The Clash of Civilizations?
I. THE NEXT PATTERN OF CONFLICT
WORLD POLITICS IS entering a new phase, and
intellectuals have not hesitated to proliferate
visions of what it will be -- the end of
history, the return of traditional rivalries
between nation states, and the decline of
the nation state from the conflicting pulls
of tribalism and globalism, among others.
Each of these visions catches aspects of
the emerging reality. Yet they all miss a
crucial, indeed a central, aspect of what
global politics is likely to be in the coming
years.
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental
source of conflict in this new world will
not be primarily ideological or primarily
economic. The great divisions among humankind
and the dominating source of conflict will
be cultural. Nation states will remain the
most powerful actors in world affairs, but
the principal conflicts of global politics
will occur between nations and groups of
different civilizations. The clash of civilizations
will be the battle lines of the future.
Conflict between civilizations will be the
latest phase of the evolution of conflict
in the modern world. For a century and a
half after the emergence of the modern international
system of the Peace of Westphalia, the conflicts
of the Western world were largely among princes
-- emperors, absolute monarchs and constitutional
monarchs attempting to expand their bureaucracies,
their armies, their mercantilist economic
strength and, most important, the territory
they ruled. In the process they created nation
states, and beginning with the French Revolution
the principal lines of conflict were between
nations rather than princes. In 1793, as
R. R. Palmer put it, "The wars of kings
were over; the ward of peoples had begun."
This nineteenth-century pattern lasted until
the end of World War I. Then, as a result
of the Russian Revolution and the reaction
against it, the conflict of nations yielded
to the conflict of ideologies, first among
communism, fascism-Nazism and liberal democracy,
and then between communism and liberal democracy.
During the Cold War, this latter conflict
became embodied in the struggle between the
two superpowers, neither of which was a nation
state in the classical European sense and
each of which defined its identity in terms
of ideology.
These conflicts between princes, nation states
and ideologies were primarily conflicts within
Western civilization, "Western civil
wars," as William Lind has labeled them.
This was as true of the Cold War as it was
of the world wars and the earlier wars of
the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. With the end of the Cold War,
international politics moves out of its Western
phase, and its center-piece becomes the interaction
between the West and non-Western civilizations
and among non-Western civilizations. In the
politics of civilizations, the people and
governments of non-Western civilizations
no longer remain the objects of history as
targets of Western colonialism but join the
West as movers and shapers of history.
II. THE NATURE OF CIVILIZATIONS
DURING THE COLD WAR the world was divided
into the First, Second and Third Worlds.
Those divisions are no longer relevant. It
is far more meaningful now to group countries
not in terms of their political or economic
systems or in terms of their level of economic
development but rather in terms of their
culture and civilization.
What do we mean when we talk of a civilization?
A civilization is a cultural entity. Villages,
regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious
groups, all have distinct cultures at different
levels of cultural heterogeneity. The culture
of a village in southern Italy may be different
from that of a village in northern Italy,
but both will share in a common Italian culture
that distinguishes them from German villages.
European communities, in turn, will share
cultural features that distinguish them from
Arab or Chinese communities. Arabs, Chinese
and Westerners, however, are not part of
any broader cultural entity. They constitute
civilizations. A civilization is thus the
highest cultural grouping of people and the
broadest level of cultural identity people
have short of that which distinguishes humans
from other species. It is defined both by
common objective elements, such as language,
history, religion, customs, institutions,
and by the subjective self-identification
of people. People have levels of identity:
a resident of Rome may define himself with
varying degrees of intensity as a Roman,
an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European,
a Westerner. The civilization to which he
belongs is the broadest level of identification
with which he intensely identifies. People
can and do redefine their identities and,
as a result, the composition and boundaries
of civilizations change.
Civilizations may involve a large number
of people, as with China ("a civilization
pretending to be a state," as Lucian
Pye put it), or a very small number of people,
such as the Anglophone Caribbean. A civilization
may include several nation states, as is
the case with Western, Latin American and
Arab civilizations, or only one, as is the
case with Japanese civilization. Civilizations
obviously blend and overlap, and may include
subcivilizations. Western civilization has
two major variants, European and North American,
and Islam has its Arab, Turkic and Malay
subdivisions. Civilizations are nonetheless
meaningful entities, and while the lines
between them are seldom sharp, they are real.
Civilizations are dynamic; they rise and
fall; they divide and merge. And, as any
student of history knows, civilizations disappear
and are buried in the sands of time.
Westerners tend to think of nation states
as the principal actors in global affairs.
They have been that, however, for only a
few centuries. The broader reaches of human
history have been the history of civilizations.
In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee identified
21 major civilizations; only six of them
exist in the contemporary world.
III. WHY CIVILIZATIONS WILL CLASH
CIVILIZATION IDENTITY will be increasingly
important in the future, and the world will
be shaped in large measure by the interactions
among seven or eight major civilizations.
These include Western, Confucian, Japanese,
Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American
and possibly African civilization. The most
important conflicts of the future will occur
along the cultural fault lines separating
these civilizations from one another.
Why will this be the case?
First, differences among civilizations are
not only real; they are basic. Civilizations
are differentiated from each other by history,
language, culture, tradition and, most important,
religion. The people of different civilizations
have different views on the relations between
God and man, the individual and the group,
the citizen and the state, parents and children,
husband and wife, as well as differing views
of the relative importance of rights and
responsibilities, liberty and authority,
equality and hierarchy. These differences
are the product of centuries. They will not
soon disappear. They are far more fundamental
than differences among political ideologies
and political regimes. Differences do not
necessarily mean conflict, and conflict does
not necessarily mean violence. Over the centuries,
however, differences among civilizations
have generated the most prolonged and the
most violent conflicts.
Second, the world is becoming a smaller place.
The interactions between peoples of different
civilizations are increasings; these increasing
interactions intensify civilization consciousness
and awareness of differences between civilizations
and commonalities within civilizations. North
African immigration to France generates hostility
among Frenchmen and at the same time increased
receptivity to immigration by "good"
European Catholic Poles. Americans react
far more negatively to Japanese investment
than to larger investments from Canada and
European countries. Similarly, as Donald
Horowitz has pointed out, "An Ibo may
be . . . an Owerri Ibo or an Onitsha Ibo
in what was the Eastern region of Nigeria.
