The Cold War And The Fall Of The Soviet Union

Jared Diamond is a world renowned scientist, author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently a geography professor at UCLA. Of his six books published, we will be looking at the last chapter of his fourth book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In this book Diamond utilizes the comparative method to find resemblance in past societal collapses with our current society. In the chapter entitled, "The World as Polder: What Does it Mean to Us Today," Diamond points out that there are indeed many parallels between past and present societies and that our modern day society is currently on a path of self destruction , through examples such as globalization and the interdependency of each country.

In “The end s of the world as we know them” article Jared Diamond looks at the collapse of several historical societies and the factors that caused their collapse. The factors are:

Huntington also does not see westernization as a desirable surge that engulfs world politics. Conflict is very natural and history proves that argument. The author takes away focus from states as a foundation of war in the future and more on conflict between major culture regions. He states that peoples cultural and religious identities will be the primary bases of conflict post cold war. The world is becoming a smaller place with modernization and technology; thus, relations between people of different civilizations deepen consciousness and awareness. Post cold war, the role of the Western society enhances the growth of civilization. Unlike Fukuyamas argument, Huntington states that cultural characteristics and differences are more complex to solve than political and economical

More so than that, Huntington was writing during a time when the United States was the world’s only military superpower which lead to the idea that America should take the lead in establishing the “new world order”, one which would be dominated by the United States and their allies. Because of this, American diplomats and officials were faced with regional, religious and ethnic conflicts that, as Huntington argues, could not be easily solved. During this time the United States were making major decisions about the layout and status of the new world order. It becomes clear that Huntington would believe future conflicts would arise from cultural differences due to previous cultural clashes and that the most powerful country in the world, the United States, was also unable to create solutions for conflicts fueled by cultural differences.

Huntington that hypothesised a new post-Cold War world order. Prior to the end of the Cold War, societies were divided by ideological differences such as the struggle between democracy and communism. Huntington’s primary thesis argues, “The most important distinctions among peoples are [no longer] ideological, political or economic. They are cultural.” Huntington makes a very persuasive argument as to how new patterns of conflict will occur along the boundaries of different cultures and patterns of cohesion will be found within the cultural boundaries. The book goes into extensive detail of how world systems between civilizations, which he divides by culture into 7 main global civilizations, are impacted on an international relations scale by this changing nature of conflict. He focuses a great deal on the West’s ability to maintain military superiority through the nonproliferation of emerging powers. In particular relation to 9/11 he focuses on the emerging influence of Islamic culture (which he classifies as it’s own civilization) being quintessential in the emerging new global conflict arisen out of hundreds of years of conflict, military and cultural, between Western civilization and Islamic civilization. The clear limitation of this work is that it is based on his own perception of history and is purely a hypothesis, however it clearly has a great degree of validity to it as we have already seen through the last decade in the rise of terrorism as the new global conflict. This book will assist my essay writing particularly in analysing how 9/11 marked the beginning of a new era of global conflict between powers larger than nation states alone, and thus how this has created increasingly complex paradigms of unprecedented effects on international

As an instance of the West civilization, in geography, Huntington indicated that Russia, Europe, and North America both belong to it. In politics, all the nations who either attended the World War I or been the main member of the Cold War belong to the West civilization. Though, in the West civilization, it has a lot of different countries, such as America, Europe, and Russia. These countries have their own cultures and these cultures

Huntington goes on to suggest that along with this umbrella idea of conflict between civilizations; through economic, social, and cultural separations; there will be a divide in which countries with similar beliefs or ‘civilizations’ will stick together in war and conflict against other civilizations. Another key point to highlight is that he believed that in the post-cold war world, religion would become something that separates civilizations. In connection to Krauthamer’s viewpoint, Huntington’s explores the idea that with the West viewed as an enemy due to economic, military, and political strength, many civilizations who don't want to or cant join the west will compete with it. Huntington then suggests that the west learn to co-exist with other civilizations in order for it to remain the strongest and that it needs to accept religious and philysophical differences of other

