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Foreign Affairs Summer 1993
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."
1. 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 history, 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
/ Civilisations. The clash of Civilizations / Civilisations
will be the battle lines of the future.
Conflict between Civilizations / Civilisations
will be the latest phase of the evolution of conflict in the
modern world. For a century and a half after the emergence
of the modern international system of the Peace of Westphalia,
the conflicts of the Western world were largely among princes
-- emperors, absolute monarchs and constitutional monarchs
attempting to expand their bureaucracies, their armies, their
mercantilist 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 ward 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 communism and liberal democracy. During the
Cold War, this latter conflict became embodied in the struggle
between the two superpowers, neither of which was a nation
state in the classical European sense and each of which defined
its identity in terms of 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 / Civilisations and among non-Western
Civilizations / Civilisations. In the politics of Civilizations
/ Civilisations, the people and governments of non-Western
Civilizations / Civilisations no longer remain the objects
of history as targets of Western colonialism but join the
West as movers and shapers of history.
2. THE NATURE OF Civilizations / Civilisations
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, religious groups, all have distinct
cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity. The
culture of a village in southern Italy may be different from
that of a village in northern Italy, but both will share in
a common Italian culture that distinguishes them from German
villages. 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 cultural entity. They constitute Civilizations / Civilisations.
A civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people
and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short
of that which distinguishes humans from other species. It
is defined both by common objective elements, such as language,
history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective
self-identification of people. People have levels of identity:
a resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees
of intensity 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
/ Civilisations change.
Civilizations / Civilisations 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 /
Civilisations, or only one, as is the case with Japanese civilization.
Civilizations / Civilisations obviously blend and overlap,
and may include subCivilizations / Civilisations. Western
civilization has two major variants, European and North American,
and Islam has its Arab, Turkic and Malay subdivisions. Civilizations
/ Civilisations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while
the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real. Civilizations
/ Civilisations are dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide
and merge. And, as any student of history knows, Civilizations
/ Civilisations 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 Civilizations /
Civilisations. In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee identified
21 major Civilizations / Civilisations; only six of them exist
in the contemporary world.
3. WHY Civilizations / Civilisations WILL CLASH
CIVILIZATION IDENTITY will be increasingly
important in the future, and the world will be shaped in large
measure by the interactions among seven or eight major Civilizations
/ Civilisations. These include Western, Confucian, Japanese,
Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly
African civilization. The most important conflicts of the
future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating
these Civilizations / Civilisations from one another.
Why will this be the case?
First, differences among Civilizations
/ Civilisations are not only real; they are basic. Civilizations
/ Civilisations are differentiated from each other by history,
language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion.
The people of different Civilizations / Civilisations have
different views on the relations between God and man, the
individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents
and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views
of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities,
liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. 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 violence.
Over the centuries, however, differences among Civilizations
/ Civilisations 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
/ Civilisations are increasings; these increasing interactions
intensify civilization consciousness and awareness of differences
between Civilizations / Civilisations and commonalities within
Civilizations / Civilisations. North African immigration to
France generates hostility among Frenchmen and at the same
time increased receptivity to immigration by "good"
European Catholic Poles. Americans react far more negatively
to Japanese investment than to larger investments 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 / Civilisations enhance the civilization-consciousness
of people that, in turn, invigorates 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 religions
the people active in fundamentalist movements are young, college-educated,
middle-class technicians, professionals and business persons.
The "unsecularization of the world," George Weigel
has remarked, "is one of the dominant social factors
of life in the late twentieth 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 /
Civilisations.
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 Civilizations / Civilisations.
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 people who were most involved with
the West, had been educated at Oxford, the Sorbonne or Sandhurst,
and had absorbed Western attitudes 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 economic 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
Azeris 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 / Civilisations, 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 discriminates 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 are 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 reinforce
civilization-consciousness. On the other hand, economic regionalism
may succeed only when it is rooted in a common civilization.
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
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 economic 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, cultural 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, commerce and finance.
This strategic area contains substantial amounts of technology
and manufacturing capability (Taiwan), outstanding entrepreneurial,
marketing and services acumen (Hong Kong), a fine communications
network (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 network -- often
based on extensions of the traditional clans -- has been described
as the backbone of the East Asian economy. n1
n1 Murray 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.
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 Afghanistan. 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 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 themselves
and people of different ethnicity or religion. The end of
ideologically 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 democracy and liberalism to universal
values, to maintain its military predominance and to advance
its economic interests engender countering responses from
other Civilizations / Civilisations. Decreasingly able to
mobilize support and form coalitions on the basis of ideology,
governments and groups will increasingly attempt to mobilize
support by appealing to common religion and civilization identity.