In Lagos, he is simply an Ibo. In London,
he is a Nigerian. In New York, he is an African."
The interactions among peoples of different
civilizations enhance the civilization-consciousness
of people that, in turn, invigorates differences
and animosities stretching or thought to
stretch back deep into history.
Third, the processes of economic modernization
and social change throughout the world are
separating people from longstanding local
identities. They also weaken the nation state
as a source of identity. In much of the world
religion has moved in to fill this gap, often
in the form of movements that are labeled
"fundamentalist." Such movements
are found in Western Christianity, Judaism,
Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as in Islam.
In most countries and most religions the
people active in fundamentalist movements
are young, college-educated, middle-class
technicians, professionals and business persons.
The "unsecularization of the world,"
George Weigel has remarked, "is one
of the dominant social factors of life in
the late twentieth century." The revival
of religion, "la revanche de Dieu,"
as Gilles Kepel labeled it, provides a basis
for identity and commitment that transcends
national boundaries and unites civilizations.
Fourth, the growth of civilization-consciousness
is enhanced by the dual role of the West.
On the one hand, the West is at a peak of
power. At the same time, however, and perhaps
as a result, a return to the roots phenomenon
is occurring among non-Western civilizations.
Increasingly one hears references to trends
toward a turning inward and "Asianization"
in Japan, the end of the Nehru legacy and
the "Hinduization" of India, the
failure of Western ideas of socialism and
nationalism and hence "re-Islamization"
of the Middle East, and now a debate over
Westernization versus Russianization in Boris
Yeltsin's country. A West at the peak of
its power confronts non-Wests that increasingly
have the desire, the will and the resources
to shape the world in non-Western ways.
In the past, the elites of non-Western societies
were usually the people who were most involved
with the West, had been educated at Oxford,
the Sorbonne or Sandhurst, and had absorbed
Western attitudes and values. At the same
time, the populace in non-Western countries
often remained deeply imbued with the indigenous
culture. Now, however, these relationships
are being reversed. A de-Westernization and
indigenization of elites is occurring in
many non-Western countries at the same time
that Western, usually American, cultures,
styles and habits become more popular among
the mass of the people.
Fifth, cultural characteristics and differences
are less mutable and hence less easily compromised
and resolved than political and economic
ones. In the former Soviet Union, communists
can become democrats, the rich can become
poor and the poor rich, but Russians cannot
become Estonians and Azeris cannot become
Armenians. In class and ideological conflicts,
the key question was "Which side are
you on?" and people could and did choose
sides and change sides. In conflicts between
civilizations, the question is "What
are you?" That is a given that cannot
be changed. And as we know, from Bosnia to
the Caucasus to the Sudan, the wrong answer
to that question can mean a bullet in the
head. Even more than ethnicity, religion
discriminates sharply and exclusively among
people. A person can be half-French and half-Arab
and simultaneously even a citizen of two
countries. It is more difficult to be half-Catholic
and half-Muslim.
Finally, economic regionalism is increasing.
The proportions of total trade that are intraregional
rose between 1980 and 1989 from 51 percent
to 59 percent in Europe, 33 percent to 37
percent in East Asia, and 32 percent to 36
percent in North America. The importance
of regional economic blocs is likely to continue
to increase in the future. On the one hand,
successful economic regionalism will reinforce
civilization-consciousness. On the other
hand, economic regionalism may succeed only
when it is rooted in a common civilization.
The European Community rests on the shared
foundation of European culture and Western
Christianity. The success of the North American
Free Trade Area depends on the convergence
now underway of Mexican, Canadian and American
cultures. Japan, in contrast, faces difficulties
in creating a comparable economic entity
in East Asia because Japan is a society and
civilization unique to itself. However strong
the trade and investment links Japan may
develop with other East Asian countries,
its cultural differences with those countries
inhibit and perhaps preclude its promoting
regional economic integration like that in
Europe and North America.
Common culture, in contrast, is clearly facilitating
the rapid expansion of the economic relations
between the People's Republic of China and
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and the overseas
Chinese communities in other Asian countries.
With the Cold War over, cultural commonalities
increasingly overcome ideological differences,
and mainland China and Taiwan move closer
together. If cultural commonality is a prerequisite
for economic integration, the principal East
Asian economic bloc of the future is likely
to be centered on China. This bloc is, in
fact, already coming into existence. As Murray
Weidenbaum has observed,
Despite the current Japanese dominance of
the region, the Chinese-based economy of
Asia is rapidly emerging as a new epicenter
for industry, commerce and finance. This
strategic area contains substantial amounts
of technology and manufacturing capability
(Taiwan), outstanding entrepreneurial, marketing
and services acumen (Hong Kong), a fine communications
network (Singapore), a tremendous pool of
financial capital (all three), and very large
endowments of land, resources and labor (mainland
China). . . . From Guangzhou to Singapore,
from Kuala Lumpur to Manila, this influential
network -- often based on extensions of the
traditional clans -- has been described as
the backbone of the East Asian economy. n1
n1 Murray Weidenbaum, Greater China: The
Next Economic Superpower?, St. Louis: Washington
University Center for the Study of American
Business, Contemporary Issues, Series 57,
February 1993, pp. 2-3.
Culture and religion also form the basis
of the Economic Cooperation Organization,
which brings together ten non-Arab Muslim
countries: Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan,
Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. One impetus to
the revival and expansion of this organization,
founded originally in the
1960s by Turkey, Pakistan and Iran, is the
realization by the leaders of several of
these countries that they had no chance of
admission to the European Community. Similarly,
Caricom, the Central American Common Market
and Mercosur rest on common cultural foundations.
Efforts to build a broader Caribbean-Central
American economic entity bridging the Anglo-Latin
divide, however, have to date failed.
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.
The end of ideologically defined states in
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
permits traditional ethnic identities and
animosities to come to the fore. Differences
in culture and religion create differences
over policy issues, ranging from human rights
to immigration to trade and commerce to the
environment. Geographical propinquity gives
rise to conflicting territorial claims from
Bosnia to Mindanao. Most important, the efforts
of the West to promote its values of democracy
and liberalism to universal values, to maintain
its military predominance and to advance
its economic interests engender countering
responses from other civilizations. Decreasingly
able to mobilize support and form coalitions
on the basis of ideology, governments and
groups will increasingly attempt to mobilize
support by appealing to common religion and
civilization identity.
