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It Is My Hypothesis That The Fundamental Source Of Conflict In This New [post-cold-war] 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.

-Samuel P. Huntington

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It Is My Hypothesis

Samuel P. Huntington

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It Is My Hypothesis That The Fundamental Source Of Conflict In This New [post-cold-war] 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.

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More From Samuel P. Huntington

Obviously Pakistan And The U.s. Are Very Different Countries, But We Have Common Geopolitical Interests In Preventing Communist Take Over In Afghanistan And Hence, Now That Pakistan Has A Government That We Can Cooperate With, Even Though It Is A Military Government, We Are Working Together With Them In Order To Promote Our Common Interests. But Obviously We Also Differ With Pakistan On A Number Of Issues.

There Will Be Associations And Partnerships Between Some Muslim Countries And Some Christian Countries. Those Already Exist. And They May Shift As Different Regimes Come And Go And Interests Change.

Religiosity Distinguishes America From Most Other Western Societies. Americans Are Also Overwhelmingly Christian, Which Distinguishes Them From Many Non-western Peoples. Their Religiosity Leads Americans To See The World In Terms Of Good And Evil To A Much Greater Extent Than Most Other Peoples.

In The Coming Decades, Questions Of Identity, Meaning Cultural Heritage, Language, And Religion Will Play A Central Role In Politics.

Certainly Here In The U.s., We've Had Fundamentalist Movements That Have Taken Very Critical And Hostile Attitudes Toward Immigration And The Assimilation Of Immigrants Into Our Society And Culture. So These Tendencies Are Fairly Universal. The Problem Is What If They Get Out Of Hand And Become The Dominant Factor In A Society, Which Can Only Lead To The Oppression Of Minorities Or Even To War With Neighboring Societies With Differing Cultures. That's Why It Seems To Me It's Important To Try To Keep These Tendencies Toward Extremism Under Control.

The United States Has Been An Immigrant Country. The Hispanics Who Come Here Are Largely From Mexico And South America. They Are Catholics, But That Is An American Religion. One-third Of Our Population Is Catholic So That Does Not Have The Same Impact As Muslims Coming Into Europe.

It Was One Thing To Contain The Soviet Union In Europe Because Britain, France, And Germany Were All Willing To Join In. But Will Japan And Other Asian Countries Be Willing To Join In The Containment Of China?

Power Remains Strong When It Remains In The Dark; Exposed To The Sunlight It Begins To Evaporate.

The Argument Now That The Spread Of Pop Culture And Consumer Goods Around The World Represents The Triumph Of Western Civilization Trivializes Western Culture. The Essence Of Western Civilization Is The Magna Carta, Not The Magna Mac. The Fact That Non-westerners May Bite Into The Latter Has No Implications For Their Accepting The Former.

The West Won The World Not By The Superiority Of Its Ideas Or Values Or Religion […] But Rather By Its Superiority In Applying Organized Violence. Westerners Often Forget This Fact; Non-westerners Never Do.

Every Civilization Sees Itself As The Center Of The World And Writes Its History As The Central Drama Of Human History.

These Transnationalists Have Little Need For National Loyalty, View National Boundaries As Obstacles That Thankfully Are Vanishing, And See National Governments As Residues From The Past Whose Only Useful Function Is To Facilitate The Elite's Global Operations

Thus, Biologically Speaking The American People Are Literally Only Half An Immigrant People.

The Basis Of Association And Antagonism Among Countries Has Changed Over Time.

Fascism And Communism Have Not Entirely Disappeared But Have Been Sidelined Certainly, And Liberal Democracy Has Come To Be Accepted, In Theory At Least, Around The World, If Not Always In Practice.

Democracies Have

A Lot Of People Tend To Think I'm A Dogmatic Ideologue, Which I'm Not.

The Most Widely Discussed Formulation Of [the One World Model] Was The "end Of History" Thesis Advanced By Francis Fukuyama. "we May Be Witnessing," Fukuyama Argued, "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." The Future Will Be Devoted Not To Great Exhilarating Struggles Over Ideas But Rather To Resolving Mundane Economic And Technical Problems. And, He Concluded Rather Sadly, It Will All Be Rather Boring.

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.