The clash of Civilizations / Civilisations
thus occurs at two levels. At the micro-level, adjacent groups
along the fault lines between Civilizations / Civilisations
struggle, often violently, over the control of territory and
each other. At the macro-level, states from different Civilizations
/ Civilisations compete for relative military and economic
power, struggle over the control of international institutions
and third parties, and competitively promote their particular
political and religious values.
4. THE FAULT LINES BETWEEN Civilizations / Civilisations
THE FAULT LINES between Civilizations /
Civilisations are replacing the political and ideological
boundaries of the Cold War as the flash points for crisis
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
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 separating 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 boundary 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 European history -- feudalism, the Renaissance, the Reformation,
the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution;
they are generally economically better off than the peoples
to the east; and they may now look forward to increasing involvement
in a common European economy and to the consolidation of democratic
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 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 Civilizations / Civilisations 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 seventeenth
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 at 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 colonial 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 (created 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 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 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 countries, 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 democracy
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 spectacular population growth in Arab countries,
particularly in North Africa, has led to increased migration
to Western Europe. The movement within Western Europe toward
minimizing internal boundaries 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 / Civilisations.
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 Meghreb to Pakistan that the struggle for
a new world order will begin." Bernard Lewis comes to
a regular conclusion:
"We are facing a need 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 / Civilisations -- the perhaps irrational
but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our
Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide
expansion of both. n2
n2 Bernard Lewis,
"The Roots of Muslim Rage," The Atlantic Monthly,
vol. 266, September 1990, p. 60; Time, June 15k 1992, pp.
24-28.
Historically, the other great antagonistic
interaction of Arab Islamic civilization has been with the
pagan, animist, and now increasingly Christian black peoples
to the south. In the past, this antagonism was epitomized
in the image of Arab slave dealers and black slaves. It has
been reflected in the on-going civil war in the Sudan between
Arabs and blacks, the fighting in Chad between Libyan-supported
insurgents and the government, the tensions between Orthodox
Christians and Muslims in the Horn of Africa, and the political
conflicts, recurring riots and communal violence between Muslims
and Christians in Nigeria. The modernization of Africa and
the spread of Christianity in Nigeria. The modernization of
Africa and the spread of Christianity are likely to enhance
the probability of violence along this fault line. Symptomatic
of the intensification of this conflict was the Pope John
Paul II's speech in Khartoum in February 1993 attacking the
actions of the Sudan's Islamist government against the Christian
minority there.
On the northern border of Islam, conflict
has increasingly erupted between Orthodox and Muslim peoples,
including the carnage of Bosnia and Sarajevo, the simmering
violence between Serb and Albanian, the tenuous relation between
Bulgarians and their Turkish minority, the violence between
Ossetians and Ingush, the unremitting slaughter of each other
by Armenians and Azeris, the tense relations between Russians
and Muslims in Central Asia, and the deployment of Russian
troops to protect Russian interests in the Caucasus and Central
Asia. Religion reinforces the revival of ethnic identities
and restimulates Russian fears about the security of their
southern borders. This concern is well captured by Archie
Roosevelt:
Much of Russian history concerns the struggle
between Slavs and the Turkish peoples on their borders, which
dates back to the foundation of the Russian state more than
a thousand years ago. In the Slavs' millennium-long confrontation
with their eastern neighbors lies the key to an understanding
not only of Russian history, but Russian character. To under
Russian realities today one has to have a concept of the great
Turkic ethnic group that has preoccupied Russians through
the centuries. n3
n3 Archie Roosevelt,
For Lust of Knowing, Boston: Little, Brown, 1988, pp. 332-333.
The conflict of Civilizations / Civilisations
is deeply rooted elsewhere in Asia. The historic clash between
Muslim and Hindu in the subcontinent manifests itself now
not only is the rivalry between Pakistan and India but also
in intensifying religious strife within India between increasingly
militant Hindu groups and India's substantial Muslim minority.
The destruction of the Ayodhya mosque in December 1992 brought
to the fore the issue of whether India will remain a secular
democratic state or become a Hindu one. In East Asia, China
has outstanding territorial disputes with most of its neighbors.
It has pursued a ruthless policy toward the Buddhist people
of Tibet, and it is pursuing an increasingly ruthless policy
toward its Turkic-Muslim minority. With the Cold War over,
the underlying differences between China and the United States
have reasserted themselves in areas such as human rights,
trade and weapons proliferation. These differences are unlikely
to moderate. A "new cold war," Deng Xaioping reportedly
asserted in 1991, is under way between China and America.
The same phrase has been applied to the
increasingly difficult relations between Japan and the United
States. Here cultural difference exacerbates economic conflict.
People on each side allege racism on the other, but at least
on the American side the antipathies are not racial but cultural.
The basic values, attitudes, behavioral patterns of the two
societies could hardly be more different. The economic issues
between the United States and Europe are no less serious than
those between the United States and Japan, but they do not
have thesame political salience and emotional intensity because
the differences between American culture and European culture
are so much less than those between American civilization
and Japanese civilization.
