Practical Eschatology: Huntington Was Right

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Huntington Was Right

From the National Post, "Joel Kotkin: Samuel Huntington was right — cultural and religious clashes are driving war today." Kotkin begins:

   History is rearing its ugly head, and it would best not to look away. Time to put away our foolish utopian dreams and face the harsher, more divided world, predicted in Samuel Huntington’s 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
   In the heady days following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many public intellectuals, as well as presidents like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, embraced the notion of an ever expanding, liberal and democratic world order. Some, like political scientist Francis Fukuyama, even preached the “end of history,” prophesizing “the good news” of democracy’s inevitable spread and insisting that tech growth favours “a universal evolution in the direction of capitalism.”
   Recent events, notably the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, suggest it’s time to bury these notions. In Clash, Huntington predicted the Ukrainian conflict as well the resurgence, at the expense of the West, of many cultures, including Indian, Chinese, Arab and Turkish. He noted all seek recompense for steep declines during the period of European predominance. Rather than a world shaped by the logic of markets and the rule of law, this is engendering the ascendency of autocrats and intensifying tribalization and primitivist religious movements.
   Our two concurrent wars demonstrate Huntington’s thesis. The assault on Ukraine, which he foresaw, reflects not neo-Soviet ideology but a deeply Russian Orthodox racial world view. ...
   China’s emergence similarly speaks of revanchist notions more reflective of Han nationalism and Imperial tradition than Communist ideology. The red mandarins may spout Marxist credos but their appeal to the masses lies largely in nationalist desires to achieve the stated aim of becoming the leading global superpower by 2050.

And, he adds:

The dangerous conflict in the Middle East further reinforces the “clash of civilizations.” The takeover of the Palestinian movement by Hamas wipes away even the smallest fig leaf of liberal intent for a two-nation solution. Hamas’s goal is simple: eradicate Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. Longer term, the goals of the Islamists also include imposing their faith on even those Christians full of sympathy for the beleaguered Palestinians. The imbecilic Obama-Biden pandering to Iran demonstrates the foolishness of ignoring the fundamental realities of “clash of civilizations”; you can’t make a partnership with someone who wants you dead.

Much of the rest of his article discusses the civilizational and cultural splits that will shape the next century of geo-political history, as well as the dangers of the West becoming weak due to its obsession with multi-culturalism and woke ideology. While Kotkin urges Western leaders to build stronger ties with other civilizations that have experienced the positive growth offered by capitalism, such as India, Japan and South Korea, he warns that "[t]he major obstacle [to this strategy] may be self-inflicted — a lack of belief among large segments of the western population that disdains our own heritage and prefers to embrace groups seen as victims of neo-colonial oppression, however brutal and hate-filled."

In that regard, he adds:

Nor can we be too confident in a western defence establishment and intelligence services that have been focused elsewhere on green absolutism or gay rights, as the head of MI6 recently opined. The obsession of NATO and the U.S. military in fighting climate change and white nationalism is borderline insane at a time when they should be more concerned about their dubious war-fighting ability and our industrial prowess to meet the new challenge.
Ultimately the West cannot win, or even stay relevant, in the “clash” if it does not believe in itself and is willing to employ all possible means to protect its interests. With a debilitated sense of self-belief, the West, for all its manifold technical and cultural progress, may be ill-suited to battle the pernicious forces shaping our present clash of civilizations.

Kotkin's concern, I fear, is not the health of the West, per se, but that the West be preserved in order to function as a defender of Judaism and Israel. (See, e.g., his October 23 piece at Spiked!, "Why Jews are abandoning the left").