parents and children, hus

band and wife, as well as differing views of the

relative importance of rights and responsibili ties, liberty and authority, equality and hierar

chy. These differences are the product of centuries. They will not

soon disappear. They are far more fundamental than differences

among political ideologies and political regimes. Differences do not

necessarily mean conflict, and conflict does not necessarily mean vio

lence. Over the centuries, however, differences among civilizations

have generated the most prolonged and the most violent conflicts.

Second, the world is becoming a smaller place. The interactions

between peoples of different civilizations are increasing; these

increasing interactions intensify civilization consciousness and awareness of differences between civilizations and commonalities

within civilizations. North African immigration to France generates

hostility among Frenchmen and at the same time increased receptiv

ity to immigration by "good" European Catholic Poles. Americans

FOREIGN AFFAIRS – Summer 1993 [25]

The conflicts of the

future will occur along the cultural fault lines

separating civilizations.

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Samuel P. Huntington

react far more negatively to Japanese investment than to larger invest ments from Canada and European countries. Similarly, as Donald

Horowitz has pointed out, "An Ibo may be … an Owerri Ibo or an

Onitsha Ibo in what was the Eastern region of Nigeria. In Lagos, he

is simply an Ibo. In London, he is a Nigerian. In New York, he is an

African." The interactions among peoples of different civilizations

enhance the civilization-consciousness of people that, in turn, invig orates differences and animosities stretching or thought to stretch

back deep into history. Third, the processes of economic modernization and social change

throughout the world are separating people from longstanding local

identities. They also weaken the nation state as a source of identity. In much of the world religion has moved in to fill this gap, often in the form of movements that are labeled "fundamentalist." Such

movements are found in Western Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism

and Hinduism, as well as in Islam. In most countries and most reli

gions the people active in fundamentalist movements are young, col

lege-educated, middle-class technicians, professionals and business

persons. The "unsecularization of the world," George Weigel has

remarked, "is one of the dominant social facts of life in the late twen

tieth century." The revival of religion, "la revanche de Dieu," as Gilles

Kepel labeled it, provides a basis for identity and commitment that

transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations.

Fourth, the growth of civilization-consciousness is enhanced by the dual role of the West. On the one hand, the West is at a peak of

power. At the same time, however, and perhaps as a result, a return

to the roots phenomenon is occurring among non-Western civiliza

tions. Increasingly one hears references to trends toward a turning inward and "Asianization" in Japan, the end of the Nehru legacy and

the "Hinduization" of India, the failure of Western ideas of socialism

and nationalism and hence "re-Islamization" of the Middle East, and

now a debate over Westernization versus Russianization in Boris

Yeltsin s country. 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. In the past, the elites of non-Western societies were usually the

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The Clash of Civilizations?

people who were most involved with the West, had been educated at

Oxford, the Sorbonne or Sandhurst, and had absorbed Western atti

tudes and values. At the same time, the populace in non-Western

countries often remained deeply imbued with the indigenous culture.

Now, however, these relationships are being reversed. 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. Fifth, cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and

hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and eco

nomic ones. In the former Soviet Union, communists can become

democrats, the rich can become poor and the poor rich, but Russians

cannot become Estonians and Az?ris cannot become Armenians. In

class and ideological conflicts, the key question was "Which side are

you on?" and people could and did choose sides and change sides. In

conflicts between civilizations, the question is "What are you?" That

is a given that cannot be changed. And as we know, from Bosnia to

the Caucasus to the Sudan, the wrong answer to that question can

mean a bullet in the head. Even more than ethnicity, religion dis

criminates sharply and exclusively among people. A person can be

half-French and half-Arab and simultaneously even a citizen of two

countries. It is more difficult to be half-Catholic and half-Muslim.

