CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS by Samuel Huntington
international system became history. In post-cold war, most
CHAPTER 1 – The New Era in World Politics
Years after cold war witnessed the beginnings of dramatic
changes in people’s identities and symbols of those identities.
Global politics began to reconfigured along cultural lines.
On april 18, 1944 – Sarajevans identified themselves with
their fellow Muslims.
On October 16, 1994 – LA people marched beneath Mexican
flags protesting Proposition 187 or referendum which deny
many state benefits to illegal immigrants and children.
Cultural identity – most meaningful to most people (world
flags)
*Central theme of the book is that Culture and Cultural
identities, in the broadest lever are civilizational identities.
This shaped the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and
conflict in post- cold war world. The five part of this book
was elaborated into corollaries to the main proposition:
Part 1 – for the first time, global politics is both multipolar
and multicivilizational; modernization is distinct from
westernization and is producing neitheir universal nor pro-
western civilizations
Part 2 – balance of power among civilization is shifting:
West is declining its relative influence; Asian civilizations
are expanding their economic, military and political strength;
Islam is exploding demographically; and non- Western
civilizations generally are reaffirming the value of their own
cultures.
Part 3 – A civilization based world order is emerging:
societies are sharing culture and cooperate with each other,
efforts to shift societies from other civilization to another are
unsuccessful, and countries group themselves around core
states of their civilizations.
Part 4 – the West’s Universalist pretensions brings conflict
with other civilizations, most seriously with Islam and China
Part 5 – the survival of the West depends on Americans
reaffirming their western identities and westerners accepting
their civilization as unique and not universal.
A MULTIPOLAR, MULTICIVILIZATIONAL WORLD
Years after cold war witnessed the beginnings of dramatic
changes in people’s identities and symbols of those identities.
Global politics began to reconfigured along cultural lines, it
is during cold war that it became bipolar and the world was
divided into three: (1) wealthy and democratic societies led
by US, that was engaged in pervasive ideological, political
and economic and military competition with; (2) group of
somewhat poorer communist societies led by Soviet Union;
much of this conflict occurred in (3) Third world countries
outside the two camps, composed of poorer countries, lacked
political stability and recently independent and nonaligned.
In late 1980s, communist world collapsed, and Cold war
important distinction are cultural, where people define
themselves in terms of ancestry, religion, language, history,
values, customs and institutions.
People use politics to define their identity. Nation states
remain the principal actors in world affairs. In this new
world, local politics is the politics of ethnicity; global
politics is the politics of civilization. *the rivalry of
superpowers is replaced by clash of civilizaions**
According to Vaclav Havel: cultural conflicts are increasing
and more dangerous today, and future conflicts will be
sparked by cultural factors rather than ideology or
economics. And the most dangerous cultural conflicts are
those along fault lines between civilizations.
In the post-cold war world is a world of seven or eight
major civilizations. Cultural commonalities and
differences shape interest, antagonisms and associations of
states. Global politics has become multipolar and
multicivilizational.
Maps and Paradigms. According to Kuhn: to be accepted as
paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors.
World views and causal theories are indispensable guides to
international politics.
We need explicit or implicit models to be able to:
1. Order and generalize about reality
2. Understand causal relationships among phenomena
3. Anticipate and predict future developments
4. Distinguish what is important from non
5. Show us what paths to take to achieve goals
4 IMAGES OF WORLD IN ANARCHY
(1) One World: Euphoria and Harmony. End of cold war
meant the end of significant conflict in global politics and
emergence of one harmonious world (a new paradigm).
An example of this paradigm is that of Fukuyama’s The End
of History, which is the point of mankind’s ideological
evolution and universalization of western liberal democracy
as final form of government. This is where, global conflict is
over.
In WW1 – it is a war to end wars; it is safe for democracy
and it is where –isms are generated. While in WW2 –
according to Roosevelt, is the one that would end the system
of unilateral action, exclusive alliances, BoP, and all other
expedients. This produces cold war.
(2) Two Worlds: Us and Them. People are always tend to
divide people into us and them, in group and the other, our
civilization and those barbarians and etc. It is where, the
West and the rest can be implied as existence of many non-
wests.
(3) 184 States, More or Less. Where ‘realist theory’ of – Durkheim and Mauss: kind of moral milieu
international relations is derived. In this theory, states are the encompassing a certain number of nations
primary, and only important actors in world affairs, the – Spengler: inevitable destiny of culture
relation among states is one of anarchy, and insure survival – Culture – common theme in every definition of
and security, attempts to maximize their power. This realist civilization
picture of the world is starting point for analyzing – Religion – of all objective elements which define
international affairs and explains state behavior. civilizations, this is the most important, as Athenians
emphasized. It is the defining characteristic of
Thus, statist paradigm provide a more realistic picture and civilization
guide to global politics, and also suffer severe limitations. – (3) civilizations are comprehensive, that is none of their
constituent units can be fully understood without
Billiard ball state is the norm since Treaty of Westphalia, reference to encompassing civilization
and emergence of varied, complex, multilayered intl order – Toynbee: civilizations is a totality
resembling medieval times. – It is the broadest cultural entity. It is the highest cultural
grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural
(4) Sheer Chaos. The weakening of states and appearance of identity people have short of that distinguishes humans
failed states. Stresses the breakdown of governmental from other species.
authority, breakup of states, intensification of tribal, ethnic, – It has no clear- cut boundaries and no precise beginnings
and religious conflict. This chaos paradigm is close to reality. and endings, because people can and do redefine their
It provides graphic and accurate picture of what is going on identities, as a result, composition of civilizations change
in the world and highlights significant changes in world over time
politics. – (4) civilizations are mortal but also very long- lived. This
in fact is the longest story of all.
COMPARING WORLDS
– (5) civilizations are cultural not political entities, they do
Civilizational approach – holds that: not maintain order, establish justice and other things
govt do. The political composition of civilizations varies
 Forces of integration are real and precisely between civilizations and varies over time within
generating counterforces civilization. A civilization may contain one or more
 World is two, but central is the western political unit,
 Nation states will remain most important actors – (6) major civilizations differ in number as said by
scholars:
 World is indeed anarchical, but conflicts that pose
Quigley- 16 and 8
dangers in stability are between states and groups
Toynbee- 21 then became 23
from different civilization
Spengler- 8
– It sets simple map for understanding what is going on
McNeill- 9
with the world. Paradigms generate predictions. Statist
Bagby- 9 or 11 if Japan and Orthodoxy are distinguished
paradigm predicts situations between states is ripe from
from China and West
outbreak of security competition. Civilizational
Braudel- 9
approach emphasizes close cultural, personal and
Rostovanyi- 7
historical links between states and focuses only in
*such differences depend on what cultural groups such
civilizational fault line that divides them.
as Chnese and Indians are thought to have single
civilization. Despite differences, identity of major
civilizations is not contested.**
CHAPTER 2 – Civilizations in History and Today
12 Major Civilizations:
Human history is the history of civilizations.