It Is My Hypothesis That The Fundamental Source Of Conflict In This New [post-cold-war] 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.

The Relations Between Countries In The Coming Decade Are Most Likely To Reflect Their Cultural Commitments, Their Cultural Ties And Antagonism With Other Countries.

I've Been To Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, And Kuwait For Brief Visits At Conferences, And They Are Very Interesting Countries.

America Doesn't Border On Muslim Countries. European Countries Do And That Seems To Be A Fundamental Difference.

The Larger Society Has To Recognize Some Degree Of Autonomy For The Minority: The Right To Practice Their Own Religion And Way Of Life And To Some Extent Their Language.

Hispanics Speak Spanish Or Portuguese, Which Are Languages We Americans Are Familiar With, So It Doesn't Seem To Pose The Same Types Of Problems As Arabic-speaking Muslims Do In Europe.

When You Have Increased Migration Of Peoples And Ethnic And Religious Minorities, You Develop A Set Of Rules And Language The Larger Society Can Accept And The Minority Community Can Accept.

Global Politics Remains Extremely Complex And Countries Have Different Interests, Which Will Also Lead Them To Make What Might Seem As Rather Bizarre Friends And Allies.

Islam's Borders Are Bloody And So Are Its Innards. The Fundamental Problem For The West Is Not Islamic Fundamentalism. It Is Islam, A Different Civilisation Whose People Are Convinced Of The Superiority Of Their Culture And Are Obsessed With The Inferiority Of Their Power.

Collective Will Supplants Individual Whim

The U.s. Has And Still Is Cooperating With Various Military Dictatorships Around The World. Obviously We Would Prefer To See Them Democratized, But We Are Doing It Because We Have National Interests, Whether It's Working With Pakistan On Afghanistan Or Whatever.

The Biggest Difference As Far As Muslims In Europe And America Are Concerned Is That The Number Of Muslims In America Is Small Compared To The Number In Europe.

Europe And America

Except Under Rare Circumstances, I Don't Write Responses To Criticism.

Cultural America Is Under Siege. And As The Soviet Experience Illustrates, Ideology Is A Weak Glue To Hold Together People Otherwise Lacking Racial, Ethnic, And Cultural Sources Of Community.

What Are The Prospects For An Arab State Serving A Leading Role Comparable To The Role That Other States Place In Other Regions? There Is No Obvious Candidate. Saudi Arabia Has The Money But A Relatively Small Population. Iraq Was A Great Potential Leader, As A Sizable Country With Great Oil Resources And A Highly Educated Population, But It Went Off In The Wrong Direction.

Quite Obviously Power Will Continue To Play A Central Role In Global Politics As It Always Does. But Usually There Is Something Else.

When I Think Of Countries That I Enjoyed Visiting, That I Would Want To Go Back To, Italy Would Be One, Japan Would Be Another. I've Only Been To Indonesia Once Or Twice And It Seems Like Such A Fascinating Country. I Guess India Certainly.

When You Mention The Word Ideology, Everyone Has Communism In The Back Of Their Minds, Which Was An Entirely Well Formulated Ideology And Statement Of Belief. You Read The Communist Manifesto And You Know What The Core Of It Is.

Communist Manifesto

Obviously There Are Divisions Within The West And Divisions Within Islam - There Are Different Sects, Different Communities, Different Countries. So Neither One Is Homogenous At All. But They Do Have Things In Common.

Since The Revolution Of The 18th Century, America Has Basically Had An Ideology Of Liberal Democracy And Constitutionalism.

I Wouldn't Rule Out The Possibility Of Muslim Or At Least Arab Countries Developing Some Form Of Organization Comparable To The European Union. I Don't Think That's Very Likely, But It Conceivably Could Happen.

The Core Of The American Set Of Beliefs Has Remained Pretty Constant.

Countries Will Cooperate With Each Other, And Are More Likely To Cooperate With Each Other When They Share A Common Culture, As Is Most Dramatically Illustrated In The European Union. But Other Groupings Of Countries Are Emerging In East Asia And In South America. Basically, As I Said, These Politics Will Be Oriented Around, In Large Part, Cultural Similarities And Cultural Antagonism.

