If Civilizations Count...So What?
Abstract
With the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the simple division of nations into free, communist, and third world lost its straight forward validity. In what may be described as a crisis of confidence born of the lack of a paradigm to describe the new world order, social scientists began looking for alternative explanations to describe new relationships. One group proposed an optimistic view of a world becoming ever more modern and western. As the economic fortunes of nations steadily improved, they predicted states would grow increasingly secular, democratic, and integrated into a universal civilization based upon commonly accepted western values. This contrasted sharply with a far more pessimistic view of the future of international relations. Robert Kaplan articulated an almost apocalyptic vision in a 1994 Atlantic Monthly article in which he described a world increasingly divided between the "haves" and the "have nots." Samuel Huntington stepped into this debate about the future with a new paradigm postulating an ongoing and intensifying clash of civilizations. In his controversial 1993 article, he wrote that states would remain the principal actors, but that they would increasingly define their interests in terms of civilizational issues. He identified eight major civilizations that he believed would be the principal forces in the future. These include Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic/Orthodox, Latin American, and African. This paper focuses on four of these civilizations: Western, Orthodox, Islamic and Confucian. Clearly, the United States must recognize civilizational influence and its impact on the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. The best way to do so remains engagement with individual nation-states. In civilizations in which a dominant power is emerging, such as the Confucian Civilization of China, the challenge will be to work with the dominant power through compromise or balance of power diplomacy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1995
- Accession Number
- ADA441052
Entities
People
- Mcginnis
Organizations
- National War College