1. Mesopotamian
Civilizations - have provided the broadest identifications for 2. Egyptian
people. This idea was developed by 18th century French 3. Cretan
thinkers as opposite concept of barbarism. 4. Classical
5. Byzantine
– (1) Civilized society differed from primitive, because it 6. Middle American
was settled, urban, literate. 7. Andean
– (2) It is a cultural entity. 8. Chinese
– Civilization and culture both refer to the overall way of 9. Japanese
life of people, and civilization is a culture writ large. 10. Indian
Both involves values, norms, institutions, and modes of 11. Islamic
thinking 12. Western
– Braudel: a space, culture area, a collection of cultural
characteristics and phenomena Major contemporary civilizations:
– Wallerstein: product of particular original process of
cultural creativity which is work of particular people 1. Sinic – single distinct Chinese civilization. More
than Confucianism and transcends China as political
 entity. It describes common culture of china and
chinese communities, emerging during 1500 BC
2. Japanese – distinct civilization which was the
offspring of Chinese civilization, emerging during
AD 100 and 400
3. Hindu – one or more successive civilizations,
universally recognized and existed on subcontinent
since 1500 BC. Referred to as Indian, Islamic,
Hindu. Has been central to culture of subcontinent
since second millennium. It is the core of indian
civilization
4. Islamic – originate in Arab Peninsula in 7th C AD,
rapidly spread across North Africa and Iberian
Peninsula. Many distinct subcivilizations exist
within it.
5. Orthodox – centred in Russia and separate from
western, as a result of its Byzantine parentage
6. Western – dated as emerging about AD 7000 or
800. Generally viewed as having major
components, Europe, North America and Latin
America
7. Latin American – has distinct identity which
differs from West. It evolved along every diff path
from Europe and NA. It has corporatist,
authoritarian culture. It has only been catholic. It
incorporates indigenous cultures. In themselves are
divided into self- identification
8. African – recognize by scholar Braudel. Tribal
identiies are pervasive and intense, but they are
increasingly developing a sense of African identity.
South Africa is its core state
Religion – of all objective elements which define
civilizations, this is the most important, as Athenians
emphasized. It is the defining characteristic of civilization
Encounters. The nature of contacts and relations of
civilizations is well expressed in their encounters.
- Civilizations were separated by time and space
- Civilizations were separated by geography
- The most dramatic and significant contacts between
Civilizations were when people from one
Civilization conquered or eliminated people of
another.
Impact: Rise of the West. European Christendom began to
emerge as distinct Civilization in 8th and 9th C
- Only Russian, Japanese, and Ethiopian civilizations,
were able to resist the onslaught of the West and
maintain meaningful independent existence.
- The immediate source of western expansion was
technological: the invention of means of ocean
navigation, reaching distant people, and
development of military capabilities to conquer
people.
- The causes of unique and dramatic development
included social structure and class relations of the
West
- They were based on cultural homogeneity, where
language, law, religion, administrative practice,
agriculture, landholding, and kinship.
- Europeans shared common culture and maintained
extensive contacts via active network of trade, they
also fought virtually without end.
Interactions: Multicivilizational system. In 20th C, relations
among Civilizations moved from phase dominated by
unidirectional impact of one Civilization on all others to one
of intense and sustained among all Civilizations.
(1) Expansion of West ended, and revolt against
West begin
(2) As result of development, international system
expanded beyond West and became
multicivilizational
*****International system exists when two or more states
have sufficient contact between them, and on each other’s’
decision. International society exists when states in Intl
system have common interest and values, conceive
themselves to be bound by common set of rules, and have
common culture or Civilization. ***
Chapter 3: A Universal Civilization? Modernization and
Westernization
Universal Civilization – cultural coming together of
humanity and increasing acceptance of common values
- Civilized societies have in common (cities and
literacy)
- It has been gradually expanding through the spread
of civilization
- Belief held by many of those in the Western
Civilization
- Share beliefs in individualism, political democracy
- Embraces the common moral culture
Human Beings share certain basic values
- Have similar moral sense
The spread of Western Culture is creating a universal
civilization
Naïve arrogance can lead to Westerners assuming that non-
westerners will be westernized
Universality of the human interest in love, sex, violence, and
mystery
Global communication one of the most important
contemporary manifestations of Western power
West is the major source of the resentment and hostility of
non-western
1. Language – tendency for a universal language to
emerge (would support the universal civilizations)
- As a way of communication
English – world’s way of communicating
Use of English is intercultural communication; presupposes
the existence of separate culture
Distribution of language reflected the distribution of power
(most spoken languages are languages of imperial states)
2. Religion – late 20th century has seen a global
resurgence of religions around the world
Resurgence involved of the intensification of religious
consciousness
Universal Civilization: Sources
Product of Western civilization
- End of 20th century a universal civilization has
helped justify the Western cultural dominance
- Increased interaction
Modernization – revolutionary process comparable only to
the shift from primitive to civilized
Significant differences exist between modern and traditional
cultures
Distinguishing Characteristics of the Western Civilizations
The Classical legacy – third generation civilization, the
classical civilization
Catholicism and Protestants – single most important
characteristics of Western civilization
European Language – factor distinguishing people of one
culture from those of another
Separation of Spiritual and temporal authority – separation of
church from state
Rule of Law – centrality of law to civilized existence
Social Pluralism – diversity within a body which permits the
peaceful coexistence of different interests
Representative bodies - represents the interests
Individualism – equal rights
Responses to the West and Modernization
1. Rejectionism – allows limited forms of
modernizations (both modernization and westernization are
undesirable)
2. Kemalism – modernization is necessary and
desirable
– Indigenous culture is incompatible with modernization
(society must fully westernize to modernize)
3. Reformism – combine modernization with the
preservation of central values (westernization is not
necessary)
Chapter 12: The West, Civilizations, and Civilization
The west differs from all other civilizations that have ever
existed – overwhelming impact on all other civilizations
Immigration – potential source of new vigor and human
capital
Decay leads to invasion (civilization is no longer able to
defend itself because it is no longer willing to defend itself)
Manifestations of Moral Decline
- Anti-social behavior
- Family decay
- Decline social capital
- Weakening of work ethic
- Decreasing commitment to learning and intellectual
activity
Multiculturalist – ethnocentric separatists who see little in the
Western heritage
Leaders of other countries – disavow their cultural heritage
and shift the identity of their country from one civilization to
another
A world which cultural identities are central and cultural
affinities
1. Statesmen can constructively alter reality if they
recognize and understand it
2. American foreign policy also suffered from a
reluctance to abandon alter policies adopted to meet Cold
War
3. Cultural and Civilizational diversity challenges the
West and particularly American belief in the universal
relevance of Western culture
Western belief in the universality of Western Culture suffers
3 problems:
1. False
2. Immoral
3. Dangerous
Civilizations go through similar process of emergence
Imperialism is a consequence of universalism
Abstention rule – abstain from intervention in conflicts in
other civilizations
Joint mediation rule – core states negotiate with each other to
contain or halt fault line wars
Chapter 4- The Fading of the West: Power, Culture, and
Indigenization
WESTERN POWER: DOMINANCE AND DECLINE
Western power in relation to other civilizations:
1. overwhelming, triumphant, almost total Western
dominance
The disintegration of the Soviet Union removed the only
serious challenger to the West and as a result the world is and
will be shaped by the goals, priorities, and interests of the
principal Western nations, with perhaps an occasional assist
from Japan.