Many Of The Most Difficult Questions Concerning The Role Of Ethnic Minorities Centers On Language.

Difficult Questions

Fundamentalist Tendencies And Movements Existed, So Far As I Know, In All Societies And Civilizations.

We Really Only Came Around To Accepting And Integrating The Propositional Dimension Of Identity Into A Concept Of Ourselves At The Time Of The American Revolution.

U.s. Foreign Policy Is In Every Area Impacted By Ethnic Groups Of One Sort Or Another As Well As Economic Groups And Regional Groups.

I Am Doubtful That There Will Be Any Sort Of Real Coherence Of Muslim Societies Into A Single Political System Run By An Elected Or Non-elected Group Of Leaders.

But Then I Came To The Conclusion That No, While There May Be An Immigration Problem, It Isn't Really A Serious Problem. The Really Serious Problem Is Assimilation.

Democracy Is Premised, In Some Measure, On Majority Rule, And Democracy Is Difficult In A Situation Of Concentrated Inequalities In Which A Large, Impoverished Majority Confronts A Small, Wealthy Oligarchy.

I Don't Think That The Israeli Lobby Is Unique. It May Differ From The Others In The Extent By Which It Is Focused On Just One Issue, Which Is The Survival Of Israel, Which Is Understandable, And Promoting Israeli Development And Aid To Israel, And So Forth And So On.

I Don't Say That The West Is United, I Don't Suggest That.

There Has Been An Irish Lobby That Has Impacted U.s. Foreign Policy For A Century And A Half, And At Times Made Our Relations With Great Britain Very Difficult. Other Comparable Lobbies Exist.

Partial Truths Or Half-truths Are Often More Insidious Than Total Falsehoods.

As Far As Ideology Or Political Beliefs Are Concerned, Countries Are Very Different.

I Think It's Hard To Talk About The Muslim World And Christian World As Blocks.

Civilizations Evolve Over Time, And Most Scholars Of Civilization, Including People Like Carol Quigley, Argue That They Go Through Periods Of Warring States, And Eventually Evolve Into A Universal State.

If One Of The Drafters Of The Declaration Of Independence Came Back Today, He Would Not Be Surprised About What Americans Were Saying And Believing And Articulating In Their Public Statements. It Would All Sound Rather Familiar.

I Think Clearly The United States, As Well As Other Western Nations, Should Stand By Their Commitments To Human Rights And Democracy And Should Try To Influence Other Countries To Move In That Direction.

Well, I Think The United States First Of All Has To Recognize The World For What It Is.

I Think In Theory, The United States Finds It Much Easier To Deal With Situations Where There Is A Leading Country. You Can Go To The Leaders Of That Country And Say, For Example, To India, "there Are All These Problems In Bangladesh, We Really Have To Do Something About It, What Do You Suggest We Can Do To Work Out A Common Policy?" But When You Don't Have The Equivalent Of India, You Have To Go Capital To Capital Trying To Put Together A Coalition, Which Is Extraordinarily Difficult, Especially In The Arab World, Because Of The Historic Rivalries And Branches Of Islam.

In 1920, The West Ruled Huge Amounts Of The World.

There Are Lots Of Conflicts Going On In The Middle East. It Is Unclear As To Which Country Will Emerge, If Any, As The Dominant Or Hegemonic Power In The Middle East.

Iran Of Course Is Shiite, While The Bulk Of The Arabs Are Sunni, That Is A Problem Or Could Be A Problem. Also, There Is The Simple Fact That Iran Is Non-arab And Most Of The Muslims In The Middle East Are Arab.

I Think We've Seen At Least The Beginnings Of Rather Significant Social And Economic Change In The Muslim World, Which I Think Will In Due Course Lead To More Political Change.

Obviously Muslim Societies, Like Societies Elsewhere, Are Becoming Increasingly Urban, Many Are Becoming Industrial, But Since So Many Have Oil And Gas, They Don't Have A Great Impetus. But Again, The Revenue That Natural Resources Produce Gives Them The Capability And So Countries Like Iran Are Beginning To Develop An Industrial Component.

Two Significant Developments In The Past Several Decades Have Been The Collapse Of Communism As An Ideology And The General Acceptance, In Rhetoric, If Not Practice, Of Liberal Democracy.

