Clash of Civilizations vs. Economic Interests in the War on Terror

Introduction

The fall of the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s spurred debate among policymakers and intellectuals about the shape of future world politics and the role that the United States would play in it. One of the greatest early voices in this debate was Samuel Huntington, who, through his article "The Clash of Civilizations," identified differences in civilization as the greatest source of conflict in the international political system in the post-Cold War period. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations seeking to gain and maintain influence in a new world order are the leading source of interstate instability in the post-Cold War era. Events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, as well as the bombings in London, Madrid, and Bali, have been interpreted by many scholars as evidence for this paradigm.

However, other scholars have come out strongly in critique of Huntington's viewpoint. One such scholar is Mian Muhammad Ashraf, a lecturer in the Political Science Department at a university in Pakistan. This paper compares the views of these two scholars within the context of America's ongoing War on Terrorism, beginning with a brief description of the positions put forward by each.

Huntington's Civilization Thesis

As already noted, Huntington based his view of world conflict on the clash of civilizations. In his view, the dominant source of interstate conflict in the post-Cold War period is not the clash of ideologies — as was the case during the Cold War — but rather the clash between people and nations of different civilizations (Huntington, 1993). A civilization, according to Huntington, is the "highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have" (Huntington, 1993, p. 25). People belonging to the same civilization are joined together by religion, tradition, culture, language, and history — facets that are more fundamental and less easily compromised than economic and political ideologies (Huntington, 1993).

Huntington puts forth several reasons why civilizations constitute such an important source of identity in this period, and why people of different civilizations will clash. First, differences between groups in different civilizations operate at a fundamental level, touching on sensitive questions such as marriage and the relationship between humans and God. Second, due to economic liberalization, interactions between people of different civilizations have increased, weakening the nation-state as a source of identity and reviving religion as an alternative. Third, there is an us-versus-them mentality spurred by the anti-westernization movement: the West, being at the peak of its power, clashes with the non-West, which opposes any form of cultural association with it. Non-western civilizations come to feel that the West is attempting to impose its culture on them; as a result, they cooperate to compete with the West in order to maintain the uniqueness of their own civilizations.

Ashraf's Critique: Economic Interests as the Dominant Force

Ashraf supports Huntington's view that there is a clash of civilizations, particularly between groups in the West and non-western domains. In his view, however, this is not the dominant cause of conflict between states. According to Ashraf (2012), groups fight to protect their beliefs, blood, family, and faith; however, these motivations are only secondary to economic interests. In other words, economic interests are the dominant cause of interstate conflict in the post-Cold War period (Ashraf, 2012).

Ashraf posits that the economy is the primary factor shaping international relations today — states' economic capacities are considered the dominant variable in global politics (Ashraf, 2012). As such, states do their best to improve their economies in order to gain greater influence in the global political system (Ashraf, 2012). Ashraf (2012) further argues that in the present world, countries are categorized based on their levels of economic development — developed countries and developing countries. In order to improve their economic statuses, developing countries constantly seek cooperation with certain developed nations (Ashraf, 2012). Regional groupings such as the OAU, COMESA, and ASEAN are formed in an attempt to improve individual member countries' economic positions (Ashraf, 2012). There is no basis, therefore, for grouping countries in terms of their beliefs, civilization, and culture to be considered more important than economic positioning (Ashraf, 2012). According to Ashraf (2012), the main reason countries fight one another is to protect their individual economic interests.

Conclusion

In order for the war against terrorism to be successful, western policymakers need to recognize these facts and begin viewing the war differently — not as a means of undermining Islam as a civilization or defending "our civilization" against "theirs," nor of advancing narrow economic interests. There is a need to avoid undermining either side, and to create a space — both in the West and in the world of Islam — where freedom of imagination and thought can be defended without fear of death or persecution (Dunn, 2006). This ought not to be a war against the Islamic civilization or the Islamic world, but a struggle for democracy that challenges authoritarian and extremist impulses on all sides, in the West as well as in the Muslim world.

References

Ashraf, M. M. (2012). The clash of civilizations: A critique. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 32(2), 521–527.

Dunn, M. (2006). The clash of civilizations and the war on terror. 49th Parallel, 20(1), 1–12.

Huntington, S. P. (1993). The clash of civilizations. Foreign Affairs, 72(3), 22–49.