As the one remaining superpower, the West is the only
civilization that has the ability to affect the politics,
economics, and security of every other civilization or region.
Societies from other civilizations usually need Western help
to achieve their goals and protect their interests.
2. in decline, its share of world political, economic,
and military power going down relative to that of
other civilizations.
The West's victory in the Cold War has produced not
triumph but exhaustion. Economic power is rapidly shifting
to East Asia, and military power and political influence are
starting to follow. The willingness of other societies to accept
the West's dictates or abide its sermons is rapidly
evaporating, and so are the West's self-confidence and will to
dominate.
 These shifts in power among civilizations are leading
and will lead to the revival and increased cultural
assertiveness of non-Western societies and to their increasing
rejection of Western culture.
Three Characteristics of Decline of the West:
1. slow process (T h e decline of the West is still in the
slow first phase, but at some point it might speed up
dramatically.
2. does not proceed in a straight line (It is highly
irregular with pauses, reversals, and reassertions of
Western power following manifestations of Western
weakness.)
3. power is the ability of one person or group to
change the behavior of another person or group.
(The West's share of most, but not all, of the
important power resources peaked early in the
twentieth century and began to decline relative to
those of other civilizations.)
Territory and Population.
In 1490 Western societies controlled most of
theEuropean peninsula outside the Balkans. West directly
ruled about 25.5 million square miles or close to half the
earth's earth. By 1993 this territorial control had been cut in
half to about 12.7 million square miles.
Quantitatively Westerners thus constitute a steadily
decreasing minority of the world's population. Qualitatively
the balance between the West and other populations is also
changing. Non-Western peoples are becoming healthier,
more urban, more literate, better educated. Socially
mobilized societies are more powerful societies.
Economic Product
The Western share of the global economic product also
may have peaked in the 1920s and has clearly been declining
since World War II. By 1830the West had pulled slightly
ahead of China. In the following decades, as Paul Bairoch
points out, the industrialization of the West led to the
deindustrialization of the rest of the world. Thereafter the
West's share declined as its rate of growth remained modest
and as less industrialized countries expanded their output
rapidly after World War II.
In 1992 the United States had the largest economy in the
world. In 2020 plausible projections indicate that the top five
economies will be in five different civilizations. This relative
decline of the West is, of course, in large part a function of
the rapid rise of East Asia.
Military Capability
In the 1920s the West was far ahead of everyone else in
all these dimensions. In the years since, the military power of
the West has declined relative to that of other civilizations, a
decline reflected in the shifting balance in military personnel,
one measure, although clearly not the most important one, of
military capability.
Military power has four dimensions:
1. quantitative — the numbers of men, weapons,
equipment, and resources
2. technological — the effectiveness and
sophistication of weapons and equipment
3. organizational — the coherence, discipline,
training, and morale of the troops and the
effectiveness of command and control relationships
4. societal —the ability and willingness of the society
to apply military force effectively
Modernization and economic development generate the
resources and desire for states to develop their military
capabilities, and few states fail to do so.
Five major trends in the evolution of global military
capabilities:
1. the armed forces of the Soviet Union ceased to exist
shortly after the Soviet Union ceased to exist
2. the precipitous reduction in Russian military
capabilities stimulated a slower but significant
decline in Western military spending, forces, and
capabilities
3. the trends in East Asia differed significantly from
those in Russia and the West. Increased military
spending and force improvements were the order of
the day
4. military capabilities including weapons of mass
destruction are diffusing broadly across the world
5. T h e 1990s have seen a major trend toward the
globalization of the defense industry, which is likely
further to erode Western military advantages.
Finally, all those developments make regionalization the
central trend in military strategy and power in the post-Cold
War world. Regionalization provides the rationale for the
reductions in Russian and Western military forces and for
increases in the military forces of other states. Military
security throughout the world increasingly depends not on
the global distribution of power and the actions of
superpowers but on the distribution of power within each
region of the world and the actions of the core states of
civilizations.
In sum, overall the West will remain the most powerful
civilization well into the early decades of the twenty-first
century. Beyond then it will probably continue to have a
substantial lead in scientific talent, research and development
capabilities, and civilian and military technological
innovation. Control over the other power resources, however,
is becoming increasingly dispersed among the core states and
leading countries of non-Western civilizations. The age of
Western dominance will be over. In the meantime the fading
of the West and the rise of other power centers is promoting
the global processes of indigenization and the resurgence of
non-Western cultures.
Indigenization: The Resurgence of Non-Western Cultures
The distribution of cultures in the world reflects the
distribution of power. A universal civilization requires
universal power.
 The growing power of non-Western societies produced
by modernization is generating the revival of non-Western
cultures throughout the world.
Joseph Nye:
- Hard power- command resting on economic and
military strength
- Soft power- ability of a state to get "other countries
to want what it wants
If a state's "culture and ideology are attractive, others
will be more willing to follow" its leadership, and hence
“soft power is "just as important as hard command power."
Culture and ideology are attractive when they are seen
as rooted in material success and influence.
As Western power declines, the ability of the West to
impose Western concepts of human rights, liberalism, and
democracy on other civilizations also declines and so does
the attractiveness of those values to other civilizations.
The non-western societies sought the secret of this
success in Western values and institutions, and when they
identified what they thought might be the key they attempted
to apply it in their own societies. But East Asians attribute
their dramatic economic development not to their import of
Western culture but rather to their adherence to their own
culture. They are succeeding, they argue, because they are
different from the West. The rise of these attitudes is a
manifestation of what Ronald Dore has termed the "second-
generation indigenization phenomenon." To lead their
nations to and after independence they had to indigenize.
They reverted to their ancestral cultures, and in the process at
times changed identities, names, dress, and beliefs.
Indigenization has been the order of the day throughout the
non-Western world in the 1980s and 1990s.
Indigenization is furthered by the democracy paradox:
adoption by non-Western societies of Western democratic
institutions encourages and gives access to power to nativist
and anti-Western political movements. The result is popular
mobilization against Western-educated and Western-oriented
elites.
At these times they also were contemptuous of the
cultural inferiority, institutional backwardness, corruption,
and decadence of the West. As the success of the West fades
relatively, non-Western attitudes reappear. People feel "they
don't have to take it anymore."
We are witnessing "the end of the progressive era"
dominated by Western ideologies and are moving into an era
in which multiple and diverse civilizations will interact,
compete, coexist, and accommodate each other.
La Revanche De Dieu (Revival)
In the first half of the twentieth century intellectual elites
generally assumed that economic and social modernization
was leading to the withering away of religion as a significant
element in human existence.
Modernizing secularists hailed the extent to which
science, rationalism, and pragmatism were eliminating the
superstitions, myths, irrationalities, and rituals that formed
the core of existing religions. The emerging society would be
tolerant, rational, pragmatic, progressive, humanistic, and
secular. Worried conservatives, on the other hand, warned of
the dire consequences of the disappearance of religious
beliefs, religious institutions, and the moral guidance religion
provided for individual and collective human behavior. The
end result would be anarchy, depravity, the undermining of
civilized life. "If you will not have God (and He is a jealous
God)," T. S. Eliot said, "you should pay your respects to
Hitler or Stalin.”