The interactions between Civilizations
/ Civilisations vary greatly in the extent to which they are
likely to be characterized by violence. Economic competition
clearly predominates between the American and European subCivilizations
/ Civilisations of the West and between both of them and Japan.
On the Eurasian continent, however, the proliferation of ethnic
conflict, epitomized at the extreme in "ethnic cleansing,"
has not been totally random. It has been most frequent and
most violent between groups belonging to different Civilizations
/ Civilisations. In Eurasia the great historic fault lines
between Civilizations / Civilisations are once more aflame.
This is particularly true along the boundaries of the crescent-shaped
Islamic bloc of nations from the bulge of Africa to central
Asia. Violence also occurs between Muslims, on the one hand,
and Orthodox Serbs in the Balkans, Jews in Israel, Hindus
in India, Buddhists in Burma and Catholics in the Philippines.
Islam has bloody borders.
5. CIVILIZATION RALLYING
THE KIN-COUNTRY SYNDROME GROUPS OR STATES
belonging to one civilization that become involved in war
with people from a different civilization naturally try to
rally support from other members of their own civilization.
As the post-Cold War world evolves, civilization commonality,
what H. D. S. Greenway has termed the "kin-country"
syndrome, is replacing political ideology and traditional
balance of power considerations as the principal basis for
cooperation and coalitions. It can be seen gradually emerging
in the post-Cold War conflicts in the Persian Gulf, the Caucasus
and Bosnia. None of these was a full-scale war between Civilizations
/ Civilisations, but each involved some elements of civilization
rallying, which seemed to become more important as the conflict
continued and which may provide a foretaste of the future.
First, in the Gulf War one Arab state invaded
another and then fought a coalition of Arab, Western and other
states. While only a few Muslim governments overtly supported
Saddam Hussein, many Arab elites privately cheered him on,
and he was highly popular among large sections of the Arab
publics. Islamic fundamentalist movements universally supported
Iraq rather than the Western-backed governments of Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia. Forswearing Arab nationalism, Saddam Hussein
explicitly invoked an Islamic appeal. He and his supporters
attempted to define the war as a war between Civilizations
/ Civilisations. "It is not the world against Iraq,"
as Safar Al-Hawali, dean of Islamic Studies at the Umm Al-Qura
University in Mecca, put it in a widely circulated tape. "It
is the West against Islam." Ignoring the rivalry between
Iran and Iraq, the chief Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, called for a holy war against the West: "The
struggle against American aggression, greed, plans and policies
will be counted as a jahad, and anybody who is killed on that
path is a martyr.""This is a war," King Hussein
of Jordan argued, "against all Arabs and all Muslims
and not against Iraq alone."
The rallying of substantial sections of
Arab elites and publics behind Saddam Hussein called those
Arab governments in the anti-Iraq coalition to moderate their
activities and temper their public statements. Arab governments
opposed or distanced themselves from subsequent Western efforts
to apply pressure on Iraq, including enforcement of a no-fly
zone in the summer of 1992 and the bombing of Iraq in January
1993. The Western-Soviet-Turkish-Arab anti-Iraq coalition
of 1990 had by 1993 become a coalition of almost only the
West and Kuwait against Iraq.
Muslims contrasted Western actions against
Iraq with the West's failure to protect Bosnians against Serbs
and to impose sanctions on Israel for violating U.N. resolutions.
The West, they allege, was using a double standard. A world
of clashing Civilizations / Civilisations, however, is inevitably
a world of double standards: people apply one standard to
their kin-countries and a different standard to others.
Second, the kin-country syndrome also appeared
in conflicts in the former Soviet Union. Armenian military
successes in 1992 and 1993 stimulated Turkey to become increasingly
supportive of its religious, ethnic and linguistic brethren
in Azerbaijan. "We have a Turkish nation feeling the
same sentiments as the Azerbaijanis," said one Turkish
official in 1992. "We are under pressure. Our newspapers
are full of the photos of atrocities and are asking us if
we are still serious about pursuing our neutral policy. Maybe
we should show Armenia that there's a big Turkey in the region."
President Turgut Ozal agreed, remarking that Turkey should
at least "scare the Armenians a little bit." Turkey,
Ozal threatened again in 1993, would "show its fangs."
Turkey Air Force jets flew reconnaissance flights along the
Armenian border; Turkey suspended food shipments and air flights
to Armenia; and Turkey and Iran announced they would not accept
dismemberment of Azerbaijan. In the last years of its existence,
the Soviet government supported Azerbaijan because its government
was dominated by former communists. With the end of the Soviet
Union, however, political considerations gave way to religious
ones. Russian troops fought on the Side of the Armenians,
and Azerbaijan accused the "Russian government of turning
180 degrees" toward support for Christian Armenia.
