In Hamlet, Shakespeare used the phrase "The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns," as a reference to death. In the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the writers put a slight twist on this, using the term "undiscovered country" to more loosely refer to the future, particularly an unknown future deviating from the path of predictability.
Star Trek VI, although set in a fictional future, mirrored the collapse of the Soviet Union occurring about the time of its release in 1991. Around the same time, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama published his book, The End of History and the Last Man. In that book, he argued that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, humanity had reached the end of history. "That is, the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." Samuel P. Huntington wrote a rebuttal of this--first as an article and later a book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order--arguing that the end of the Cold War only meant that the world had reverted to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict and that, in fact, future conflicts would mostly be along cultural or civilizational lines. (See this Wikipedia article for a summary of Huntington's book; I also reviewed it back in 2016, providing a lengthy summary). In effect, Fukuyama argued for a predictable future following the same course; while Huntington suggested something more chaotic.
We are now roughly 30 years after Fukuyama's and Huntington's works and history has shown that Huntington was correct. He predicted a clash between Orthodox and Western civilizations, accurately predicting a fault line within Ukraine--and now we have it in the war in Ukraine. (See also, "The Role of Religion in Russia’s War on Ukraine" by Aidan Houston and Peter Mandaville, Ph.D., United States Institute of Peace). Of course, the Global War on Terror (GWoT) was, itself, a clash between Western and Muslim civilizations. And I think that one can correctly view the immigration crises facing the United States as a conflict between Western and Latin American cultures. (See, "Video: Texas Troops Spring Into Action After Illegal Immigrants Plant Foreign Flag on US Soil"; "Shocking video shows migrant mom and baby crying as they cross under razor wire into El Paso just to be sent back the same way: Costa Rica declares a state of emergency amid huge influx of migrants at the US southern border."). The assistance provided by various Latin American countries in encouraging and assisting illegal aliens move north and across the southern U.S. border is really just a different type of warfare and colonization. (See, "Friday Afternoon Statistic Dump - Border Patrol Reports Over 7.5 million Illegal Aliens Released into U.S. During Biden Term, 5.18 Million are Single Adult Males" - The Last Refuge). I suppose that the same can be said about the Muslim nations along the periphery of the Mediterranean that assist Muslims and sub-Saharan Africans make their way to Europe.
But if the post-War (i.e., post-World War II) world was divided between two ideologies--Western Liberal Democracy on the one hand and Communism on the other--and the fall of the Soviet Union spelled the end to Communism, what about the other ideology? According to many thinkers and pundits, it too appears to be collapsing. For instance, in a recent interview, Tucker Carlson said:
I've become convinced over the past several years — particularly since the war in Ukraine began — that the world is changing much more quickly than most Americans understand. And because there's virtually no coverage of the rest of the world in American media, Americans don't have a good sense of it.
What we, in this country, refer to as the "Post-War Order” — the institutions set up in the wake of World War II to keep the world peaceful and prosperous and the United States at the top of the pyramid, and that would include the dominance of the dollar, the SWIFT system, NATO — all of that appears to me to be crumbling. ...
So what is the "Post-War Order"? In a 2022 article published in Foreign Affairs by Michael J. Mazarr, "How to Save the Postwar Order," Mazarr explains:
Broadly speaking, the international order is nothing more than the prevailing pattern of interactions in world politics. The existence of an order does not presume shared, enforced rules or any degree of stability. But in certain periods, rules-based orders have emerged that benefited many nations. These systems were not grounded in altruism or the ideal of a supranational government. Rather, the most powerful actors of the era, often under the leadership of one preeminent power or a small number of them, agreed to certain explicit or implicit rules and norms to promote their own interests—typically, territorial security and economic prosperity.
The post-1945 U.S.-led international order is by far the most institutionalized rules-based order to date. It is grounded in the UN system but incorporates regional organizations such as NATO and the European Union, as well as global economic institutions, intergovernmental processes, public-private coalitions, and nongovernmental organizations that set thousands of issue-specific rules and standards. The order embodies norms, imperfectly adhered to but widely shared and at least partly enforced, that promote the interests of participating countries, most notably their interest in territorial nonaggression and relatively open economic exchange.
* * *
The result is a material set of influences on states. The economic alignment of powerful countries, for example, made it possible for these countries to set standards—in the rule of law, financial and monetary policy, technology interoperability, and many other areas—and then to attract new adherents eager to benefit from the resulting coordination. Countries that sought cutting-edge technology, foreign direct investment, or support from international financial organizations found themselves at least partly constrained by the order’s rules and norms. Exclusion from the economic order has proved economically fatal—ensuring that the vast majority of countries adjust their behavior, at least to a degree, in order to remain tethered to the international system.
The postwar order is often held to be the sum of its institutional parts, but its wider gravitational effect is the real source of its power. The order’s norms and institutions derive from a more essential underlying force—the corresponding interests of a critical mass of the world community and the resulting global influence of that bloc. Dozens of leading economic and military powers have come to view the postwar order as essential to creating the conditions that produce economic and territorial security for themselves. Over time, the states enmeshed in the international order have been joined by potent nonstate actors: nongovernmental organizations, businesses, political parties, and movements now play important roles in advocating for and enforcing the order’s rules. By conditioning full participation in economic, political, and even cultural networks on those rules, the states and nonstate actors at the core of the order create a formidable echo effect on world politics.
