The Clash Of Civilizations By Samuel Huntington

European states ended the Thirty Years’ War with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which laid the foundations for a system of independent, competing states. They also mutually recognized their rights to organize their domestic and religious affairs and agreed that political and diplomatic affairs were to be conducted by states acting in their own interests.

In the 17th century, the Dutch Republic experienced a Golden Age and was able to maintain security, unity, and prosperity in its society and economy. The nation was considered a leading power, especially in trade and ideas, within Europe. However, it was not long before circumstances changed and the state face many problems establishing peace and agreement. By the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries, there had been a significant change in the Dutch Republic’s power, for multiple factors and reasons. From 1650 to 1713, not only external factors such as European intervention and British trading competition, but also internal division damaged the Dutch Republic and challenged its authority as a

Huntington’s initial article argued that in the post-Cold War era the fundamental source of conflict would not be ideological or economic, but cultural. He continues by arguing that nation states will continue to be the most powerful actors in global affairs, but the conflicts of global politics that are to occur in the future will happen between

In fact, while the distinctive ideologies and religious groups still exist, the clear boundaries of different civilizations characterized by Huntington have blurred. When this dichotomy to recognize the world as direct confrontations between ideology and culture groups becomes no longer valid, the theory of the inevitability of the clash of civilization, thus, are now flawed, because it is realistically unreasonable, ethically wrong, conceptually biased and historically inaccurate. These problems regarding the clash of civilizations embody a misleading western supremacy shown in Bush’s speech as well as the war on terror on a larger

The civilizations, as identified by Huntington are Sinic [Chinese or Confusious], Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox [Russian], Western [Europe, North American, Australia, New Zealand], Latin American and possibly African. And it is among these groups that share a “common interest and common values” and have a “common culture or civilization” that will lead to more interdependence on members of the same civilization and less dependent on the West. Huntington’s theory is that the West has had [at one time or another] a negative impact on every other civilization, and this has led to a decline of power and influence around the world, especially the Islam civilization. Therefore he predicts, “the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

War is not a common phenomenon anymore after the post cold war era. According a research conducted on active armed conflict across the world at the Uppsala University in Sweden, of all the 101 active armed conflicted between the late 80s and mid 90s, only six were actually between two different states (Solenberg &Wallensteen, 1997). These statistics clearly indicates that the conflict in today's world is more internal and ethnic based.

After the Great Napoleonic Wars, of nearly a century antecedent, a new sense of national consciousness and spirit had infected the peoples of europe, like the plague had done centuries before. Indeed, these two plagues were to, as evidenced by the First World War, have their great a mighty death tolls (almost to rival each other). Moreover, nationalism was to create great discrepancies in the natural order of borders that had been relatively left alone for hundreds of years. One of the best examples of this sort of discrepancy was the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which had been fought over by the French and the Germans for half a century prior to the First World War. Indeed, there were both Frenchmen and Germans living in the provinces, and this fact made it terribly difficult to figure who exactly owned the provinces. Obviously, this discrepancy would have to be solved by blood; and so followed the discrepancies in the Balkans and the East of Europe, all to be solved on the battlefield.

The argument Huntington is giving is that there will not be near as many fights over politics and economic values but more of culture and religious values. Throughout the article he talks a lot about what he believes will happen but one thing that we can be sure is he believes that there will be war over culture. “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.” This quote from the article shows us that he does believe people will fight because they see it as it is their culture against everyone else’s. It is hard to talk things out with people who believe the complete different things you believe.

In order to have a better and concise understanding of Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations?” it is necessary to understand the strengths of his argument. The strengths in his argument are well portrayed through his division of the world in eight different civilizations and also through his explanation of why there is conflict between cultures. Also, he portrays that cultural issues tend to be more complicated to resolve than political dilemmas. These

The Peace of Westphalia incorporates the two treaties, the Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück, that ended the Thirty Years’ War. The Peace put to rest a stalemate between the Holy Roman Empire and its enemies. It effectively limited the power of the Empire and, in regard to France in particular, enhanced the strength of the opposing states. These details could only be disputed with difficulty. The overriding debate concerning the Thirty Years’ War, however, is one that is discussed in the articles presented by Leo Gross and Andreas Osiander. Both authors write in exploration of the legacy of the Peace of Westphalia. Gross and Osiander argue that the Peace either established the basis for international law and international relations,

For all one knows, Samuel P. Huntington could be right about the reasons for this “clash” he describes as being “global”, a clash which occurs in the near future. Let that future hold its destiny in its hands for now. You may remember his argument, about the source of our “great division” being cultural and “not primarily ideological.” It is this that I plan to expand on but not at the expense of explaining it in totally non-characteristic manner. To further augment how culture will cause this apparent “clash of civilizations,” I have attempted to map-out what I consider outstanding focuses in the process of this “clash.” The

Samuel Huntington has made famous his thesis "the clash of civilizations", which was developed in his article in Foreign Affairs in 1993 and in the book that followed, in which the author expanded his thesis and reaffirmed the validity of his theory after the success and controversy that followed the publication of his article. In fact, the “civilizational” approach of conflicts today is now intrinsically linked to a comprehensive theory of international relations, which Samuel Huntington has developed by giving it an important value and a dominant paradigm

The significance of the Peace of Westphalia has long been lauded as beginning of international relations as it is recognized today. Many have attributed the popularity of this belief to the article, Peace of Westphalia, 1648-1948 by Leo Gross which was published in 1948. It discusses the merits of the agreement in sparking the establishing the modern state system. A more recent piece, Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth by Andreas Osiander takes an entirely different approach by attempting to debunk what Peace of Westphalia stands for in the current world. Both articles have strongly argued for their respective views on the issue, however it is clear that when it comes to whether or not the two treaties that make up the Peace of Westphalia actually contribute as much as ???? However it is clear that Osiander is more convincing??? While both articles make strong arguments to convince the reader of their respective views, Osiander employs By

Samuel Huntington, the author of the clash of the civilisations believes that the World will eventually divide in accordance with cultural lines, and not political lines. According to Huntington, “the thriving East Asian and Muslim societies will soon challenge Western dominance, and the United States being the World leader will need to reevaluate its policies on foreign invention and domestic immigration to remain a major player.” During the Cold War, the world was divided into the First, Second and Third Worlds. Huntington views these ties as insignificant now and states that the remaking of the World order will be based upon cultural similarity. The different thriving civilisations according to him today are the Western civilisation comprising of North America and Western Europe, the Muslim civilisation, the Orthodox Civilisation led by Russia, the Chinese civilisation, the Hindu civilisation, the Japanese civilisation, the Latin American civilisation and the African civilisation. Huntington’s proposition of the division of the World according to cultural lines has been backed by the use of various examples by him; examples of events that have taken place in the past.

In The Clash of civilizations Huntington argued that the future conflict would be different in the Post-Cold war era. In which different ideologies would not be the main reason for world problem but instead it would be because of the differences between cultures. The division of power would be placed in the civilizations that have the similar cultural norms. Huntington states that the “most dangerous enmities occur across fault lines between major civilizations” (20). This argued that foreign affairs cannot be peaceful or accommodating rather that these affairs go onto the basis of the influence of power based on different civilizations societal norms. The major societies that Huntington included were the western, Sinic, Islamic and Orthodox civilizations. The “ fault lines” between these societies