Third, with respect to the fighting in
the former Yugoslavia, Western publics manifested sympathy
and support for the Bosnian Muslims and the horrors they suffered
at the hands of the Serbs. Relatively little concern was expressed,
however, over Croatian attacks on Muslims and participation
in the dismemberment of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the early stages
of the Yugoslav breakup, Germany, in an unusual display of
diplomatic initiative and muscle, induced the other 11 members
of the European Community to follow its lead in recognizing
Slovenia and Croatia. As a result of the pope's determination
to provide strong backing to the two Catholic countries, the
Vatican extended recognition even before the Community did.
The United States followed the European lead. Thus the leading
actors in Western civilization rallied behind its coreligionists.
Subsequently Croatia was reported to be receiving substantial
quantities of arms from Central European and other Western
countries. Boris Yeltsin's government, on the other hand,
attempted to pursue a middle course that would be sympathetic
to the Orthodox Serbs but not alienate Russia from the West.
Russian conservative and nationalist groups, however, including
many legislators, attacked the government for not being more
forthcoming in its support for the Serbs. By early 1993 several
hundred Russians apparently were serving with the Serbian
forces, and reports circulated of Russian arms being supplied
to Serbia.
Islamic governments and groups, on the
other hand, castigated the West for not coming to the defense
of the Bosnians. Iranian leaders urged Muslims from all countries
to provide help to Bosnia; in violation of the U.N. arms embargo,
Iran supplied weapons and men for the Bosnians; Iranian-supported
Lebanese groups sent guerrillas to train and organize the
Bosnian forces.
In 1993 up to 4,000 Muslims from over two
dozen Islamic countries were reported to be fighting in Bosnia.
The governments of Saudi Arabia and other countries felt under
increasing pressure from fundamentalist groups in their own
societies to provide more vigorous support for the Bosnians.
By the end of 1992, Saudi Arabia had reportedly supplied substantial
funding for weapons and supplies for the Bosnians, which significantly
increased their military capabilities vis-a-vis the Serbs.
In the 1930s the Spanish Civil War provoked
intervention from countries that politically were fascist,
communist and democratic. In the 1990s the Yugoslav conflict
is provoking intervention from countries that are Muslim,
Orthodox and Western Christian. The parallel has not gone
unnoticed. "The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has become
the emotional equivalent of the fight against fascism in the
Spanish Civil War," one Saudi editor observed. "Those
who died there are regarded as martyrs who tried to save their
fellow Muslims."
Conflicts and violence will also occur
between states and groups within the same civilization. Such
conflicts, however, are likely to be less intense and less
likely to expand than conflicts between Civilizations / Civilisations.
Common membership in a civilization reduces the probability
of violence in situations where it might otherwise occur.
In 1991 and 1992 many people were alarmed by the possibility
of violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine over territory,
particularly Crimea, the Black Sea fleet, nuclear weapons
and economic issues. If civilization is what counts, however,
the likelihood of violence between Ukrainians and Russians
should be low. They are two Slavic, primarily Orthodox peoples
who have had close relationships with each other for centuries.
As of early 1993, despite all the reasons for conflict, the
leaders of the two countries were effectively negotiating
and defusing the issues between the two countries. While there
has been serious fighting between Muslims and Christians elsewhere
in the former Soviet Union and much tension and some fighting
between Western and Orthodox Christians in the Baltic states,
there has been virtually no violence between Russians and
Ukrainians.
Civilization rallying to date has been
limited, but it has been growing, and it clearly has the potential
to spread much further. As the conflicts in the Persian Gulf,
the Caucasus and Bosnia continued, the positions of nations
and the cleavages between them increasingly were along civilizational
lines. Populist politicians, religious leaders and the media
have found it a potential means of arousing mass support and
of pressuring hesitant governments. In the coming years, the
local conflicts most likely to escalate into major wars will
be those, as in Bosnia and the Caucasus, along the fault lines
between Civilizations / Civilisations. The next world war,
if there is one, will be a war between Civilizations / Civilisations.
6. THE WEST VERSUS THE REST
THE WEST IS NOW at an extraordinary peak
of power in relation to other Civilizations / Civilisations.
In superpower opponent has disappeared from the map. Military
conflict among Western states is unthinkable, and Western
military power is unrivaled. Apart from Japan, the West faces
no economic challenge. It dominates international economic
institutions. Global political and security issues are effectively
settled by a directorate of the United States, Britain and
France, world economic issues by a directorate of the United
States, Germany and Japan, all of which maintain extraordinarily
close relations with each other to the exclusion of lesser
and largely non-Western countries. Decisions made at the U.N.