Some scholars further seek to distinguish the current international order formed after the fall of the Soviet Union from the U.S. led international order that existed among the West and its allies during the Cold War. (See, e.g., "Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order" by John J. Mearsheimer, International Security (2019); "Collapse of the World Order?" by Alexey Arbatov, Carnegie Endowment for World Peace (2014)). Mearsheimer contends:
... the United States has led two different orders since World War II. The Cold War order, which is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a “liberal international order,” was neither liberal nor international. It was a bounded order that was limited mainly to the West and was realist in all its key dimensions. It had certain features that were also consistent with a liberal order, but those attributes were based on realist logic. The U.S.-led post–Cold War order, on the other hand, is liberal and international, and thus differs in fundamental ways from the bounded order the United States dominated during the Cold War.
Others maintain that it is the same order, only lacking the bi-polarity of the Cold War. (See, "The Myth of Post-Cold War Chaos" by G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs (1996)).
In any event, it appears that the liberal world order is, indeed, weakening if not collapsing. Mearsheimer argued in his article that the liberal world order was doomed to collapse because it was fundamentally flawed:
Spreading liberal democracy around the globe, which is of paramount importance for building such an order, not only is extremely difficult, but often poisons relations with other countries and sometimes leads to disastrous wars. Nationalism within the target state is the main obstacle to the promotion of democracy, but balance of power politics also function as an important blocking force.
He also noted that it was poisonous within its own core nations:
Furthermore, the liberal order's tendency to privilege international institutions over domestic considerations, as well as its deep commitment to porous, if not open borders, has had toxic political effects inside the leading liberal states themselves, including the U.S. unipole. Those policies clash with nationalism over key issues such as sovereignty and national identity. Because nationalism is the most powerful political ideology on the planet, it invariably trumps liberalism whenever the two clash, thus undermining the order at its core.
And then there is globalization:
In addition, hyperglobalization, which sought to minimize barriers to global trade and investment, resulted in lost jobs, declining wages, and rising income inequality throughout the liberal world. It also made the international financial system less stable, leading to recurring financial crises. Those troubles then morphed into political problems, further eroding support for the liberal order.
A hyperglobalized economy undermines the order in yet another way: it helps countries other than the unipole grow more powerful, which can undermine unipolarity and bring the liberal order to an end. This is what is happening with the rise of China, which, along with the revival of Russian power, has brought the unipolar era to a close. ...
Mazaar points out two other problems. First, as he points out, is the excessive ambition of our elites: that is, "the architects of the postwar system risk pushing their objectives too far and generating a violent backlash."
This is arguably what happened with NATO in Europe. Under the United States’ watch, the alliance metastasized from a measured and carefully calibrated program to fortify European security into a limitless, duty-bound imperative. Without endorsing the legitimacy of Russia’s claim to dominate the countries of its near abroad, it is possible to acknowledge that Moscow was always bound to object to NATO’s expansion into areas it perceives as core security concerns.
He also notes that this excessive ambition (or perhaps hubris) has produced an excessive and uncompromising attitude among elites for enforcing their rules. The result has been unnecessary military interventions and abandoning imperfect treaties and agreements.
The second threat to the international order are those countries he terms the “hedging middle”: "countries that prefer to avoid taking sides in the U.S.-Chinese and U.S.-Russian rivalries and therefore hesitate to enforce the norms of the order."
These countries—including Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey—participate in and support many elements of the international system. They broadly support the order’s norms and typically respect them. Some of these countries are set to become major economic and military players. Yet if more of them come to see a Chinese-Russian axis as a useful counterweight to U.S. and Western dominance and therefore defect from U.S.-led institutions, the postwar order will be in deep trouble.
You will recognize some of these countries as belonging to the group termed the "BRICS" (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) or willing to work with the BRICS in establishing alternative international banking systems and/or reserve currencies. These are also the countries that have been resistant to imposing sanctions on Russia and question the Western position in regard to Ukraine.
That is the international situation. But what about internally? If Huntington is correct about future clashes occurring between civilizations (or, more correctly, peoples) what about when the border between those civilizations/cultures have moved to within a country? That is what worries me.
In my review of Huntington's book in 2016, I related that , like many others, Huntington sees immigration as a possible strength; but only if (1) the immigrants bring skills and education with them and (2) if they can be assimilated. Absent these factors, Huntington maintained, a nation risks becoming a "cleft society". At the time Huntington wrote his book, he described Ukraine as a cleft society (cleft, that is, between a Russian Orthodox east and a Western Christian west). And we know what happened there.