Apart from that, Huntington is an ideologist that tries to put things the way he sees it. In this context, “civilization” and “identities” are defined and described by Huntington besides they are made into something that they are not. Apart from that, Huntington observations on wars that happened in the past are just on the basis of religion clashes without considering the other major aspects that contribute towards modernization process. In addition, the incident like mass killing by group of militants has become one of the proof of Huntington thesis as he just see the big idea or the surface of that particular incident without considering the element that lies behind it. Another aspect that comes into consideration is the way Huntington views

Moises Naim doesn’t agree with Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations. As the graph shows that the number of deaths in Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan are higher than the rest of the globe and account for the most and they are committed by their own people not between, but within; Militant jihadists have killed more fellow Muslims than any other population of civilizations; centuries old conflicts between Shiites and Sunnis in Islam; more deaths due to terrorist attacks in America since 9/11 from white supremacists and other non-muslim extremists.

While reading this article I was able to iidentify ways Huntington talks about and uses religion in his assessment of world affairs, the composition of civilizations, and how civilizations interact with each other. Democracy is like religion it can be seen as a imperialistic venture if it is not grown at home. trying to convert a person is always a act of bigotry. Without the ideology of collectivism, the new enemy would then be based on culture or maybe even religion. I believe that Huntington identifies the civilization in the religious divisions because " civilization is a cultural entity."(2) All groups for example: ethnic groups, religious groups, regions, nationatilies, and villiages has distinct cultures at all different levels. However,

Huntington thesis stated in his opinion that the great differences among people and the dominating source of conflicts would be due to differences in culture. He also stated that key conflicts in global politics will take place due to different civilizations among nations.

This new sort of contentions restricts the seven or eight noteworthy developments, i.e. Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and conceivably African human advancement. With the end of political philosophies, the people would above all else feel a nearby recognizance as respects shared social components (i.e. religion, ethnicity), and, as a result, would recognize their having a place with one of the Huntington's societies, or civic establishments. That supposition is moderately solid on the grounds that, successfully, the organization of people into ethno-national gatherings, because of tribalism in the wake of the breaking down of political solidarity, profoundly impacts world governmental issues. In any case, he mindfully declares that the distinctions recognizing his human advancements don't as a matter of course infer the development of contentions between them. On the other hand, Huntington additionally adds to a totally inverse contention. To be sure, he announces that his human advancements are inherently in strife since they are driven by inconsistent good and political qualities, the need to survive, and the will to command. That normal for the new world request would be all the all the more aggravating in light of the fact that the human advancements would carry on as indicated by the "family nation disorder", in particular those developments would associate with pretty much kinfolk civic establishments. Accordingly, clashes would basically break out "along the deficiency lines between human advancements". The Huntington's clarification of contentions everywhere throughout the world might appear to be cognizant since, in influence, various clashes have emerged along his shortcoming

Huntington’s work influenced how the Western and American policymakers view the world. Clash of Civilization was an expansion from an article he published in Foreign Affairs journal. It incorporates a hybrid of nationalist, metahistorical, and realist elements. Huntington states that there is a weakness present in the four paradigms existing in the political world after the Cold War. He views the situation from the view of the West versus the rest of the world is the current system. Huntington regards this system as weak. He believes that the four paradigms are also incompatible with each other. Huntington explains the characteristics of a civilization as the broadest cultural entity.

The core claim of “The Clash of Civilizations” is that the greatest threat to world peace in the post-cold war world is not political, ideological or economic, but cultural. A civilization according to Huntington (1996) is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity that helps people distinguish themselves from who they are not and who they are against (21). This is also evident on page 20 when Huntington (1996) states, “for peoples seeking identity and reinventing ethnicity, enemies are essential, and the potentially most dangerous enmities occur across the fault lines between the world’s major civilizations.” The understanding of the self in one culture is totally different in another civilizations context and this leads to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Other factors than the culture of civilizations better help explain and understand military conflicts and the “Clash of Civilizations.” In fact, Huntington’s claims are nothing more than recycled Cold War realism updated to replace the Green Scare for the Red Scare.

The clash of civilization is a theory by Samuel Huntington. In this theory, Huntington claims that the clash is inevitable. There is a new world order we are facing that include major civilization fighting for their cultural existence. On the other hand, many scholars opposed Huntington’s ideology about the clash of civilization some of them called him a great theorist using recycled conflicts as a method. In this paper, I will summarize Huntington ideology and I will show why I think Fukuyama was right.