Security Council or in the International Monetary Fund that
reflect the interests of the West are presented to the world
as reflecting the desires of the world community. The very
phrase "the world community" has become the euphemistic
collective noun (replacing "the Free World") to
give global legitimacy to actions reflecting the interests
of the United States and other Western powers. n4 Through
the IMF and other international economic institutions, the
West promotes its economic interests and imposes on other
nations the economic policies it thinks appropriate. In any
poll of non-Western peoples, the IMF undoubtedly would win
the support of finance ministers and a few others, but get
an overwhelmingly unfavorable rating from just about everyone
else, who would agree with Georgy Arbatov's characterization
of IMF officials as "neo-Bolsheviks who love expropriating
other people's money, imposing undemocratic and alien rules
of economic and political conduct and stifling economic freedom."
n4 Almost
invariably Western leaders claim they are acting on behalf
of "the world community." One minor lapse occurred
during the run-up to the Gulf War. In an interview on "Good
Morning America," Dec. 21, 1990, British
Prime Minister John Major referred to the actions "the
West" was taking against Saddam Hussein.
He quickly corrected himself and subsequently referred
to "the world community." He was, however, right
when he erred.
Western domination of the U.N. Security
Council and its decisions, tempered only by occasional abstention
by China, produced U.N. legitimation of the West's use of
force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait and its elimination of Iraq's
sophisticated weapons and capacity to produce such weapons.
It also produced the quite unprecedented action by the United
States, Britain and France in getting the Security Council
to demand that Libya hand over the Pan Am 103 bombing suspects
and then to impose sanctions when Libya refused. After defeating
the largest Arab army, the West did not hesistate to throw
its weight around in the Arab world. The West in effect is
using international institutions, military power and economic
resources to run the world in ways that will maintain Western
predominance, protect Western interests and promote Western
political and economic values.
That at least is the way in which non-Westerners
see the new world, and there is a significant element of truth
in their view. Differences in power and struggles for military,
economic and institutional power are thus one source of conflict
between the West and other Civilizations / Civilisations.
Differences in culture, that is basic values and beliefs,
are a second source of conflict. V. S. Naipaul has argued
that Western civilization is the "universal civilization"
that "fits all men." At a superficial level much
of Western culture has indeed permeated the rest of the world.
At a more basic level, however, Western concepts differ fundamentally
from those prevalent in other Civilizations / Civilisations.
Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism,
human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy,
free markets, the separation of church and state, often have
little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist
or Orthodox cultures. Western efforts to propagate each ideas
produce instead a reaction against "human rights imperialism"
and a reaffirmation of indigenous values, as can be seen in
the support for religious fundamentalism by the younger generation
in non-Western cultures. The very notion that there could
be a "universal civilization" is a Western idea,
directly at odds with the particularism of most Asian societies
and their emphasis on what distinguishes one people from another.
Indeed, the author of a review of 100 comparative studies
of values in different societies concluded that "the
values that are most important in the West are least important
worldwide." n5 In the political realm, of course, these
differences are most manifest in the efforts of the United
States and other Western powers to induce other peoples to
adopt Western ideas concerning democracy and human rights.
Modern democratic government originated in the West. When
it has developed colonialism or imposition.
n5 Harry C. Triandis,
The New York Times, Dec. 25, 1990, p. 41, and "Cross-Cultural
Studies of Individualism and Collectivism," Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation, vol. 37, 1989, pp. 41-133.
The central axis of world politics in the
future is likely to be, in Kishore Mahbubani's phrase, the
conflict between "the West and the Rest" and the
responses of non-Western Civilizations / Civilisations to
Western power and values. n6 Those responses generally take
one or a combination of three forms. At one extreme, non-Western
states can, like Burma and North Korea, attempt to pursue
a course of isolation, to insulate their societies from penetration
or "corruption" by the West, and, in effect, to
opt out of participation in the Western-dominated global community.
The costs of this course, however, are high, and few states
have pursued it exclusively. A second alternative, the equivalent
of "band-wagoning" in international relations theory,
is to attempt to join the West and accept its values and institutions.
The third alternative is to attempt to "balance"
the West by developing economic and military power and cooperating
with other non-Western societies against the West, while preserving
indigenous values and institutions; in short, to modernize
but not to Westernize.
n6 Kishore Mahbubani,
"The West and the Rest," The National Interest,
Summer 1992, pp. 3-13.
7. THE TORN COUNTRIES
IN THE FUTURE, as people differentiate
themselves by civilization, countries with large numbers of
people of different Civilizations / Civilisations, such as
the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, are candidates for dismemberment.
Some other countries have a fair degree of cultural homogeneity
but are divided over whether their society belongs to one
civilization or another. These are town countries. Their leaders
typically wish to pursue a bandwagoning strategy and to make
theirc ountries members of the West, but the history, culture
and traditions of their countries are non-Western. The most
obvious and prototypical torn country is Turkey. The late
twentieth-century leaders of Turkey have followed in the Attaturk
tradition and defined Turkey as a modern, secular, Western
nation state. They allied Turkey with the West in NATO and
in the Gulf War; they applied for membership in the European
Community. At the same time, however, elements in Turkish
society have supported an Islamic revival and have argued
that Turkey is basically a Middle Eastern Muslim society.
