The Wednesday Letter #200 - 12/27/2023

THIS WEEK: Samuel Huntington is Still Wrong; Russia and Ukraine after the War; The Coastal Levant; ARK Invest.

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON IS STILL WRONG

Was Samuel P. Huntington correct in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking or World Order? Or was he wrong for decades, now appears to be temporarily correct, and will ultimately be wrong again? In the book published in 1996, Huntington argues that only the West believes in a universalist civilization predicated on the expansion of democracy and free trade to all corners of the world. Instead, he sees the world as perennially divided into eight civilizations: Western, Latin American, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu, Orthodox, Japanese, and African. Huntington’s central argument at the time was that future wars after the end of the Cold War would occur between different civilizations and for cultural reasons.

Huntington’s thesis gained some traction after the attacks of 9/11 when it appeared briefly (to some) that the West would go to war against the “Islamic civilization”. However, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though large and protracted, were isolated…