The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996)

by Samuel Huntington

In 1992, following the fall of the Soviet Union, Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man gave the optimistic view that Western liberal democracy would evolve to be the final form of human government. 

In response to The End of History, Samuel Huntington in 1992 published an article in Foreign Affairs entitled “The Clash of Civilizations,” which had the following abstract:

World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural. Civilizations--the highest cultural groupings of people--are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance. From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines of civilizations are the battle lines of the future. In this emerging era of cultural conflict the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures and spread its values wherever possible. With alien civilizations the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary. In the final analysis, however, all civilizations will have to learn to tolerate each other.

In 1996, Huntington expanded this essay into the book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.  He again predicted that  global politics would be dominated by clashes between civilizations and  that future conflicts would occur at the fault lines between civilizations.  Huntington particularly saw a growing confrontation between the West and non-Western civilizations like Islam and China.

In the aftermath of the global devastation of World War II and the development of weapons of mass destruction an attempt was made to create a new moral foundation for global coexistence. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, expressed the ideals of the Western liberal tradition: it proclaimed the inherent personal dignity of every individual and emphasized our common humanity as the foundation for justice and peace. This recognition of individual dignity and our common humanity — transcending race, nation, or creed — provided a potential basis for accommodation among different civilizations in a pluralistic world.

In contrast, the emerging axis of autocracies — Russia, China, Iran, and their proxies — operates on very different assumptions.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s threats toward Taiwan, and Iran’s support of militant proxies from the Middle East to Africa are sometimes framed as struggles for geopolitical "real estate." Yet this view, while partly true, profoundly underestimates the depth of the fault lines shaking the modern world. Today's global conflicts are not only territorial — they are civilizational, and they are as much about abstract ideas and visions of history as they are about land.  The growing axis of autocracies regard the ideals of Western liberalism not simply as foreign, but as threats: dangerous ideas that, if embraced by their populations, could undermine the legitimacy of regimes built on coercive political control. At the heart of today’s conflicts lies a confrontation between two broad conceptions of civilization: freedom versus autocracy.

More than thirty years ago, Huntington particularly foresaw a growing confrontation between the West and non-Western civilizations.. He warned the West not to assume its values are universal and advised strengthening Western unity while respecting other civilizations’ distinct identities.