In addition, while the elite of Turkey has defined Turkey
as a Western society, the elite of the West refuses to accept
Turkey and such. Turkey will not become a member of the European
Community, and the real reason, as President Ozal said, "is
that we are Muslim and they are Christian and they don't say
that." Having rejected Mecca, and then being rejected
by Brussels, where does Turkey look? Tashkent may be the answer.
The end of the Soviet Union gives Turkey the opportunity to
become the leader of a revived Turkic civilization involving
seven countries from the borders of Greece to those of China.
Encouraged by the West, Turkey is making strenuous efforts
to carve out this new identity for itself.
During the past decade Mexico has assumed
a position somewhat similar to that of Turkey. Just as Turkey
abandoned its historic opposition to Europe and attempted
to join Europe, Mexico has stopped defining itself by its
opposition to the United States and is instead attempting
to imitate the United States and to join it in the North American
Free Trade Area. Mexican leaders are engaged in the great
task of redefining Mexican identity and have introduced fundamental
economic reforms that eventually will lead to fundamental
political change. In 1991 a top adviser to President Carlos
Salinas de Gortari described at length tome all the changes
the Salinas government was making. When he finished, I remarked:
"That's most impressive. It seems to me that basically
you want to change Mexico from a Latin American country into
a North American country." He looked at me with surprise
and exclaimed: "Exactly! That's precisely what we are
trying to do, but of course we could never say so publicly."
As his remark indicates, in Mexico as in Turkey, significant
elements in society resist the redefinition of their country's
identity. In Turkey, European-oriented leaders have to make
gestures to Islam (Ozal's pilgrimage to Mecca); so also Mexico's
North American-oriented leaders have to make gestures to those
who hold Mexico to be a Latin American country (Salinas' Ibero-American
Guadalajara summit).
Historically Turkey has been the most
profoundly torn country. For the United States, Mexico is
the most immediate torn country. Globally the most important
torn country is Russia. The question of whether Russia is
part of the West or the leader of the Slavic-Orthodox civilization
has been a recurring one in Russian history. That issue was
obscured by the communist victory in Russia, which imported
a Western ideology, adapted it to Russian conditions and then
challenged the West in the name of that ideology. The dominance
of communism shut off the historic debate over Westernization
versus Russification. With communism discredited Russians
once again face that question.
President Yeltsin is adopting Western
principles and goals and seeking to make Russia a "normal"
country and a part of the West. Yet both the Russian elite
and the Russian public are divided on this issue. Among the
more moderate dissenters, Sergei Stankevich argues that Russia
should reject the "Atlanticist" course, which would
lead it "to become European, to become a part of the
world economy in rapid and organized fashion, to become the
eighth member of the Seven, and to particular emphasis on
Germany and the United States as the two dominant members
of the Atlantic alliance." While also rejecting an exclusively
Eurasian policy, Stankevich nonetheless argues that Russia
should give priority to the protection of Russians in other
countries, emphasize its Turkic and Muslim connections, and
promote "an appreciable redistribution of our resources,
our options, our ties, and our interests in favor of Asia,
of the eastern direction." People of this persuasion
criticize Yeltsin for subordinating Russia's interests to
those of the West, for reducing Russian military strength,
for failing to support traditional friends such as Serbia,
and for pushing economic and political reform in ways injurious
to the Russian people. Indicative of this trend is the new
popularity of the ideas of Petr Savitsky, who in the 1920s
argued that Russia was a unique Eurasian civilization. n7
More extreme dissidents voice much more blatantly nationalist,
anti-Western and anti-Semitic views, and urge Russia to redevelop
its military strength and to establish closer ties with China
and Muslim countries. The people of Russia areas divided as
the elite. An opinion survey in European Russia in the spring
of 1992 revealed that 40 percent of the public had positive
attitudes toward the West and 36 percent had negative attitudes.
As it has been for much of its history, Russia in the early
1990s is truly a torn country.
n7 Sergei Stankevich,
"Russia in Search of Itself," The National Interest,
Summer 1992, pp. 47-51; Daniel Schneider, "A Russian
Movement Rejects Western Tilt," Christian Science Monitor,
Feb. 5, 1993, pp. 5-7.
To redefine its civilization identity,
a torn country must meet three requirements. First, its political
and economic elite has to be generally supportive of and enthusiastic
about the move. Second, its public has to be willing to acquiesce
in the redefinition. Third, the dominant groups in the recipient
civilization have to be willing to embrace the convert. All
three requirements in large part exist with respect to Mexico.
The first two in large part exist with respect to Turkey.