The clash of civilizations thus occurs at
two levels. At the micro-level, adjacent
groups along the fault lines between civilizations
struggle, often violently, over the control
of territory and each other. At the macro-level,
states from different civilizations compete
for relative military and economic power,
struggle over the control of international
institutions and third parties, and competitively
promote their particular political and religious
values.
IV. THE FAULT LINES BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONS
THE FAULT LINES between civilizations are
replacing the political and ideological boundaries
of the Cold War as the flash points for crisis
and bloodshed. The Cold War began when the
Iron Curtain divided Europe politically and
ideologically. The Cold War ended with the
end of the Iron Curtain. As the ideological
division of Europe has disappeared, the cultural
division of Europe between Western Christianity,
on the one hand, and Orthodox Christianity
and Islam, on the other, has reemerged. The
most significant dividing line in Europe,
as William Wallace has suggested, may well
be the eastern boundary of Western Christianity
in the year 1500. This line runs along what
are now the boundaries between Finland and
Russia and between the Baltic states and
Russia, cuts through Belarus and Ukraine
separating the more Catholic western Ukraine
from Orthodox eastern Ukraine, swings westward
separating Transylvania from the rest of
Romania, and then goes through Yugoslavia
almost exactly along the line now separating
Croatia and Slovenia from the rest of Yugoslavia.
In the Balkans this line, of course, coincides
with the historic boundary between the Hapsburg
and Ottoman empires. The peoples to the north
and west of this line are Protestant or Catholic;
they shared the common experiences of European
history -- feudalism, the Renaissance, the
Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French
Revolution, the Industrial Revolution; they
are generally economically better off than
the peoples to the east; and they may now
look forward to increasing involvement in
a common European economy and to the consolidation
of democratic political systems. The peoples
to the east and south of this line are Orthodox
or Muslim; they historically belonged to
the Ottoman or Tsarist empires and were only
lightly touched by the shaping events in
the rest of Europe; they are generally less
advanced economically; they seem much less
likely to develop stable democratic political
systems. The Velvet Curtain of culture has
replaced the Iron Curtain of ideology as
the most significant dividing line in Europe.
As the events in Yugoslavia show, it is not
only a line of difference; it is also at
times a line of bloody conflict.
Conflict along the fault line between Western
and Islamic civilizations has been going
on for 1,300 years. After the founding of
Islam, the Arab and Moorish surge west and
north only ended at Tours in 732. From the
eleventh to the thirteenth century the Crusaders
attempted with temporary success to bring
Christianity and Christian rule to the Holy
Land. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth
century, the Ottoman Turks reversed the balance,
extended their sway over the Middle East
and the Balkans, captured Constantinople,
and twice laid siege to Vienna. In the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries at Ottoman
power declined Britain, France, and Italy
established Western control over most of
North Africa and the Middle East.
After World War II, the West, in turn, began
to retreat; the colonial empires disappeared;
first Arab nationalism and then Islamic fundamentalism
manifested themselves; the West became heavily
dependent on the Persian Gulf countries for
its energy; the oil-rich Muslim countries
became money-rich and, when they wished to,
weapons-rich. Several wars occurred between
Arabs and Israel (created by the West). France
fought a bloody and ruthless war in Algeria
for most of the 1950s; British and French
forces invaded Egypt in 1956; American forces
returned to Lebanon, attacked Libya, and
engaged in various military encounters with
Iran; Arab and Islamic terrorists, supported
by at least three Middle Eastern governments,
employed the weapon of the weak and bombed
Western planes and installations and seized
Western hostages. This warfare between Arabs
and the West culminated in 1990, when the
United States sent a massive army to the
Persian Gulf to defend some Arab countries
against aggression by another. In its aftermath
NATO planning is increasingly directed to
potential threats and instability along its
"southern tier."
This centuries-old military interaction between
the West and Islam is unlikely to decline.
It could become more virulent. The Gulf War
left some Arabs feeling proud that Saddam
Hussein had attacked Israel and stood up
to the West. It also left many feeling humiliated
and resentful of the West's military presence
in the Persian Gulf, the West's overwhelming
military dominance, and their apparent inability
to shape their own destiny. Many Arab countries,
in addition to the oil exporters, are reaching
levels of economic and social development
where autocratic forms of government become
inappropriate and efforts to introduce democracy
become stronger. Some openings in Arab political
systems have already occurred. The principal
beneficiaries of these openings have been
Islamist movements. In the Arab world, in
short, Western democracy strengthens anti-Western
political forces. This may be a passing phenomenon,
but it surely complicates relations between
Islamic countries and the West.
Those relations are also complicated by demography.
The spectacular population growth in Arab
countries, particularly in North Africa,
has led to increased migration to Western
Europe. The movement within Western Europe
toward minimizing internal boundaries has
sharpened political sensitivities with respect
to this development. In Italy, France and
Germany, racism is increasingly open, and
political reactions and violence against
Arab and Turkish migrants have become more
intense and more widespread since 1990.
On both sides the interaction between Islam
and the West is seen as a clash of civilizations.
The West's "next confrontation,"
observes M. J. Akbar, an Indian Muslim author,
"is definitely going to come from the
Muslim world. It is in the sweep of the Islamic
nations from the Meghreb to Pakistan that
the struggle for a new world order will begin."
Bernard Lewis comes to a regular conclusion:
"We are facing a need and a movement
far transcending the level of issues and
policies and the governments that pursue
them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations
-- the perhaps irrational but surely historic
reaction of an ancient rival against our
Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present,
and the worldwide expansion of both. n2
n2 Bernard Lewis, "The Roots of Muslim
Rage," The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 266,
September 1990, p. 60; Time, June 15k 1992,
pp. 24-28.
Historically, the other great antagonistic
interaction of Arab Islamic civilization
has been with the pagan, animist, and now
increasingly Christian black peoples to the
south. In the past, this antagonism was epitomized
in the image of Arab slave dealers and black
slaves. It has been reflected in the on-going
civil war in the Sudan between Arabs and
blacks, the fighting in Chad between Libyan-supported
insurgents and the government, the tensions
between Orthodox Christians and Muslims in
the Horn of Africa, and the political conflicts,
recurring riots and communal violence between
Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. The modernization
of Africa and the spread of Christianity
in Nigeria. The modernization of Africa and
the spread of Christianity are likely to
enhance the probability of violence along
this fault line. Symptomatic of the intensification
of this conflict was the Pope John Paul II's
speech in Khartoum in February 1993 attacking
the actions of the Sudan's Islamist government
against the Christian minority there.