The second half of the twentieth century proved these
hopes and fears unfounded. Economic and social
modernization became global in scope, and at the same time
a global revival of religion occurred. This revival has
pervaded every continent, every civilization, and virtually
every country.
In society after society, religion manifests itself in the
daily lives and work of people and the concerns and projects
of governments.
The ubiquity and relevance of religion has been
dramatically evident in former communist states.
General causes of Religious Resurgence
The most obvious, most salient, and most powerful cause
of the global religious resurgence is precisely what was
supposed to cause the death of religion: the processes of
social, economic, and cultural modernization that swept
across the world in the second half of the twentieth century.
Lee Kuan Yew on religion: “There is a quest for some
higher explanations about man's purpose, about why we are
here. This is associated with periods of great stress in
society.”
People do not live by reason alone. They cannot
calculate and act rationally in pursuit of their self-interest
until they define their self. Interest politics presupposes
identity. Religion provides compelling answers. All religions
furnish "people with a sense of identity and a direction in
life."
More broadly, the religious resurgence throughout the
world is a reaction against secularism, moral relativism, and
self-indulgence, and a reaffirmation of the values of order,
discipline, work, mutual help, and human solidarity.
Religious groups meet social needs left untended by state
bureaucracies. Overall, the record suggests that where they
conflict, la revanche de Dieu trumps indigenization: if the
religious needs of modernization cannot be met by their
traditional faiths people turn to emotionally satisfying
religious imports.
 Stimulants to religious revival included the retreat of the
West and the end of the Cold War.
Religion takes over from ideology, and religious
nationalism replaces secular nationalism. The movements for
religious revival are antisecular, antiuniversal, and, except in
their Christian manifestations, anti-Western. But these are
definitely not antimodern. Religious movements, including
particularly fundamentalist ones, are highly adept at using
modern communications and organizational techniques to
spread their message
Religion is not "the opium of the people, but the vitamin
of the weak." The religious revival is an urban phenomenon
and appeals to people who are modern-oriented, well-
educated, and pursue careers in the professions, government,
and commerce.
Religion, indigenous or imported, provides meaning and
direction for the rising elites in modernizing societies. The
revival of non-Western religions is the most powerful
manifestation of anti-Westernism in non-Western societies.
That revival is not a rejection of modernity; it is a rejection of
the West and of the secular, relativistic, degenerate culture
associated with the West. It is a rejection of what has been
termed the "Westoxification" of non-Western societies. It is a
declaration of cultural independence from the West, a proud
statement that: "We will be modern but we won't be you."
Chapter 5- Economics, Demography, and the Challenger
Civilizations
Asia and Islam stand alone, and at times together, in
their increasingly confident assertiveness with respect to the
West.
Related but different causes lie behind these challenges.
Asian assertiveness is rooted in economic growth; Muslim
assertiveness stems in considerable measure from social
mobilization and population growth.
Economic growth strengthens Asian governments;
demographic growth threatens Muslim governments and non-
Muslim societies.
The Asian Affirmation
The economic development of East Asia has been one of
the most significant developments in the world in the second
half of the twentieth century.
This Asian economic performance contrasts dramatically
with the modest growth of the European and American
economics and the stagnation that has pervaded much of the
rest of the world.
East Asian economic development is altering the balance
of power between Asia and the West.
Successful economic development generates self-
confidence and assertiveness on the part of those who
produce it and benefit from it.
Wealth, like power, is assumed to be proof of virtue, a
demonstration of moral and cultural superiority.
Asian societies are decreasingly responsive to U.S.
demands and interests and increasingly able to resist pressure
from the United States or other Western countries.
The significance of this cultural revival is written in the
changing interaction of East Asia's two major societies with
Western culture. (China and Japan)
Industrialization and the growth that accompanied it
produced in the 1980s and 1990s articulation by East Asians
of what may be appropriately termed the Asian affirmation.
This complex of attitudes has four major components.
1. Asians believe that East Asia will sustain its rapid
economic development, will soon surpass the West
in economic product, and hence will be increasingly
powerful in world affairs compared to the West.
Japanese journalist: "The days when the United States
sneezed and Asia caught cold are over."
Malaysian official: “Even a high fever in America will
not make Asia cough."
The West is rapidly losing its ability to make Asian
societies conform to Western standards concerning human
rights and other values.
2. Asians believe this economic success is largely a
product of Asian culture, which is superior to that of
the West, which is culturally and socially decadent.
For East Asians, East Asian success is particularly the
result of the East Asian cultural stress on the collectivity
rather than the individual.
3. While recognizing the differences among Asian
societies and civilizations, East Asians argue that
there are also significant commonalities. Asian
societies have common interests vis-à-vis the West
in defending these distinctive values and promoting
their own economic interests.
4. Asian development and Asian values are models
which other non-Western societies should emulate
in their efforts to catch up with the West and which
the West should adopt in order to renew itself
Powerful societies are universalistic; weak societies are
particularistic.
"Asian values are universal values. European values are
European values."
To the East Asians economic prosperity is proof of
moral superiority.
Cultural assertion follows material success; hard power
generates soft power.

The Islamic Resurgence
While Asians became increasingly assertive as a result of
economic development, Muslims in massive numbers were
simultaneously turning toward Islam as a source of identity,
meaning, stability, legitimacy, development, power, and
hope, hope epitomized in the slogan "Islam is the solution." It
embodies acceptance of modernity, rejection of Western
culture, and recommitment to Islam as the guide to life in the
modern world.
As with most revolutionary movements, the core element
has consisted of students and intellectuals. In most countries
fundamentalists winning control of student unions and
similar organizations was the first phase in the process of
political Islamization.
The success of Islamist movements in dominating the
opposition and establishing themselves as the only viable
alternative to incumbent regimes was also greatly helped by
the policies of those regimes.
Like other manifestations of the global religious revival,
the Islamic Resurgence is both a product of and an effort to
come to grips with modernization.
The Islamic revival, it has been argued, was also "a
product of the West's declining power and prestige. . . . As
the West relinquished total ascendance, its ideals and
institutions lost luster."
Population Growth. This combination of size and social
mobilization has significant political consequences.
Changing Challenges
No society can sustain double digit economic growth
indefinitely, and the Asian economic boom will level off
sometime in the early twenty-first century.
One by one other Asian "economic miracle" states will
see their growth rates decline and approximate the "normal"
levels maintained in complex economies. Similarly, no
religious revival or cultural movement lasts indefinitely, and
at some point the Islamic Resurgence will subside and fade
into history.
Economic development in Asia will leave a legacy of
wealthier, more complex economies, with substantial
international involvements, prosperous bourgeoisies, and
well-off middle classes. These are likely to lead towards
more pluralistic and possibly more democratic politics, which
will not necessarily, however, be more pro-Western.