Israel Has Military Capabilities Including Nuclear Weapons, Far Surpassing Any Other Power In The Middle East, But It's A Small Country. The Rest Of The Middle Eastern Peoples Are Muslim And Israelis Are Not, So It Is Hardly In Any Position To Become The Leading Power.

Nationalism Is A Central Ideology For People Who Are Trying To Establish Their Own States In Which They Can Play A Dominant Role.

Many More People In The World Are Concerned About Sports Than Human Rights.

Turkey Has Its Own Interests And Historically, Turkey Conquered Most Of The Arab World, And The Arabs Had To Fight Wars Of Liberation To Free Themselves From The Turks. That's In The Past And That Doesn't Necessarily Shape What Is Going On But It's There And It's There In People's Memories.

It Will Take A Long Time, And Certainly The West Will Remain The Dominant Civilization Well Into The Next Century, But The Decline Is Occurring.

I Think We Can Expect Leaders Of Muslim Societies To Cooperate With Each Other On Many Issues Just As Western Societies Cooperate With Each Other.

And The Big Question For The West, Of Course, And To The Europeans Is, What Other Countries, Which Were Formerly Part Of The Soviet Bloc, Should Be Incorporated Into Western Institutions?

Some Westerners […] Have Argued That The West Does Not Have Problems With Islam But Only With Violent Islamist Extremists. Fourteen Hundred Years Of History Demonstrate Otherwise.

I Don't Know What Will Happen 100 Years From Now.

Also, Of Course, For Most Of This Time Most Americans Thought Of America As A White Country With, At Best, Only A Very Segregated And Subordinate Role For Blacks.

Certainly There Are Various Trans-islamic Political Movements, Which Try To Appeal To Muslims In All Societies.

Critics Say That America Is A Lie Because Its Reality Falls So Far Short Of Its Ideals. They Are Wrong. America Is Not A Lie; It Is A Disappointment. But It Can Be A Disappointment Only Because It Is Also A Hope.

Expectations Should Not Always Be Taken As Reality; Because You Never Know When You Will Be Disappointed.

Both Sides Are Divided And Western Countries Collaborate With Muslim Countries And Vice Versa.

The Colonial Experience All Muslim Countrieswent Through May Be A Factor In The Fight Against Western Domination, British, French Or Whatever. They Were Until Recently Largely Rural Societies With Land Owning Governing Elites In Most Of Them. I Think They Are Certainly Moving Toward Urbanization And Much More Pluralistic Political Systems. In Almost Every Muslim Country, That Is Occurring. Obviously They Are Increasing Their Involvement With Non-muslim Societies. One Peak Aspect Of This, Of Course, Is The Migration Of Muslims Into Europe.

Maybe Iraq Will Come Back And Become The Dominant Power Among Arab Countries. That Seems To Me As Conceivable.

People Have Multiple Identities.

The Major Difference For Us In America With Respect To Hispanic Immigration Is That It Is So Large And That It Is Coming From Neighboring Countries Rather Than Those Countries Off The Atlantic Or Pacific. That Creates Different Issues And Different Problems For Us As Compared To The Past. It Is Still Very Different, However, From The Situation In Europe Where We See People With A Very Different Non-european Religion Coming From Neighboring Countries.

In The 19th Century It Was Basically Nationality And People Trying To Define Their Nationalism And Create States Which Would Reflect Their Nationalism. In The 20th Century, Ideology Came To The Fore, Largely, But Not Exclusively, As A Result Of The Russian Revolution And We Have Fascism, Communism And Liberal Democracy Competing With Each Other. Well That's Pretty Much Over.

People Everywhere Talk About Islam And The West. Presumably That Has Some Relationship To Reality, That These Are Entities That Have Some Meaning And They Do. Of Course The Core Ofthat Reality Is Differences In Religion.

The Question Really Is What Will Be The Central Focus Of Global Politics In The Coming Decades And My Argument Is That Cultural Identities And Cultural Antagonisms And Affiliations Will Play Not The Only Role But A Major Role.

I Think Fundamentalism Is This Radical Attitude Toward One's Own Identity And Civilization As Compared To Other People's Identities And Cultures.

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