It is not clear that any of them exist with respect to Russia's
joining the West. The conflict between liberal democracy and
Marxism-Leninism was between ideologies which, despite their
major differences, ostensibly shared ultimate goals of freedom,
equality and prosperity. A traditional, authoritarian, nationalist
Russia could have quite different goals. A Western democrat
could carry on an intellectual debate with a Soviet Marxist.
It would be virtually impossible for him to do that with a
Russian traditionalist. If, as the Russians stop behaving
like Marxists, they reject liberal democracy and begin behaving
like Russians but not like Westerners, the relations between
Russia and the West could again become distant and conflictual.
n8
n8 Owen Harries
has pointed out that Australia is trying (unwisely in his
view) to become a torn country in reverse. Although it has
been a full member not only of the West but also of the ABCA
military and intelligence core of the West, its current leaders
are in effect proposing that it defect from the West, redefine
itself as an Asian country and cultivate close ties with its
neighbors.
Australia's future, they argue, is with
the dynamic economies of East Asia. But, as I have suggested,
close economic cooperation normally requires a common cultural
base. In addition, none of the three conditions necessary
for a torn country to join another civilization is likely
to exist in Australia's case.
8. THE CONFUCIAN-ISLAMIC CONNECTION
THE OBSTACLES TO non-Western countries
joining the West vary considerably. They are least for Latin
American and East European countries. They are greater for
the Orthodox countries of the former Soviet Union. They are
still greater for Muslim, Confucian, Hindu and Buddhist societies.
Japan has established a unique position for itself as an associate
member of the West: it is in the West in some respects but
clearly not of the West in important dimensions. Those countries
that for reason of culture and power do not wish to, or cannot,
join the West compete with the West by developing their own
economic, military and political power. They do this by promoting
their internal development and by cooperating with other non-Western
countries. The most prominent form of this cooperation is
the Confucian-Islamic connection that has emerged to challenge
Western interests, values and power.
Almost without exception, Western countries
are reducing their military power; under Yeltsin's leadership
so also is Russia. China, North Korea and several Middle Eastern
states, however, are significantly expanding their military
capabilities. They are doing this by the import of arms from
Western and non-Western sources and by the development of
indigenous arms industries. One result is the emergence of
what Charles Krauthammer has called "Weapon States,"
and the Weapon States are not Western states. Another result
is the redefinition of arms control, which is a Western concept
and a Western goal. During the Cold War the primary purpose
of arms control was to establish a stable military balance
between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union
and its allies. In the post-Cold War world the primary objective
of arms control is to prevent the development by non-Western
societies of military capabilities that could threaten Western
interests. The West attempts to do this through international
agreements, economic pressure and controls on the transfer
of arms and weapons technologies.
The conflict between the West and the Confucian-Islamic
states focuses largely, although not exclusively, on nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons, ballistic missiles and other
sophisticated means for delivering them, and the guidance,
intelligence and other electronic capabilities for achieving
that goal. The West promotes nonproliferation as a universal
norm and nonproliferation treaties and inspections as means
of realizing that norm. It also threatens a variety of sanctions
against those who promote the spread of sophisticated weapons
and proposes some benefits for those who do not. The attention
of the West focuses, naturally on nations that are actually
or potentially hostile to the West.
The non-Western nations, on the other
hand, assert their right to acquire and to deploy whatever
weapons they think necessary for their security. They also
have absorbed, to the full, the truth of the response of the
Indian defense minister when asked what lesson he learned
from the Gulf War: "Don't fight the United States unless
you have nuclear weapons." Nuclear weapons, chemical
weapons and missiles are viewed, probably erroneously, as
the potential equalizer of superior Western conventional power.
China, of course, already has nuclear weapons; Pakistan and
India have the capability to deploy them. North Korea, Iran,
Iraq, Libya and Algeria appear to be attempting to acquire
them. Atop Iranian official has declared that all Muslim states
should acquire nuclear weapons, and in 1988 the president
of Iran reportedly issued a directive calling for development
of "offensive and defensive chemical, biological and
radiological weapons."
Centrally important to the development
of counter-West military capabilities is the sustained expansion
of China's military power and its means to create military
power. Buoyed by spectacular economic development, China is
rapidly increasing its military spending and vigorously moving
forward with the modernization of its armed forces. It is
purchasing weapons from the former Soviet states; it is developing
long-range missiles; in 1992 it tested a one-megaton nuclear
device. It is developing power-projection capabilities, acquiring
aerial refueling technology, and trying to purchase an aircraft
carrier. Its military buildup and assertion of sovereignty
over the South China Sea are provoking a multilateral regional
arms race in East Asia. China is also a major exporter of
arms and weapons technology. It has exported materials to
Libya and Iraq that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons
and nerve gas. It has helped Algeria build a reactor suitable
for nuclear weapons research and production. China has sold
to Iran nuclear technology that American officials believe
could only be used to create weapons and apparently has shipped
components of 300-mile-range missiles to Pakistan. North Korea
has had a nuclear weapons program under way for some while
and has sold advanced missiles and missile technology to Syria
and Iran. The flow of weapons and weapons technology is generally
from East Asia to the Middle East. There is, however, some
movement in the reverse direction; China has received Stinger
missiles from Pakistan.