Today it is safe to say that the "border" between Western civilization and Latin American civilization is not at the United States borders, but within it. Some want to embrace what it is to be an American, but too many bring few skills and have little or no interest in assimilating--I regularly encounter illegal aliens that have lived here for decades and are incapable of communicating in English (or so they claim). It is probably too late to reverse course. At some point, the illegals will be sent to overwhelm the lower population Red States. (See, "The inevitable consequences of the alien invasion"--Bayou Renaissance Man). The Left is making it impossible for traditional Americans to have a refuge or "safe space". (See, "Canadian police launch probe into adverts for 'whites only moms and tots' sessions for parents who want to 'escape forced diversity and join other proud parents of European children'"; "Until Lambs Become Lions"--American Greatness; "Bloomberg to Biden: Kill American 'Xenophobia' by Importing Migrants"--Breitbart).
In fact, the Left is hellbent on making the U.S. into a cleft society. As I noted in my 2016 review, Huntington sees Cultural Marxists and multiculturalists as the gravest threat to America:
A more immediate and dangerous challenge exists in the United States. Historically American national identity has been defined culturally by the heritage of Western civilization and politically by the principles of the American Creed on which Americans overwhelmingly agree: liberty, democracy, individualism, equality before the law, constitutionalism, private property. In the late twentieth century both components of American identity have come under concentrated and sustained onslaught from a small but influential number of intellectuals and publicists. In the name of multiculturalism they have attacked the identification of the United States with Western civilization, denied the existence of a common American culture, and promoted racial, ethnic, and other subnational cultural identities and groupings. They have denounced, in the words of one of their reports, the “systematic bias toward European culture and its derivatives” in education and “the dominance of the European-American monocultural perspective.” The multiculturalists are, as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., said, “very often ethnocentric separatists who see little in the Western heritage other than Western crimes.” Their “mood is one of divesting Americans of the sinful European inheritance and seeking redemptive infusions from non-Western cultures.”
The multicultural trend was also manifested in a variety of legislation that followed the civil rights acts of the 1960s, and in the 1990s the Clinton administration made the encouragement of diversity one of its major goals. The contrast with the past is striking. The Founding Fathers saw diversity as a reality and as a problem: hence the national motto, e pluribus unum, chosen by a committee of the Continental Congress consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Later political leaders who also were fearful of the dangers of racial, sectional, ethnic, economic, and cultural diversity (which, indeed, produced the largest war of the century between 1815 and 1914), responded to the call of “bring us together,” and made the promotion of national unity their central responsibility. “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing as a nation at all,” warned Theodore Roosevelt, “would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.” In the 1990s, however, the leaders of the United States have not only permitted that but assiduously promoted the diversity rather than the unity of the people they govern.
The leaders of other countries have, as we have seen, at times attempted to disavow their cultural heritage and shift the identity of their country from one civilization to another. In no case to date have they succeeded and they have instead created schizophrenic torn countries. The American multiculturalists similarly reject their country’s cultural heritage. Instead of attempting to identify the United States with another civilization, however, they wish to create a country of many civilizations, which is to say a country not belonging to any civilization and lacking a cultural core. History shows that no country so constituted can long endure as a coherent society. A multicivilizational United States will not be the United States; it will be the United Nations.
He goes on:
Rejection of the Creed and of Western civilization means the end of the United States of America as we have known it. It also means effectively the end of Western civilization. If the United States is de-Westernized, the West is reduced to Europe and a few lightly populated overseas European settler countries. Without the United States the West becomes a minuscule and declining part of the world’s population on a small and inconsequential peninsula at the extremity of the Eurasian land mass.
The clash between the multiculturalists and the defenders of Western civilization and the American Creed is, in James Kurth’s phrase, “the real clash” within the American segment of Western civilization. Americans cannot avoid the issue: Are we a Western people or are we something else? The futures of the United States and of the West depend upon Americans reaffirming their commitment to Western civilization. Domestically this means rejecting the divisive siren calls of multiculturalism. Internationally it means rejecting the elusive and illusory calls to identify the United States with Asia. Whatever economic connections may exist between them, the fundamental cultural gap between Asian and American societies precludes their joining together in a common home. Americans are culturally part of the Western family; multiculturalists may damage and even destroy that relationship but they cannot replace it. When Americans look for their cultural roots, they find them in Europe.
* * *
If North America and Europe renew their moral life, build on their cultural commonality, and develop close forms of economic and political integration to supplement their security collaboration in NATO, they could generate a third Euroamerican phase of Western economic affluence and political influence.
We are now well within the 21st Century and multiculturalism and cultural Marxism has upended our politics and society, even our science. (See "‘We’ll Get You Through Your Children!’ The Night in 1958 That Launched the Culture War"--The Stream; "Anthropological Societies Ban Discussion of Biological Sex"--Breitbart). The United States has failed to spread a universal culture and now not only is the international order that the United States created falling apart, but Western civilization is beginning to collapse in upon itself. And there is no sign that the Devos crowd comprehend what is happening or, if they do, have any desire to stop it. (See, "The illegal alien invasion is destroying our country - deliberately"--Bayou Renaissance Man; "Axios Admits Mass Immigration 'Makes U.S. Housing Crisis Worse'"--Breitbart). They seem to prefer, it seems, to strip the United States of its assets rather than create anything new, much like private equity firms do with companies. The United States--and the West more generally--seem to be moving into an "undiscovered country" and only time will tell if it is the type of country expressed by Shakespeare or Star Trek VI.