On the northern border of Islam, conflict
has increasingly erupted between Orthodox
and Muslim peoples, including the carnage
of Bosnia and Sarajevo, the simmering violence
between Serb and Albanian, the tenuous relation
between Bulgarians and their Turkish minority,
the violence between Ossetians and Ingush,
the unremitting slaughter of each other by
Armenians and Azeris, the tense relations
between Russians and Muslims in Central Asia,
and the deployment of Russian troops to protect
Russian interests in the Caucasus and Central
Asia. Religion reinforces the revival of
ethnic identities and restimulates Russian
fears about the security of their southern
borders. This concern is well captured by
Archie Roosevelt:
Much of Russian history concerns the struggle
between Slavs and the Turkish peoples on
their borders, which dates back to the foundation
of the Russian state more than a thousand
years ago. In the Slavs' millennium-long
confrontation with their eastern neighbors
lies the key to an understanding not only
of Russian history, but Russian character.
To under Russian realities today one has
to have a concept of the great Turkic ethnic
group that has preoccupied Russians through
the centuries. n3
n3 Archie Roosevelt, For Lust of Knowing,
Boston: Little, Brown, 1988, pp. 332-333.
The conflict of civilizations is deeply rooted
elsewhere in Asia. The historic clash between
Muslim and Hindu in the subcontinent manifests
itself now not only is the rivalry between
Pakistan and India but also in intensifying
religious strife within India between increasingly
militant Hindu groups and India's substantial
Muslim minority. The destruction of the Ayodhya
mosque in December 1992 brought to the fore
the issue of whether India will remain a
secular democratic state or become a Hindu
one. In East Asia, China has outstanding
territorial disputes with most of its neighbors.
It has pursued a ruthless policy toward the
Buddhist people of Tibet, and it is pursuing
an increasingly ruthless policy toward its
Turkic-Muslim minority. With the Cold War
over, the underlying differences between
China and the United States have reasserted
themselves in areas such as human rights,
trade and weapons proliferation. These differences
are unlikely to moderate. A "new cold
war," Deng Xaioping reportedly asserted
in 1991, is under way between China and America.
The same phrase has been applied to the increasingly
difficult relations between Japan and the
United States. Here cultural difference exacerbates
economic conflict. People on each side allege
racism on the other, but at least on the
American side the antipathies are not racial
but cultural. The basic values, attitudes,
behavioral patterns of the two societies
could hardly be more different. The economic
issues between the United States and Europe
are no less serious than those between the
United States and Japan, but they do not
have thesame political salience and emotional
intensity because the differences between
American culture and European culture are
so much less than those between American
civilization and Japanese civilization.
The interactions between civilizations vary
greatly in the extent to which they are likely
to be characterized by violence. Economic
competition clearly predominates between
the American and European subcivilizations
of the West and between both of them and
Japan. On the Eurasian continent, however,
the proliferation of ethnic conflict, epitomized
at the extreme in "ethnic cleansing,"
has not been totally random. It has been
most frequent and most violent between groups
belonging to different civilizations. In
Eurasia the great historic fault lines between
civilizations are once more aflame. This
is particularly true along the boundaries
of the crescent-shaped Islamic bloc of nations
from the bulge of Africa to central Asia.
Violence also occurs between Muslims, on
the one hand, and Orthodox Serbs in the Balkans,
Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Buddhists
in Burma and Catholics in the Philippines.
Islam has bloody borders.
V. CIVILIZATION RALLYING
THE KIN-COUNTRY SYNDROME GROUPS OR STATES
belonging to one civilization that become
involved in war with people from a different
civilization naturally try to rally support
from other members of their own civilization.
As the post-Cold War world evolves, civilization
commonality, what H. D. S. Greenway has termed
the "kin-country" syndrome, is
replacing political ideology and traditional
balance of power considerations as the principal
basis for cooperation and coalitions. It
can be seen gradually emerging in the post-Cold
War conflicts in the Persian Gulf, the Caucasus
and Bosnia. None of these was a full-scale
war between civilizations, but each involved
some elements of civilization rallying, which
seemed to become more important as the conflict
continued and which may provide a foretaste
of the future.
First, in the Gulf War one Arab state invaded
another and then fought a coalition of Arab,
Western and other states. While only a few
Muslim governments overtly supported Saddam
Hussein, many Arab elites privately cheered
him on, and he was highly popular among large
sections of the Arab publics. Islamic fundamentalist
movements universally supported Iraq rather
than the Western-backed governments of Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia. Forswearing Arab nationalism,
Saddam Hussein explicitly invoked an Islamic
appeal. He and his supporters attempted to
define the war as a war between civilizations.
"It is not the world against Iraq,"
as Safar Al-Hawali, dean of Islamic Studies
at the Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca, put
it in a widely circulated tape. "It
is the West against Islam." Ignoring
the rivalry between Iran and Iraq, the chief
Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
called for a holy war against the West: "The
struggle against American aggression, greed,
plans and policies will be counted as a jahad,
and anybody who is killed on that path is
a martyr.""This is a war,"
King Hussein of Jordan argued, "against
all Arabs and all Muslims and not against
Iraq alone."
The rallying of substantial sections of Arab
elites and publics behind Saddam Hussein
called those Arab governments in the anti-Iraq
coalition to moderate their activities and
temper their public statements. Arab governments
opposed or distanced themselves from subsequent
Western efforts to apply pressure on Iraq,
including enforcement of a no-fly zone in
the summer of 1992 and the bombing of Iraq
in January 1993. The Western-Soviet-Turkish-Arab
anti-Iraq coalition of 1990 had by 1993 become
a coalition of almost only the West and Kuwait
against Iraq.
Muslims contrasted Western actions against
Iraq with the West's failure to protect Bosnians
against Serbs and to impose sanctions on
Israel for violating U. N. resolutions. The
West, they allege, was using a double standard.