Enhanced power will instead promote continued Asian
assertiveness in international affairs and efforts to direct
global trends in ways uncongenial to the West and to reshape
international institutions away from Western models and
norms.
In any event, during the coming decades Asian economic
growth will have deeply destabilizing effects on the Western-
dominated established international order.
As a result, the early years of the twenty-first century are
likely to see an ongoing resurgence of non-Western power
and culture and the clash of the peoples of non-Western
civilizations with the West and with each other.
CHAPTER 6: The Cultural Reconfiguration of Global
Politics
Groping for Groupings: The Politics of Identity
Cultural communities are replacing Cold War blocs
and the fault lines between civilizations are becoming the
central lines of conflict in global politics.
Cultural Identity – the central factor shaping a
country’s associations and antagonisms
It’s cultural identity defines the state’s place in
world politics, its friends and its enemies.
People are looking for roots and connections to
defend themselves against the unknown
With the end of Cold War order, countries
throughout the world began developing new and
reinvigorating old antagonisms and affiliations. They have
been groping for groupings, and they are finding those
groupings with countries of similar culture and the same
civilization.
Why should commonality facilitate cooperation and
cohesion among people and cultural differences promotes
cleavages and conflicts?
1. everyone has multiple identities which may compete
or reinforce with each other. Identifications along one
dimension may clash with those along a different dimension.
Identity is usually most meaningful in face to face level.
In a world where culture counts, the platoons are
tribes and ethnic groups, the regiments are nations, and the
armies are civilizations. Civilizations – broadest cultural
entities
2. The increased salience of cultural identity is in large
part the result of social-economic modernization at individual
level
3. Identity at any level can only be defined in relation
to an “other”, a different person, tribe, race or civilization.
The civilizational “us” and the extracivilizational “them” is a
constant in human history
These broader levels of civilizational identity mean
deeper consciousness of civilizational differences and of the
need to protect what distinguishes “us” from “them.”
4. The sources of conflict between states and groups from
different civilizations are those which have always generated
conflict groups.
Differences in material interest can be negotiated
and often settled by compromise in a way cultural issues
cannot
5. The ubiquity of conflict
The end of Cold War has not ended conflict but has
rather given rise to new identities rooted in culture and to
new patterns of conflict among groups from different cultures
which at broadest level are civilizations
Culture and Economic Cooperation
Regions – geographical not political or cultural
entities. They are basis for cooperation among states only to
the exten that geography coincides with culture.
Military alliances and economic associations require
cooperation among their members, cooperations depends on
trust, and trust most easily springs from common values and
culture
Overall effectiveness of regional organizations
generally varies inversely with the civilizational diversity of
their membership
The relation of culture to regionalism is clearly
evident with respect to economic integration. Four
recognized levels:
1. Free trade area
2. Customs union
3. Common market
4. Economic union
FIVE CIVILIZATIONS exists in East Asia –
consequently, it the test case for developing meaningful
organizations not rooted in common civilization.
ASEAN – designed to achieve “economic
cooperation rather than economic integration. As it name
implies, this organization was a place for collective talk and
not action
Meaningful East Asian regional organizations will
emerge only if there is sufficient East Asian cultural
commonality to sustain them.
In East Asia, as elsewhere, cultural commonality has
been the prerequisite to meaningful economic integration
The end of Cold War stimulated efforts to create
new and to revive old regional economic organizations
Japan faces difficulties developing its economic ties
with East Asia and dealing with its economic differences
with the United States and Europe
The Structure of Civilizations
COLD WAR – countries related to two superpowers
as allies, satellites, clients, neutrals, and nonaligned.
POST COLD WAR - countries relate to
civilizations as member states, core states, lone countries,
cleft countries, and torn countries.
Member State – a country fully identified culturally
with one civilization
Civilization – may also include people who share in
and identify with its culture, but who live in states dominated
by members of another civilization
Core States or States – the most powerful and
culturally central state or states
The numner and role of core states vary from
civilization to civilization and may change over time.
Lone Country - lacks cultural commonality with
other societies
JAPAN – most important lone country
Almost all countries are heterogenous in that they
include two or more ethnic, racial, and religious groups.
Deep divisions within a country can lead to massive
violence or threaten the country’s existence
Other countries divided by civilizational fault lines
include : India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, China,
Philippines, and Indonesia
Torn Country - has a single predominant culture
which places it in one civilization but its leaders want to shift
it to another civilization
Unlike the people of cleft countries, the people of
torn countries agree on who they are but disagree on which
civilization is properly their civilization.
Torn Countries: The Failure of Civilization Shifting
Three requirements for a torn country successfully
to redefine its civilizational identity:
1. The political and economic elite of the country has
to be generally supportive of and enthusiastic of the move
2. The public has to be at least willing to acquisce in
the redefinition of identity
3. The dominant elements in host civilization have to
be willing to embrace the convert
RUSSIA
Has been a country for several centuries
Russia’s relations with Western civilization evolved
through FOUR PHASES.
 It has no or little exposure to the defining historical
phenomena of Western Civilization: Roman Catholicism,
feudalism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, overseas
expansion and colonization, the Enlightenment, and the
emegence of the nation state.
Distinct feature of Western Civilization – reigion,
languages, separation of church and state, rule of law, social
pluralism, representative bodies, individualim – were totally
absent from the Russian experience
Peter the Great – determined to modernize and to
Westernize his country
Peter was more successful making Russia a part of
Europe than making Europe part of Russia
Bolshevik Revolution – created a political economic
system which could not exist in the West in the name of an
ideology which created in the West
Russia was different from and fundamentally
opposed to the West because it was more advanced than the
West.
As the Russians stopped behaving like Marxists and
began behaving like Russians, the gap between Russia and
the West broadened
TURKEY
The basic principles or six arrows of Kemalism –
populism, republicanism, nationalism, secularism, statism,
and reformism
Kemal aimed to produce a homogenous nation state,
expelling and killing Armenians and Greeks in the process
Turkey came to be viewed by the West as its
bulwark of containment, preventing the expansion of Soviet
Union toward the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the
Persian Gulf
Beginning in the 1980s, the primary foreign policy
goal of Turkey’s Western oriented elites has been to secure
membership in the European Union
TURKISH MODEL OR IDEA OF TURKEY – a
secular, democratic Muslim state with a market economy
The resurgence of Islam affected Turkish Foreign
Policy
Turkish leaders regularly described their country as
“bridge” between cultures
Bridge – an artificial creation connecting two solid
entities but is part of neither
MEXICO
No distinctly nonWestern culture
Octavio Paz – “the core of Mexico is Indian, It is
not European.”
It went through a revolution which established a
new basis of national identity, and a new one party political
system
Mexico’s religion is Catholicism, language is
Spanish, elites were oriented historically to Europe, and more
recently linked to the United States
AUSTRALIA
Has been a Western society
Asians see a gap between Australia’s Asian rhetoric
and its perversely Western reality
Asians are determined to exclude Australia from
their club for the same reason that Europeans do Turkey: they
are different from us
As Mahathir stated, culture and values are the basic
obstacle to Australia joining Asia
ASIANS – pursue their goals with others in ways
which are subtle, indirect, modulated, devious,
nonjudgemental, nonmoralistic, and nonconfrontational.
