Free The Clash Of Civilizations And The Remaking Of World Order Reflection Paper Essay Example

I have read the chapters 10 and 11 of the book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington - one of the most popular geopolitical treatises of 1990s. Since its inception up to the present time it causes an acute and a more active debate among specialists and scientists in the field of international relations: some agree with the provisions given, while others strongly criticize the book as an insufficiently grounded theory.
Initially, in order to understand the causes of the events that are taking place now, one should examine the book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, as many emerging territorial and religious conflicts, which have received acute development, are explained in terms of Huntington's theory, so its importance should not be understated. I believe that this theory is able to open the root cause of some of today's most significant international conflicts.
Throughout his book Huntington identifies nine civilizations and explains the basic causes of conflicts and misunderstandings in the history of mankind. The author divides the civilizations by geographical and cultural, but mostly by religious features. Surprisingly to me, religious beliefs are usually the main cause of discrepancy between civilizations which lead to the fault line wars (Huntington 254). I was amazed by Huntington's idea that Western civilization has already passed the peak of its development by losing its positions in the Muslim world, as most of the Arab and Muslim people turned against the U.S. (248). It seems that its main challenge at the moment is to restore the decline. I think that in order to solve this problem, the Western society, and especially the United States should drop their arrogant belief that their values ​​are universally applicable and appealing, as well as to bring their international ambitions in line with their declining opportunities and shift their priorities in the area of ​​regeneration and preservation of the unique cultural heritage of their civilization. I think Huntington has analyzed the main features of Western civilization briefly and quite to the point.
However, I was confused by the author's idea that some civilizations are more prone to conflict than others, such as, for example, Muslims (Huntington 258). I think such point of view may lead to more fault line wars based on the biased attitude towards different civilizations. And the reader of the Huntington’s book should be aware of the importance of being tolerant and focused on the peace making.
The analysis of the concepts of peace seems to require a serious effort. To do so one should build rather deep and consistent philosophy of what peace is, the most important part of which should be the dialectic of war and peace in their historical development. As shown above, the connection between war and politics is inseparable, therefore, in my opinion, the reference to politics and ideology, is not only permissible but necessary in this kind of analysis, certainly not to the detriment of its scientific content.
Finally, these two chapters made me think that the universal and global comparison of war and peace issues includes the special importance for cooperation of pacifists, the faithful and atheists, the Social Democrats and the Conservatives, as well as other parties, movements and currents. The various components of the peace movement seem to be interconnected in complex ways – from the ideological confrontation to fruitful dialogue and joint action. People need to find the best forms of cooperation between social and political forces to achieve a common goal of peace for the human community. To me peace is a universal, common to all mankind value, and it can be reached only by joint efforts of all nations.

Works Cited

Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. 1996. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Print.