A world of clashing civilizations, however,
is inevitably a world of double standards:
people apply one standard to their kin-countries
and a different standard to others.
Second, the kin-country syndrome also appeared
in conflicts in the former Soviet Union.
Armenian military successes in 1992 and 1993
stimulated Turkey to become increasingly
supportive of its religious, ethnic and linguistic
brethren in Azerbaijan. "We have a Turkish
nation feeling the same sentiments as the
Azerbaijanis," said one Turkish official
in 1992. "We are under pressure. Our
newspapers are full of the photos of atrocities
and are asking us if we are still serious
about pursuing our neutral policy. Maybe
we should show Armenia that there's a big
Turkey in the region." President Turgut
Ozal agreed, remarking that Turkey should
at least "scare the Armenians a little
bit." Turkey, Ozal threatened again
in 1993, would "show its fangs."
Turkey Air Force jets flew reconnaissance
flights along the Armenian border; Turkey
suspended food shipments and air flights
to Armenia; and Turkey and Iran announced
they would not accept dismemberment of Azerbaijan.
In the last years of its existence, the Soviet
government supported Azerbaijan because its
government was dominated by former communists.
With the end of the Soviet Union, however,
political considerations gave way to religious
ones. Russian troops fought on the Side of
the Armenians, and Azerbaijan accused the
"Russian government of turning 180 degrees"
toward support for Christian Armenia.
Third, with respect to the fighting in the
former Yugoslavia, Western publics manifested
sympathy and support for the Bosnian Muslims
and the horrors they suffered at the hands
of the Serbs. Relatively little concern was
expressed, however, over Croatian attacks
on Muslims and participation in the dismemberment
of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the early stages
of the Yugoslav breakup, Germany, in an unusual
display of diplomatic initiative and muscle,
induced the other 11 members of the European
Community to follow its lead in recognizing
Slovenia and Croatia. As a result of the
pope's determination to provide strong backing
to the two Catholic countries, the Vatican
extended recognition even before the Community
did. The United States followed the European
lead. Thus the leading actors in Western
civilization rallied behind its coreligionists.
Subsequently Croatia was reported to be receiving
substantial quantities of arms from Central
European and other Western countries. Boris
Yeltsin's government, on the other hand,
attempted to pursue a middle course that
would be sympathetic to the Orthodox Serbs
but not alienate Russia from the West. Russian
conservative and nationalist groups, however,
including many legislators, attacked the
government for not being more forthcoming
in its support for the Serbs. By early 1993
several hundred Russians apparently were
serving with the Serbian forces, and reports
circulated of Russian arms being supplied
to Serbia.
Islamic governments and groups, on the other
hand, castigated the West for not coming
to the defense of the Bosnians. Iranian leaders
urged Muslims from all countries to provide
help to Bosnia; in violation of the U. N.
arms embargo, Iran supplied weapons and men
for the Bosnians; Iranian-supported Lebanese
groups sent guerrillas to train and organize
the Bosnian forces.
In 1993 up to 4,000 Muslims from over two
dozen Islamic countries were reported to
be fighting in Bosnia. The governments of
Saudi Arabia and other countries felt under
increasing pressure from fundamentalist groups
in their own societies to provide more vigorous
support for the Bosnians. By the end of 1992,
Saudi Arabia had reportedly supplied substantial
funding for weapons and supplies for the
Bosnians, which significantly increased their
military capabilities vis-a-vis the Serbs.
In the 1930s the Spanish Civil War provoked
intervention from countries that politically
were fascist, communist and democratic. In
the 1990s the Yugoslav conflict is provoking
intervention from countries that are Muslim,
Orthodox and Western Christian. The parallel
has not gone unnoticed. "The war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina has become the emotional
equivalent of the fight against fascism in
the Spanish Civil War," one Saudi editor
observed. "Those who died there are
regarded as martyrs who tried to save their
fellow Muslims."
Conflicts and violence will also occur between
states and groups within the same civilization.
Such conflicts, however, are likely to be
less intense and less likely to expand than
conflicts between civilizations. Common membership
in a civilization reduces the probability
of violence in situations where it might
otherwise occur. In 1991 and 1992 many people
were alarmed by the possibility of violent
conflict between Russia and Ukraine over
territory, particularly Crimea, the Black
Sea fleet, nuclear weapons and economic issues.
If civilization is what counts, however,
the likelihood of violence between Ukrainians
and Russians should be low. They are two
Slavic, primarily Orthodox peoples who have
had close relationships with each other for
centuries. As of early 1993, despite all
the reasons for conflict, the leaders of
the two countries were effectively negotiating
and defusing the issues between the two countries.
While there has been serious fighting between
Muslims and Christians elsewhere in the former
Soviet Union and much tension and some fighting
between Western and Orthodox Christians in
the Baltic states, there has been virtually
no violence between Russians and Ukrainians.
Civilization rallying to date has been limited,
but it has been growing, and it clearly has
the potential to spread much further. As
the conflicts in the Persian Gulf, the Caucasus
and Bosnia continued, the positions of nations
and the cleavages between them increasingly
were along civilizational lines. Populist
politicians, religious leaders and the media
have found it a potential means of arousing
mass support and of pressuring hesitant governments.
In the coming years, the local conflicts
most likely to escalate into major wars will
be those, as in Bosnia and the Caucasus,
along the fault lines between civilizations.
The next world war, if there is one, will
be a war between civilizations.
VI. THE WEST VERSUS THE REST
THE WEST IS NOW at an extraordinary peak
of power in relation to other civilizations.
In superpower opponent has disappeared from
the map. Military conflict among Western
states is unthinkable, and Western military
power is unrivaled. Apart from Japan, the
West faces no economic challenge. It dominates
international economic institutions. Global
political and security issues are effectively
settled by a directorate of the United States,
Britain and France, world economic issues
by a directorate of the United States, Germany
and Japan, all of which maintain extraordinarily
close relations with each other to the exclusion
of lesser and largely non-Western countries.
Decisions made at the U. N. Security Council
or in the International Monetary Fund that
reflect the interests of the West are presented
to the world as reflecting the desires of
the world community. The very phrase "the
world community" has become the euphemistic
collective noun (replacing "the Free
World") to give global legitimacy to
actions reflecting the interests of the United
States and other Western powers. n4 Through
the IMF and other international economic
institutions, the West promotes its economic
interests and imposes on other nations the
economic policies it thinks appropriate.