AUSTRALIANS – the most direct, blunt,
outspoken, some would say insensitive people in the English
speaking world
The Western Virus and Cultural Schizoprenia
While Australia’s leaders embarked on a quest for
Asia, those of other torn countries attempted to incorporate
the West into their societies and to incorporate their societies
into the West.
Political leaders can make history but they cannot
escape history.
CHAPTER 7: CORE STATES, CONCENTRIC
CIRCLES, AND CIVILIZATIONAL ORDER
CIVILIZATIONS AND ORDER
• In the emerging global politics, the core states of the
major civilizations are replacing the two Cold War
superpowers (America and Soviet Union) as the principal
poles of attraction and repulsion for other countries.
o This particular change is embodied by the Western
and the Sinic civilization.
o Countries tend to bandwagon with countries of
similar culture, and to balance against countries with which
they lack cultural commonality.
o The core states attract those who are culturally
similar and repel those who are culturally different.
• In the emerging world, global power is obsolete,
global community a distant dream. No country has significant
global security interests. The component of order in today’s
more complex and heterogeneous world are found within and
between civilizations.
o The world will be ordered on the basis of
civilizations, or not at all.
o Core States are the sources of order within
civilizations, and through negotiations with other core states,
between civilizations.
o A core state can perform its ordering functions
because member states perceive it as a cultural kin. A
civilization is an extended family, and like older members of
a family, core states provide their relatives with both support
and discipline.
o The lack of core states produces problems in
creating order within civilizations or negotiating order
between civilizations become more difficult.
BOUNDING THE WEST
• During the Cold War, EUROPE AS A WHOLE
DID NOT EXIST.
o Questions like: What is Europe? Europe’s
boundaries? etc., emerged.
• The great historical line that has existed for
centuries separated Europe into two: Eastern Europe and the
Western Europe.
o Eastern: Orthodox people; Western: Christianity.
• NATO played an important role in showing the
logic of civilizations with regard to its expansion.
o After the Cold War, NATO has been the security
organization of Western civilization. It has one central and
compelling purpose: to insure that it remains over by
preventing the re-imposition of Russian political and military
control in Central Europe.
o American policy toward post-Cold War European
security arrangements has become universalistic. President
Clinton - “Freedom’s boundaries now should be defined by
new behavior, not by old history. “
RUSSIA
• Overall, Russia is a bloc with an Orthodox heartland
under its leadership and a surrounding buffer states of
relatively weak Islamic states which it will in varying degrees
dominate and from which it will attempt to exclude the
influence of other powers.
• The most populous and the most important former
Soviet republic is: UKRAINE.
CHINA
• After the Cold War, China set two goals:
o Become a champion of Chinese culture, the core
state civilizational magnet toward which all other Chinese
communities would orient themselves.
o Resume its historical position, which it lost in the
nineteenth century, as the hegemonic power in East Asia.
• The Chinese government sees Mainland China as
the core state of the Chinese civilization.
o To the Chinese government, people of Chinese
descent, even if citizens of another country are members of
the Chinese community and hence in some measure subject
to the authority of the Chinese government.
• Greater China is thus not simply an abstract
concept. It is a rapidly growing cultural and economic reality
and has begun to become a political one.
o The emergence of the Greater China Co-Prosperity
Sphere was greatly facilitated by a “bamboo network” of
family and personal relationships and a common culture.
Overseas Chinese are much more able than either
Westerners or Japanese to do business in China. In China
trust and commitment depend on personal contacts, not
contracts or laws and other legal documents. Western
businessmen find it easier to do business in India than in
China where the sanctity of an agreement rests on the
personal relationship between the parties.
ISLAM
• The two main grounds of loyalty among the Islams:
the family, clan, and the tribe and unities in culture, religion,
and empire – Tribalism and Religion.
o These are intertwined in such a way that they are
considered the most important factors and variables which
shape and determine Arab Political culture and the Arab
Political Mind.
• Throughout Islam, the small group and the great
faith (the tribe and the ummah) have been the principal foci
of loyalty and commitment – nation-states for the Islams are
less significant.
o The idea of sovereign nation states is incompatible
with belief in the sovereignty of Allah and the primacy of the
ummah.
• ISLAM DOES NOT HAVE ANY CORE STATE.
However, 6 countries are capable of being so:
o Indonesia
o Egypt
o Iran
o Pakistan
o Saudi Arabia
o Turkey
CHAPTER 8 the West and the Rest: Intercivilizational
Issues
1. Most violent fault lines (micro level) – between
Islam and its Orthodox, Hindu, African, and
Western Christian neighbours
2. (macro level) – dominant division is between the
West and rest
3. Dangerous clashes of the future are likely to arise
from the interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic
Intolerance and Sinic assertiveness
4. West – has major and devastating impact on every
other civilization
5. Central problem in the relations between the West
and the rest – discordance of the West’s efforts to
promote a universal Western culture and its
declining ability to do so
6. Collapse of communism – reinforced the West that
their ideology of democratic liberalism had
triumphed globally and hence was universally valid
7. West – mostly the United States
- Believed that non-Western people should
commit themselves to the Western values of
democracy
8. West continues to attempt sustain its position and
defend its interest by defining those interests as the
interests of the “world community”
9. Having achieved political independence, non-
Western societies wish to free themselves from
Western economic, military and cultural domination
10. “swing” civilizations – Russia, Japan, India
- Core states of non-Western countries
- at times side with the challenger civilizations
and at times side with the West
11. Because Islam lacks a core state, its relations with
the West vary greatly from country to country
- Anti-Western trend has existed in Muslim
countries
12. Realist theory of international relations predicts that
the core states of non-Western civilizations should
coalesce together to balance the dominant power of
the West
Weapons Proliferation
13. Diffusion of military capabilities – consequence of
global economic and social development
14. For non-western states to counter Western
conventional military power, at the very least,
acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means
to deliver them
15. ^such weapons establishes dominance, lessen
intervention in their civilization
16. Role of nuclear weapons for the West
- During cold war: “the equalizer”
- Post-cold war: “unmatched conventional
military power and prevents others to attain
nuclear power”
17. Nuclear weapons can threaten the West more
directly
- Example is China and Russia having missiles
that can reach Europe and North America
18. Terrorism – historically, is the weapon of the weak
- Weak meaning not able to possess conventional
military power
19. In post-cold war, efforts to develop weapons of
mass destruction have been concentrated in Islamic
and Confucian states
20. Weapons proliferation is where the Confucian-
Islamic connection has been most extensive and
most concrete
- China – playing central role in the transfer of
both conventional and non-conventional
weapons to many Muslim countries (Pakistan,
Iran, etc.)
