(During his visit to India in January, 1998) Prof. Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard University, Director of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies ... reaffirmed some of the points elaborated in his latest book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996).
Prof. Huntington said that though people some stress globalisation and the universality of the human condition in the post-Cold War world, most people are increasingly preoccupied with crisis of identity, and define themselves in terms of kinship, language, religion and culture, and not only by the nation-state to which they belong. Though inter-state politics are still shaped by the competition. For power and wealth, people and governments perceive threats from cultures different to their own. Global politics is now civilisational, and local politics are ethnic.
He drew five implications from his findings. First, Western civilisation expanded over four hundred years until it controlled and influenced every other civilisation by the early twentieth century. Western withdrawal was signalled first by the independence of India and now by the return of Hong Kong to China. The post Cold-War world consists not of two, or three blocs, but of six or seven 'civilisations'. Core civilisations have replaced super-powers in importance.
Secondly, the West is still the dominant power and will remain so, but its relative power has been affected by the economic dynamisms of Asia - now accounting for about 40 per cent of the global economy as compared to 20 per cent in 1920 and 60 per cent in 1820 and the demographic explosion of Islam.
Thirdly, inter-civilisation relations are likely to be cold. A West versus the Rest situation can arise because of unsuccessful attempts by the West to impose itself on the rest. Conflicts will most likely develop along the 'fault lines' where civilisations meet, in particular between the West and Islam, and between the West and China, because both power and status is involved. China wishes to establish hegemony in Asia and the US opposes it. Therefore, relations between China and the US are central to world peace, and in this context India, Japan and Russia are important as 'swing' civilisations.
Fourthly, ethnic conflicts are likely to increase and those across 'fault lines' will be the most dangerous. These are likely to involve what Huntington termed "the bloody borders of Islam" because there was no core Islamic state to impose discipline on the others, and because of Islam's high fertility rate and 'youth bulge' of males between the ages of 15 and 25 ..
Fifthly, cultural differences divide states while cultural affinities breed trust and reinforce regional associations, especially obvious in Europe. International order based on cooperation between civilisations would be the surest safeguard against world war and clash of civilisations.