In any poll of non-Western peoples, the IMF
undoubtedly would win the support of finance
ministers and a few others, but get an overwhelmingly
unfavorable rating from just about everyone
else, who would agree with Georgy Arbatov's
characterization of IMF officials as "neo-Bolsheviks
who love expropriating other people's money,
imposing undemocratic and alien rules of
economic and political conduct and stifling
economic freedom."
n4 Almost invariably Western leaders claim
they are acting on behalf of "the world
community." One minor lapse occurred
during the run-up to the Gulf War. In an
interview on "Good Morning America,"
Dec. 21, 1990, British Prime Minister John
Major referred to the actions "the West"
was taking against Saddam Hussein. He quickly
corrected himself and subsequently referred
to "the world community." He was,
however, right when he erred.
Western domination of the U. N. Security
Council and its decisions, tempered only
by occasional abstention by China, produced
U. N. legitimation of the West's use of force
to drive Iraq out of Kuwait and its elimination
of Iraq's sophisticated weapons and capacity
to produce such weapons. It also produced
the quite unprecedented action by the United
States, Britain and France in getting the
Security Council to demand that Libya hand
over the Pan Am 103 bombing suspects and
then to impose sanctions when Libya refused.
After defeating the largest Arab army, the
West did not hesistate to throw its weight
around in the Arab world. The West in effect
is using international institutions, military
power and economic resources to run the world
in ways that will maintain Western predominance,
protect Western interests and promote Western
political and economic values.
That at least is the way in which non-Westerners
see the new world, and there is a significant
element of truth in their view. Differences
in power and struggles for military, economic
and institutional power are thus one source
of conflict between the West and other civilizations.
Differences in culture, that is basic values
and beliefs, are a second source of conflict.
V. S. Naipaul has argued that Western civilization
is the "universal civilization"
that "fits all men." At a superficial
level much of Western culture has indeed
permeated the rest of the world. At a more
basic level, however, Western concepts differ
fundamentally from those prevalent in other
civilizations. Western ideas of individualism,
liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights,
equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy,
free markets, the separation of church and
state, often have little resonance in Islamic,
Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or Orthodox
cultures. Western efforts to propagate each
ideas produce instead a reaction against
"human rights imperialism" and
a reaffirmation of indigenous values, as
can be seen in the support for religious
fundamentalism by the younger generation
in non-Western cultures. The very notion
that there could be a "universal civilization"
is a Western idea, directly at odds with
the particularism of most Asian societies
and their emphasis on what distinguishes
one people from another. Indeed, the author
of a review of 100 comparative studies of
values in different societies concluded that
"the values that are most important
in the West are least important worldwide."
n5 In the political realm, of course, these
differences are most manifest in the efforts
of the United States and other Western powers
to induce other peoples to adopt Western
ideas concerning democracy and human rights.
Modern democratic government originated in
the West. When it has developed colonialism
or imposition.
n5 Harry C. Triandis, The New York Times,
Dec. 25, 1990, p. 41, and "Cross-Cultural
Studies of Individualism and Collectivism,"
Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, vol.
37, 1989, pp. 41-133.
The central axis of world politics in the
future is likely to be, in Kishore Mahbubani's
phrase, the conflict between "the West
and the Rest" and the responses of non-Western
civilizations to Western power and values.
n6 Those responses generally take one or
a combination of three forms. At one extreme,
non-Western states can, like Burma and North
Korea, attempt to pursue a course of isolation,
to insulate their societies from penetration
or "corruption" by the West, and,
in effect, to opt out of participation in
the Western-dominated global community. The
costs of this course, however, are high,
and few states have pursued it exclusively.
A second alternative, the equivalent of "band-wagoning"
in international relations theory, is to
attempt to join the West and accept its values
and institutions. The third alternative is
to attempt to "balance" the West
by developing economic and military power
and cooperating with other non-Western societies
against the West, while preserving indigenous
values and institutions; in short, to modernize
but not to Westernize.
n6 Kishore Mahbubani, "The West and
the Rest," The National Interest, Summer
1992, pp. 3-13.
VII. THE TORN COUNTRIES
IN THE FUTURE, as people differentiate themselves
by civilization, countries with large numbers
of people of different civilizations, such
as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, are candidates
for dismemberment. Some other countries have
a fair degree of cultural homogeneity but
are divided over whether their society belongs
to one civilization or another. These are
town countries. Their leaders typically wish
to pursue a bandwagoning strategy and to
make theirc ountries members of the West,
but the history, culture and traditions of
their countries are non-Western. The most
obvious and prototypical torn country is
Turkey. The late twentieth-century leaders
of Turkey have followed in the Attaturk tradition
and defined Turkey as a modern, secular,
Western nation state. They allied Turkey
with the West in NATO and in the Gulf War;
they applied for membership in the European
Community. At the same time, however, elements
in Turkish society have supported an Islamic
revival and have argued that Turkey is basically
a Middle Eastern Muslim society. In addition,
while the elite of Turkey has defined Turkey
as a Western society, the elite of the West
refuses to accept Turkey and such. Turkey
will not become a member of the European
Community, and the real reason, as President
Ozal said, "is that we are Muslim and
they are Christian and they don't say that."
Having rejected Mecca, and then being rejected
by Brussels, where does Turkey look? Tashkent
may be the answer. The end of the Soviet
Union gives Turkey the opportunity to become
the leader of a revived Turkic civilization
involving seven countries from the borders
of Greece to those of China. Encouraged by
the West, Turkey is making strenuous efforts
to carve out this new identity for itself.
During the past decade Mexico has assumed
a position somewhat similar to that of Turkey.
Just as Turkey abandoned its historic opposition
to Europe and attempted to join Europe, Mexico
has stopped defining itself by its opposition
to the United States and is instead attempting
to imitate the United States and to join
it in the North American Free Trade Area.
Mexican leaders are engaged in the great
task of redefining Mexican identity and have
introduced fundamental economic reforms that
eventually will lead to fundamental political
change. In 1991 a top adviser to President
Carlos Salinas de Gortari described at length
tome all the changes the Salinas government
was making. When he finished, I remarked:
"That's most impressive. It seems to
me that basically you want to change Mexico
from a Latin American country into a North
American country." He looked at me with
surprise and exclaimed: "Exactly! That's
precisely what we are trying to do, but of
course we could never say so publicly."