21. As the results of developments and potential threats
they pose to Western interests, the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction has moved to the top
of the West’s security agenda
22. United States and Soviet Union
- During cold war: classic arms race, build-up vs.
build-up (of technology and weapons)
- Post-cold war: build-up vs. hold-down (West’s
efforts to prevent weapon build-up of other
societies)
23. West promotes non-proliferation as reflecting the
interests of all nations in international order and
stability
- Non-western countries see non-proliferation as
serving the interests of the Western hegemony
24. Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
- US pushed for permanent extensions
- Non-western countries contested the extensions
- US won consensus through strategic arm
twisting, bribes and threats
Human Rights and Democracy
25. 1970s to 1980s – more than 30 countries shifted
from authoritarian to democratic political systems
- Economic development – major factor of
political changes
26. Democratization was most successful in countries
where Christian and Western influences were strong
27. Western concepts of human rights and Western
forms of political democracy would prevail
throughout the world
28. Promoting this spread of democracy hence became a
high priority goal for Westerners
29. Greatest resistance to Western democratization
efforts came from Islam and Asia
- Rooted from Islamic resurgence and Asian
affirmation
30. Ability of Asian regimes to resist Western human
rights was reinforced by
- Asian countries seeing such pressure as an
infringement on their sovereignty
 - Economic growth is strengthening Asian
governments
31. Human rights resolutions (by non-western countries)
were almost always defeated in UN
- “human rights imperialism”
32. Not only is Western clout diminished but the
paradox of democracy also weakens Western will to
promote democracy in post-cold war world
33. West realized that democratic processes in non-
western societies produce governments unfriendly to
the West
- ^reason why they attempt to influence elections
Immigration
34. Population movements are the motor of history
35. Export of people – most important on the rise of
West
36. Decolonization – caused the new wave of migration
- Establishment of new states
- Policies that encouraged or forced people to
move
37. Economic development in non-western societies has
stimulated emigration
38. Influx of migrants to Western societies in 19th
century
- Immigrants coming from non-western countries
39. Westerners fear “that they are now being invaded
not by armies but by migrants who speak other
languages, worship other gods, and belong to other
cultures. They fear they will threaten their way of
life”
40. Jean Marie Domenach: there is a fear growing all
across Europe of a Muslim community that cuts
across European lines
- European hostility is selective
41. Public opposition to immigrants (in Europe)
- Extreme acts of violence, particularly in
Germany
42. Immigration issue came somewhat late in the US
- US has always been a country of immigrants
- Sources of immigrants varied
43. Problem for Europe: Muslims
44. Problem for US: Mexicans
45. Changing balance of power among civilizations
makes it more and more difficult for the West to
achieve its goals
CHAPTER 9: THE GLOBAL POLITICS OF
CIVILIZATIONS
1. Civilizations are the ultimate human tribes
2. Clash of civilizations – tribal conflict on a global scale
3. Relations between different civilizations – almost never
close, often hostile
4. La guerra fria – coined by 13th cen Spaniards to describe
“uneasy coexistence” with Muslims
5. Two forms of intercivilizational conflicts
- Fault line conflicts – micro or local level (neighbor
states or same state but diff. civilization)
- Core state conflicts – major states of different civi
Islam and the West
6. Islam is the only civilization which has put the survival
of the Westin doubt, and it has done that twice
7. 50 % of wars involving pairs of states of different
religions between 1820 and 1929 were between Muslims
and Christians
8. Causes of this conflict flow form the two religions and
the civilizations based on them
9. Conflict – product of difference and similarities
10. Level of conflict has been influenced by demographic
growth and decline, economic developments,
technological change, and religious commitment
11. Interaction and intermingling exacerbate differences
over the rights of the members of one civi in a country
dominated by members of the other civi
12. Causes of renewed conflict between Islam and West lie
in fundamental questions of POWER and CULTURE
- Who is to rule and who is to be rules?
13. Muslims fear and resent Western power and the threat
which this poses to their society and beliefs
- See western culture as materialistic, corrupt,
decadent, seductive, and immoral
- Attack the west for not adhering to any religion at
all (irreligiosity, godless)
- “Americans come here and want u to be like them”
14. Intercivilizational quasi war between Islam and West
- All of islam has not been fighting of all west
- Fought with limited means
- Violence is continuous, although has not been
continuous
15. The underlying problem for the west is not Islamic
fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization
whose people are convinced of the superiority of their
culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their
power
16. The problem for Islam the West, a different civilization
whose people are convinced of the universality of their
culture and believe that their superior power imposes on
them the obligation to extend that culture throughout the
world
Asia, China, and America
17. Economic growth creates political instability within and
between countries, altering the balance of power among
regions and countries
18. Economic exchange brings people into contact; not into
agreement
19. Trade between countries produces conflict as well as
profit
20. Economic development of Asia and growing self-
confidence of Asian countries are disrupting
international politics
21. Asia is the cauldron of civilizations
- Highly complex pattern of international
relationships
22. Asian-American cold wars
23. Changes in public attitudes were matched by changes in
elite perceptions
24. Because China and the U.S. have longstanding conflicts
between their ideologies, social systems, and foreign
policies, it will prove impossible to improve Sino-U.S.
relations
25. Since Americans believe that East Asia will become the
heart of the world economy…the U.S. cannot tolerate a
powerful adversary in Asia
26. Increased interaction between Asian societies and the
U.S. made threatening to each society the practices and
beliefs of the other
27. Changing international environment brought to the fore
the fundamental cultural differences between Asian and
American civilizations
- Sources of conflict are in fundamental differences in
society and culture
28. The Japanese have invented a type of economics that
behaves in ways that confound the predictive powers of
Western observers
- Japanese economy is unique because Japanese CHAPTER 10 from Transition Wars to Fault Line
society is uniquely non-Western Wars
29. Societies and cultures do change
30. Asian societies support each other in their conflicts with 1.
the U.S.
31. China and U.S. are unwilling to accept leadership and 2.
hegemony of the other
32. Underlying cause of conflict between America and 3.
China is their basic difference over what should be the
future balance of power in East Asia 4.
33. Emergence of new great powers is always highly
destabilizing
34. Reacting to a rise of new power:
- Attempt to insure their security by balancing against 5.
the emerging power (alone or in coalition)
- Bandwagon with the emerging power (depends on 6.
trust)
- Balance and bandwagon 7.
35. Asian hierarchy of power model of international politics 8.
contrast with the European balance of power model 9.
36. Indonesia and Vietnam – most inclined toward balancing
and containing China
37. The core of any meaningful effort to balance and contain
China would have to be the American-Japanese military 10.
alliance
38. Chinese hegemony will reduce instability and conflict
and the American and Western influence in East Asia 11.
39. Western societies might go for conflict and balance
40. History, culture, and the realities of power suggest that 12.
Asia will opt for peace and hegemony
13.
Civilizations and Core States: Emerging Alignments
14.