Finally, economic regionalism is increasing. The proportions of

total trade that were intraregional rose between 1980 and 1989 from

51 percent to 59 percent in Europe, 33 percent to 37 percent in East

Asia, and 32 percent to 36 percent in North America. The importance of regional economic blocs is likely to continue to increase in the

future. On the one hand, successful economic regionalism will rein

force civilization-consciousness. On the other hand, economic

regionalism may succeed only when it is rooted in a common civi

lization. The European Community rests on the shared foundation

of European culture and Western Christianity. The success of the

North American Free Trade Area depends on the convergence now

underway of Mexican, Canadian and American cultures. Japan, in

contrast, faces difficulties in creating a comparable economic entity

FOREIGN AFFAIRS Summer 1993 [27]

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Samuel P Huntington

in East Asia because Japan is a society and civilization unique to itself. However strong the trade and investment links Japan may develop with other East Asian countries, its cultural differences with those

countries inhibit and perhaps preclude its promoting regional eco

nomic integration like that in Europe and North America.

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. With the Cold War over, cul

tural commonalities increasingly overcome ideological differences, and mainland China and Taiwan move closer together. If cultural

commonality is a prerequisite for economic integration, the principal East Asian economic bloc of the future is likely to be centered on

China. This bloc is, in fact, already coming into existence. As Murray Weidenbaum has observed,

Despite the current Japanese dominance of the region, the Chinese-based

economy of Asia is rapidly emerging as a new epicenter for industry, com

merce and finance. This strategic area contains substantial amounts of tech

nology and manufacturing capability (Taiwan), outstanding entrepreneurial,

marketing and services acumen (Hong Kong), a fine communications net

work (Singapore), a tremendous pool of financial capital (all three), and very

large endowments of land, resources and labor (mainland China)…. From

Guangzhou to Singapore, from Kuala Lumpur to Manila, this influential net

work?often based on extensions of the traditional clans?has been described

as the backbone of the East Asian economy.1

Culture and religion also form the basis of the Economic

Cooperation Organization, which brings together ten non-Arab

Muslim countries: Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,

Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan and Afghan istan. One impetus to the revival and expansion of this organization, founded originally in the 1960s by Turkey, Pakistan and Iran, is the realization by the leaders of several of these countries that they had

no chance of admission to the European Community. Similarly,

Caricom, the Central American Common Market and Mercosur rest

1Murray Weidenbaum, Greater China: The Next Economic Superpower?, St. Louis:

Washington University Center for the Study of American Business, Contemporary Issues, Series 57, February 1993, pp. 2-3.

[28] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume72N0.3

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The Clash of Civilizations?

on common cultural foundations. Efforts to build a broader

Caribbean-Central American economic entity bridging the Anglo Latin divide, however, have to date failed.

As people define their identity in ethnic and religious terms, they are likely to see an "us" versus "them" relation existing between them

selves and people of different ethnicity or religion. The end of ideo

logically defined states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet

Union permits traditional ethnic identities and animosities to come

to the fore. Differences in culture and religion create differences over

policy issues, ranging from human rights to immigration to trade and commerce to the environment. Geographical propinquity gives rise

to conflicting territorial claims from Bosnia to Mindanao. Most

important, the efforts of the West to promote its values of democra

cy and liberalism as universal values, to maintain its military pre dominance and to advance its economic interests engender

countering responses from other civilizations. Decreasingly able to

mobilize support and form coalitions on the basis of ideology, gov ernments and groups will increasingly attempt to mobilize support by

appealing to common religion and civilization identity. 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 rel

ative military and economic power, struggle over the control of inter

national institutions and third parties, and competitively promote their particular political and religious values.

THE FAULT LINES BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONS

The fault lines between civilizations are replacing the political and ideological boundaries of the Cold War as the flash points for cri sis and bloodshed. The Cold War began when the Iron Curtain divided Europe politically and ideologically. The Cold War ended

with the end of the Iron Curtain. As the ideological division of

Europe has disappeared, the cultural division of Europe between

Western Christianity, on the one hand, and Orthodox Christianity

FOREIGN AFFAIRS Summer 1993 [29]

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Western

Christianity circa icoo

Orthodox

Christianity and Islam

MILES c^SP^ Source: W. Wallace, THE TRANSFORMATION OF

WESTERN EirROPE. London: Pinter, 1990. Map by lb Ohlsson for FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Samuel P. Huntington

and Islam, on the other, has reemerged. The most significant dividing line in

Europe, as William Wallace has suggested, may well be the eastern boundary of

Western Christianity in the year 1500. This

line runs along what are now the boundaries

between Finland and Russia and between

the Baltic states and Russia, cuts through Belarus and Ukraine separating the more