As his remark indicates, in Mexico as in
Turkey, significant elements in society resist
the redefinition of their country's identity.
In Turkey, European-oriented leaders have
to make gestures to Islam (Ozal's pilgrimage
to Mecca); so also Mexico's North American-oriented
leaders have to make gestures to those who
hold Mexico to be a Latin American country
(Salinas' Ibero-American Guadalajara summit).
Historically Turkey has been the most profoundly
torn country. For the United States, Mexico
is the most immediate torn country. Globally
the most important torn country is Russia.
The question of whether Russia is part of
the West or the leader of the Slavic-Orthodox
civilization has been a recurring one in
Russian history. That issue was obscured
by the communist victory in Russia, which
imported a Western ideology, adapted it to
Russian conditions and then challenged the
West in the name of that ideology. The dominance
of communism shut off the historic debate
over Westernization versus Russification.
With communism discredited Russians once
again face that question.
President Yeltsin is adopting Western principles
and goals and seeking to make Russia a "normal"
country and a part of the West. Yet both
the Russian elite and the Russian public
are divided on this issue. Among the more
moderate dissenters, Sergei Stankevich argues
that Russia should reject the "Atlanticist"
course, which would lead it "to become
European, to become a part of the world economy
in rapid and organized fashion, to become
the eighth member of the Seven, and to particular
emphasis on Germany and the United States
as the two dominant members of the Atlantic
alliance." While also rejecting an exclusively
Eurasian policy, Stankevich nonetheless argues
that Russia should give priority to the protection
of Russians in other countries, emphasize
its Turkic and Muslim connections, and promote
"an appreciable redistribution of our
resources, our options, our ties, and our
interests in favor of Asia, of the eastern
direction." People of this persuasion
criticize Yeltsin for subordinating Russia's
interests to those of the West, for reducing
Russian military strength, for failing to
support traditional friends such as Serbia,
and for pushing economic and political reform
in ways injurious to the Russian people.
Indicative of this trend is the new popularity
of the ideas of Petr Savitsky, who in the
1920s argued that Russia was a unique Eurasian
civilization. n7 More extreme dissidents
voice much more blatantly nationalist, anti-Western
and anti-Semitic views, and urge Russia to
redevelop its military strength and to establish
closer ties with China and Muslim countries.
The people of Russia areas divided as the
elite. An opinion survey in European Russia
in the spring of 1992 revealed that 40 percent
of the public had positive attitudes toward
the West and 36 percent had negative attitudes.
As it has been for much of its history, Russia
in the early 1990s is truly a torn country.
n7 Sergei Stankevich, "Russia in Search
of Itself," The National Interest, Summer
1992, pp. 47-51; Daniel Schneider, "A
Russian Movement Rejects Western Tilt,"
Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 5, 1993,
pp. 5-7.
To redefine its civilization identity, a
torn country must meet three requirements.
First, its political and economic elite has
to be generally supportive of and enthusiastic
about the move. Second, its public has to
be willing to acquiesce in the redefinition.
Third, the dominant groups in the recipient
civilization have to be willing to embrace
the convert. All three requirements in large
part exist with respect to Mexico. The first
two in large part exist with respect to Turkey.
It is not clear that any of them exist with
respect to Russia's joining the West. The
conflict between liberal democracy and Marxism-Leninism
was between ideologies which, despite their
major differences, ostensibly shared ultimate
goals of freedom, equality and prosperity.
A traditional, authoritarian, nationalist
Russia could have quite different goals.
A Western democrat could carry on an intellectual
debate with a Soviet Marxist. It would be
virtually impossible for him to do that with
a Russian traditionalist. If, as the Russians
stop behaving like Marxists, they reject
liberal democracy and begin behaving like
Russians but not like Westerners, the relations
between Russia and the West could again become
distant and conflictual. n8
n8 Owen Harries has pointed out that Australia
is trying (unwisely in his view) to become
a torn country in reverse. Although it has
been a full member not only of the West but
also of the ABCA military and intelligence
core of the West, its current leaders are
in effect proposing that it defect from the
West, redefine itself as an Asian country
and cultivate close ties with its neighbors.
Australia's future, they argue, is with the
dynamic economies of East Asia. But, as I
have suggested, close economic cooperation
normally requires a common cultural base.
In addition, none of the three conditions
necessary for a torn country to join another
civilization is likely to exist in Australia's
case.
VIII. THE CONFUCIAN-ISLAMIC CONNECTION
THE OBSTACLES TO non-Western countries joining
the West vary considerably. They are least
for Latin American and East European countries.
They are greater for the Orthodox countries
of the former Soviet Union. They are still
greater for Muslim, Confucian, Hindu and
Buddhist societies. Japan has established
a unique position for itself as an associate
member of the West: it is in the West in
some respects but clearly not of the West
in important dimensions. Those countries
that for reason of culture and power do not
wish to, or cannot, join the West compete
with the West by developing their own economic,
military and political power. They do this
by promoting their internal development and
by cooperating with other non-Western countries.
The most prominent form of this cooperation
is the Confucian-Islamic connection that
has emerged to challenge Western interests,
values and power.
Almost without exception, Western countries
are reducing their military power; under
Yeltsin's leadership so also is Russia. China,
North Korea and several Middle Eastern states,
however, are significantly expanding their
military capabilities. They are doing this
by the import of arms from Western and non-Western
sources and by the development of indigenous
arms industries. One result is the emergence
of what Charles Krauthammer has called "Weapon
States," and the Weapon States are not
Western states. Another result is the redefinition
of arms control, which is a Western concept
and a Western goal. During the Cold War the
primary purpose of arms control was to establish
a stable military balance between the United
States and its allies and the Soviet Union
and its allies. In the post-Cold War world
the primary objective of arms control is
to prevent the development by non-Western
societies of military capabilities that could
threaten Western interests. The West attempts
to do this through international agreements,
economic pressure and controls on the transfer
of arms and weapons technologies.