A Confucian-Islamic military connection
has thus come into being, designed to promote acquisition
by its members of the weapons and weapons technologies needed
to counter the military powers of the West. It may or may
not last. At present, however, it is, as Dave McCurdy has
said, "a renegades' mutual support pact, run by the proliferators
and their backers." A new form of arms competition is
thus occurring between Islamic-Confucian states and the West.
In an old-fashioned arms race, each side developed its own
arms to balance or to achieve superiority against the other
side. In this new form of arms competition, one side is developing
its arms and the other side is attempting not to balance but
to limit and prevent that arms build-up while at the same
time reducing its own military capabilities.
9. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE WEST
THIS ARTICLE DOES not argue that civilization
identities will replace all other identities, that nation
states will disappear, that each civilization will become
a single coherent political entity, that groups within a civilization
will not conflict with and even fight each other. This paper
does set forth the hypotheses that differences between Civilizations
/ Civilisations are real and important; civilization-consciousness
is increasing; conflict between Civilizations / Civilisations
will supplant ideological and other forms of conflict as the
dominant global form of conflict; international relations,
historically a game played out within Western civilization,
will increasingly be de-Westernized and become a game in which
non-Western Civilizations / Civilisations are actors and not
simply objects; successful political, security and economic
international institutions are more likely to develop within
Civilizations / Civilisations than across Civilizations /
Civilisations; conflicts between groups in different Civilizations
/ Civilisations will be more frequent, more sustained and
more violent than conflicts between groups in the same civilization;
violent conflicts between groups in different Civilizations
/ Civilisations are the most likely and most dangerous source
of escalation that could lead to global wars; the paramount
axis of world politics will be the relations between "the
West and the Rest"; the elites in some torn non-Western
countries will try to make their countries part of the West,
but in most cases face major obstacles to accomplishing this;
a central focus of conflict for the immediate future will
be between the West and several Islamic-Confucian states.
This is not to advocate the desirability
of conflicts between Civilizations / Civilisations. It is
to set forth descriptive hypotheses as to what the future
may be like. If these are plausible hypotheses, however, it
is necessary to consider their implications for Western policy.
These implications should be divided between short-term advantage
and long-term accommodation. In the short term it is clearly
in the interest of the West to promote greater cooperation
and unity within its own civilization, particularly between
its European and North American components; to incorporate
into the West societies in Eastern Europe and Latin America
whose cultures are close to those of the West; to promote
and maintain cooperative relations with Russia and Japan;
to prevent escalation of local inter-civilization conflicts
into major inter-civilization wars; to limit the expansion
of the military strength of Confucian and Islamic states;
to moderate the reduction of counter military capabilities
and maintain military superiority in East and Southwest Asia;
to exploit differences and conflicts among Confucian and Islamic
states; to support in other Civilizations / Civilisations
groups sympathetic to Western values and interests; to strengthen
international institutions that reflect and legitimate Western
interests and values and to promote the involvement of non-Western
states in those institutions.
In the longer term other measures would
be called for. Western civilization is both Western and modern.
Non-Western Civilizations / Civilisations have attempted to
become modern without becoming Western. To date only Japan
has fully succeeded in this quest. Non-Western civilization
will continue to attempt to acquire the wealth, technology,
skills, machines and weapons that are part of being modern.
They will also attempt to reconcile this modernity with their
traditional culture and values. Their economic and military
strength relative to the West will increase. Hence the West
will increasingly have to accommodate these non-Western modern
Civilizations / Civilisations whose power approaches that
of the West but whose values and interests differ significantly
from those of the West. This will require the West to maintain
the economic and military power necessary to protect its interests
in relation to these Civilizations / Civilisations. It will
also, however, require the West to develop a more profound
understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions
underlying other Civilizations / Civilisations and the ways
in which people in those Civilizations / Civilisations see
their interests. It will require an effort to identify elements
of commonality between Western and other Civilizations / Civilisations.
For the relevant future, there will be no universal civilization,
but instead a world of different Civilizations / Civilisations,
each of which will have to learn to coexist with the others.
GRAPHIC: Photograph, Sarcophagus of Alexander,
Late Fourth Century B.C., BY GIAMBERTO VANNI, FOR ART
RESOURCE, NEW YORK; Map, no caption, Source:
W. Wallace, THE TRANSFORMATION OF WESTERN
EUROPE. London: Pinter, 1990. Map by Ib
Ohlsson for FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
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