Catholic western Ukraine from Orthodox

eastern Ukraine, swings westward separat

ing Transylvania from the rest of Romania, and then goes through Yugoslavia almost

exactly along the line now separating Croatia and Slovenia from the rest of

Yugoslavia. In the Balkans this line, of

course, coincides with the historic bound

ary between the Hapsburg and Ottoman

empires. The peoples to the north and west

of this line are Protestant or Catholic; they shared the common experiences of Euro

pean history?feudalism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the

French Revolution, the Industrial Revo

lution; they are generally economically bet

ter off than the peoples to the east; and they may now look forward to increasing

involvement in a common European econ

omy and to the consolidation of democrat

ic political systems. The peoples to the east

and south of this line are Orthodox or

Muslim; they historically belonged to the Ottoman or Tsarist empires and were only

lightly touched by the shaping events in the

rest of Europe; they are generally less

advanced economically; they seem much

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The Clash of Civilizations?

less likely to develop stable democratic political systems. The Velvet

Curtain of culture has replaced the Iron Curtain of ideology as the

most significant dividing line in Europe. As the events in Yugoslavia show, it is not only a line of difference; it is also at times a line of

bloody conflict.

Conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civi

lizations has been going on for 1,300 years. After the founding of

Islam, the Arab and Moorish surge west and north only ended at

Tours in 732. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century the

Crusaders attempted with temporary success to bring Christianity and Christian rule to the Holy Land. From the fourteenth to the sev

enteenth century, the Ottoman Turks reversed the balance, extended

their sway over the Middle East and the Balkans, captured

Constantinople, and twice laid siege to Vienna. In the nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries as Ottoman power declined Britain, France, and Italy established Western control over most of North Africa and

the Middle East. After World War II, the West, in turn, began to retreat; the colo

nial empires disappeared; first Arab nationalism and then Islamic

fundamentalism manifested themselves; the West became heavily

dependent on the Persian Gulf countries for its energy; the oil-rich

Muslim countries became money-rich and, when they wished to,

weapons-rich. Several wars occurred between Arabs and Israel (cre ated by the West). France fought a bloody and ruthless war in Algeria for most of the 1950s; British and French forces invaded Egypt in

1956; American forces went into Lebanon in 1958; subsequently American forces returned to Lebanon, attacked Libya, and engaged

in various military encounters with Iran; Arab and Islamic terrorists,

supported by at least three Middle Eastern governments, employed the weapon of the weak and bombed Western planes and installations

and seized Western hostages. This warfare between Arabs and the

West culminated in 1990, when the United States sent a massive army to the Persian Gulf to defend some Arab countries against aggression

by another. In its aftermath nato planning is increasingly directed to

potential threats and instability along its "southern tier."

This centuries-old military interaction between the West and

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Samuel P. Huntington

Islam is unlikely to decline. It could become more virulent. The Gulf

War left some Arabs feeling proud that Saddam Hussein had

attacked Israel and stood up to the West. It also left many feeling humiliated and resentful of the West's military presence in the

Persian Gulf, the West's overwhelming military dominance, and

their apparent inability to shape their own destiny. Many Arab coun

tries, in addition to the oil exporters, are reaching levels of economic

and social development where autocratic forms of government become inappropriate and efforts to introduce democracy become

stronger. Some openings in Arab political systems have already occurred. The principal beneficiaries of these openings have been

Islamist movements. In the Arab world, in short, Western democra

cy 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 spec tacular population growth in Arab countries, particularly in North

Africa, has led to increased migration to Western Europe. The move

ment within Western Europe toward minimizing internal bound

aries has sharpened political sensitivities with respect to this

development. In Italy, France and Germany, racism is increasingly open, and political reactions and violence against Arab and Turkish

migrants have become more intense and more widespread since 1990. On both sides the interaction between Islam and the West is seen

as a clash of civilizations. The West s "next confrontation," observes

M. J. Akbar, an Indian Muslim author, "is definitely going to come

from the Muslim world. It is in the sweep of the Islamic nations from

the Maghreb to Pakistan that the struggle for a new world order will

begin." Bernard Lewis comes to a similar conclusion: We are facing a mood and

a movement far transcending the level of issues and

policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of

civilizations?the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient

rival against our Judeo-Chri

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