41. Relations of other civilizations and their core states to
the West and its challengers will vary widely
42. Relations between civilizations and their core states are
complicated, often ambivalent, and do change
43. Common interests – usually a common enemy form a
third civilization
- Can generate cooperation between countries of
different civilizations
Characteristics of Fault Line Wars
Soviet-Afghan War & Gulf War – both began as
invasions of one country by another
Afghan war – effort by the Soviet Union to sustain a
satellite regime
^became a Cold War when the US equipped the
Afghan insurgents resisting the Soviet forces
For Americans, Soviet promoted communist
regimes
- Defeat of Soviet means the defeat of their
ideology
Afghanistan – final and decisive victory for
Westerners
For non-Westerns, Afghan War was “the first
successful resistance to a foreign power”
For Westerners, it was a victory for the Free World
For Muslims, it was a victory for Islam
Soviets defeated by
- American technology
- Saudi money
- Muslim demographics and zeal
Afghan war – civilization war because Muslims
everywhere saw it as such and rallied against the
Soviet Union
Gulf War – civilization war because the West
intervened militarily in a Muslim conflict
Arab and Muslim governments were divided by the
war
- But they seemed to unite because of their anti-
Western movements
^”Arab world” united to fight their greater enemy,
the west
Gulf war – first post-cold war resource war between
civilizations
- At stake was whether the world’s largest oil
reserve would be controlled by Saudi and
emirate governments dependent on western
military power for security
- ^West was threatened – oil may be used as a
weapon against them
15. Fault line conflicts are communal conflicts between
states or groups from different civilizations
16. Within-state fault line conflicts may involve groups
that are geographically intermixed
17. Fault line conflicts – often struggles for control over
people
- May also be control of territory
18. Fault line wars share some but not all characteristic
sof communal wars generally
- Fault line wars:
1 within Islam and against non-Islam because of
off-again-on-again;
2
produces large number of deaths and refuges;
3
always between peoples of different religions;
4
actors expand for support – “kin-country”
syndrome (same culture or religion)
Incidence: Islam’s Bloody Borders
28. Indigestibility of Muslims – both ways, Muslim
countries have problems with non-Muslim
29. Victim status – caused by Western imperialism –
produced an image of Muslim military and
economic weakness, encouraged non-Islamic groups
to view Muslims as an attractive target
30. Absence of core state – source of instability in the
Muslim world because it lacks a dominant center
31. Demographic bulge or explosion in Muslim
societies- source of instability and violence both
unemployment
CHAPTER 11- THE DYNAMICS OF FAULT LINE
WARS

19. Identity wars – constituted about half of all civil Identity: The Rise of Civilization Consciousness
wars
20. Muslim propensity toward violent conflicts is also  Fault line wars go through processes of intensification,
suggested by the degree to which Muslim societies expansion, containment, interruption, and, rarely,
are militarized
resolution.
21. Muslim states – have had the high propensity to
resort to violence in international crises  Communal conflicts are appropriately termed identity
22. Huntington: Islam has bloody borders based on a wars
casual survey of intercivilizational conflicts  A "hate dynamic" emerges, comparable to the "security
dilemma " in international relations, in which mutual
Causes: History, Demography, Politics
fears, distrust, and hatred feed on each other
23. Changes in demographic balance – a factor in  Religion provides the most reassuring and supportive
Muslim conflicts justification for struggle against "godless" forces which
- Numerical expansion of one group generates are seen as threatening.
political, economic and social pressures on  Practically, its religious or civilizational community is
other groups and induces countervailing
the broadest community to which the local group
responses
- Produces military pressure on less involved in the conflict can appeal for support.
demographically dynamic groups  Fault line wars are local wars between local groups with
 Demography – statistical study of human wider connections and hence promote civilizational
populations with reference to size, density, identities among their participants.
distribution and vital statistics  A fault line war may have its origins in family, clan, or
24. Shifts in demographic balances and youth bulges
tribal conflicts
account for many of the intercivilizational conflicts
of the late 20th century  Nationalist feelings have been heightened by religious
- Though, they do not explain all of them differences
25. Possible Causes of Muslim Conflict Propensity  A strong Muslim national identity became a part of
Extra-Muslim Intra- and politics and religion.
conflict Extra-conflict  Muslim nationalism is becoming more extreme. It now
Historical and Proximity (27) Militarism
takes no account of other national sensibilities; it is the
contemporary (26)
conflict Indigestibility property, privilege, and political instrument of the newly
(28) predominant Muslim nation
Contemporary Victim status Demographic  The main result of this new Muslim nationalism is a
conflict (29) bulge (31) movement towards national homogenization
 As a fault line war intensifies, each side demonizes its
Core state opponents, often portraying them as subhuman, and
absence (30)
thereby legitimates killing them.
26. Militarism – has ever been a religion that glorifies Civilization Rallying: Kin Countries and Diasporas
military virtues  Competition was, most intense in the Third World, with
27. Proximity – Muslims and non-Muslims in close new and weak states pressured by the superpowers to
physical proximity through Eurasia join the great global contest
 In the post-Cold War world, multiple communal trusted by both parties to find a solution rooted
conflicts have superseded the single superpower conflict in the values of that culture.
 The longer a fault line conflict continues the more kin  Secondary and tertiary ralliers usually do not want to be
countries are likely to become involved in supporting, transformed into primary level fighters and try to keep
constraining, and mediating roles the war under control
 Levels of involvement in fault line wars:  Wars with no secondary or tertiary parties are less likely
 At the primary level are those parties actually to expand than others but more difficult to bring to a
fighting and killing each other. E.g. States, local halt, as are wars between groups from civilizations
groups lacking core states.
 Secondary level participants, usually states directly  Cease-fire negotiations are furthered to the extent that
related to the primary parties. there is relative parallel and equal involvement of
 Third level participants- are the core states of their secondary and tertiary parties from both sides.
civilizations  Negotiations between states are two level games in
Halting Fault Line Wars which diplomats negotiate simultaneously with
 Fault line violence may stop entirely for a period of time, constituencies within their country and with their
but it rarely ends permanently. counterparts from the other country.
 Fault line wars are marked by frequent truces, cease-  The two level games involve at a minimum four parties
fires, armistices, but not by comprehensive peace treaties and at least three and often four relations between them.
that resolve central political issues  A complex fault line war is a three level game with at
 They have this off-again-on-again quality because they least six parties and at least seven relations among them
are rooted in deep fault line conflicts involving sustained  Horizontal relations across the fault lines exist between
antagonistic relations between groups of different pairs of primary, secondary, and tertiary parties.
civilizations.  Vertical relations exist between the parties on different
 Producing even a temporary halt in a fault line war levels within each civilization
usually depends on two developments:
 The first is exhaustion of the primary participants
- At some point when the casualties have
mounted into tens of thousands, refugees into
the hundreds of thousands, and cities reduced to
rubble, people cry "madness, madness, enough
is enough," the radicals on both sides are no
longer able to mobilize popular fury,
negotiations which have sputtered along
unproductively for years come to life, and
moderates reassert themselves and reach some
sort of agreement for a halt to the carnage
- “All sides are exhausted”
- Such halts, are self-limiting. They enable both
sides to rest and replenish their resources. Then
when one side sees the opportunity for gain, the
war is renewed
 Second factor: the involvement of non-primary level
participants with the interest and the clout to bring
the fighters together
- Fault line wars are almost never halted by direct
negotiations between primary parties alone and
only rarely by the mediation of disinterested
parties.
- Conflicts between countries or groups with a
common culture can at times be resolved
through mediation by a disinterested third party
who shares that culture, has recognized
legitimacy within that culture, and can be