The conflict between the West and the Confucian-Islamic
states focuses largely, although not exclusively,
on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,
ballistic missiles and other sophisticated
means for delivering them, and the guidance,
intelligence and other electronic capabilities
for achieving that goal. The West promotes
nonproliferation as a universal norm and
nonproliferation treaties and inspections
as means of realizing that norm. It also
threatens a variety of sanctions against
those who promote the spread of sophisticated
weapons and proposes some benefits for those
who do not. The attention of the West focuses,
naturally on nations that are actually or
potentially hostile to the West.
The non-Western nations, on the other hand,
assert their right to acquire and to deploy
whatever weapons they think necessary for
their security. They also have absorbed,
to the full, the truth of the response of
the Indian defense minister when asked what
lesson he learned from the Gulf War: "Don't
fight the United States unless you have nuclear
weapons." Nuclear weapons, chemical
weapons and missiles are viewed, probably
erroneously, as the potential equalizer of
superior Western conventional power. China,
of course, already has nuclear weapons; Pakistan
and India have the capability to deploy them.
North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Algeria
appear to be attempting to acquire them.
Atop Iranian official has declared that all
Muslim states should acquire nuclear weapons,
and in 1988 the president of Iran reportedly
issued a directive calling for development
of "offensive and defensive chemical,
biological and radiological weapons."
Centrally important to the development of
counter-West military capabilities is the
sustained expansion of China's military power
and its means to create military power. Buoyed
by spectacular economic development, China
is rapidly increasing its military spending
and vigorously moving forward with the modernization
of its armed forces. It is purchasing weapons
from the former Soviet states; it is developing
long-range missiles; in 1992 it tested a
one-megaton nuclear device. It is developing
power-projection capabilities, acquiring
aerial refueling technology, and trying to
purchase an aircraft carrier. Its military
buildup and assertion of sovereignty over
the South China Sea are provoking a multilateral
regional arms race in East Asia. China is
also a major exporter of arms and weapons
technology. It has exported materials to
Libya and Iraq that could be used to manufacture
nuclear weapons and nerve gas. It has helped
Algeria build a reactor suitable for nuclear
weapons research and production. China has
sold to Iran nuclear technology that American
officials believe could only be used to create
weapons and apparently has shipped components
of
300-mile-range missiles to Pakistan. North
Korea has had a nuclear weapons program under
way for some while and has sold advanced
missiles and missile technology to Syria
and Iran. The flow of weapons and weapons
technology is generally from East Asia to
the Middle East. There is, however, some
movement in the reverse direction; China
has received Stinger missiles from Pakistan.
A Confucian-Islamic military connection has
thus come into being, designed to promote
acquisition by its members of the weapons
and weapons technologies needed to counter
the military powers of the West. It may or
may not last. At present, however, it is,
as Dave McCurdy has said, "a renegades'
mutual support pact, run by the proliferators
and their backers." A new form of arms
competition is thus occurring between Islamic-Confucian
states and the West. Inan old-fashioned arms
race, each side developed its own arms to
balance or to achieve superiority against
the other side. In this new form of arms
competition, one side is developing its arms
and the other side is attempting not to balance
but to limit and prevent that arms build-up
while at the same time reducing its own military
capabilities.
IX. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE WEST
THIS ARTICLE DOES not argue that civilization
identities will replace all other identities,
that nation states will disappear, that each
civilization will become a single coherent
political entity, that groups within a civilization
will not conflict with and even fight each
other. This paper does set forth the hypotheses
that differences between civilizations are
real and important; civilization-consciousness
is increasing; conflict between civilizations
will supplant ideological and other forms
of conflict as the dominant global form of
conflict; international relations, historically
a game played out within Western civilization,
will increasingly be de-Westernized and become
a game in which non-Western civilizations
are actors and not simply objects; successful
political, security and economic international
institutions are more likely to develop within
civilizations than across civilizations;
conflicts between groups in different civilizations
will be more frequent, more sustained and
more violent than conflicts between groups
in the same civilization; violent conflicts
between groups in different civilizations
are the most likely and most dangerous source
of escalation that could lead to global wars;
the paramount axis of world politics will
be the relations between "the West and
the Rest"; the elites in some torn non-Western
countries will try to make their countries
part of the West, but in most cases face
major obstacles to accomplishing this; a
central focus of conflict for the immediate
future will be between the West and several
Islamic-Confucian states.
This is not to advocate the desirability
of conflicts between civilizations. It is
to set forth descriptive hypotheses as to
what the future may be like. If these are
plausible hypotheses, however, it is necessary
to consider their implications for Western
policy. These implications should be divided
between short-term advantage and long-term
accommodation. In the short term it is clearly
in the interest of the West to promote greater
cooperation and unity within its own civilization,
particularly between its European and North
American components; to incorporate into
the West societies in Eastern Europe and
Latin America whose cultures are close to
those of the West; to promote and maintain
cooperative relations with Russia and Japan;
to prevent escalation of local inter-civilization
conflicts into major inter-civilization wars;
to limit the expansion of the military strength
of Confucian and Islamic states; to moderate
the reduction of counter military capabilities
and maintain military superiority in East
and Southwest Asia; to exploit differences
and conflicts among Confucian and Islamic
states; to support in other civilizations
groups sympathetic to Western values and
interests; to strengthen international institutions
that reflect and legitimate Western interests
and values and to promote the involvement
of non-Western states in those institutions.
In the longer term other measures would be
called for. Western civilization is both
Western and modern. Non-Western civilizations
have attempted to become modern without becoming
Western. To date only Japan has fully succeeded
in this quest. Non-Western civilization will
continue to attempt to acquire the wealth,
technology, skills, machines and weapons
that are part of being modern. They will
also attempt to reconcile this modernity
with their traditional culture and values.
Their economic and military strength relative
to the West will increase. Hence the West
will increasingly have to accommodate these
non-Western modern civilizations whose power
approaches that of the West but whose values
and interests differ significantly from those
of the West. This will require the West to
maintain the economic and military power
necessary to protect its interests in relation
to these civilizations. It will also, however,
require the West to develop a more profound
understanding of the basic religious and
philosophical assumptions underlying other
civilizations and the ways in which people
in those civilizations see their interests.
It will require an effort to identify elements
of commonality between Western and other
civilizations. For the relevant future, there
will be no universal civilization, but instead
a world of different civilizations, each
of which will have to learn to coexist with
the others.
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