Samuel P. Huntington's 1993 "clash of civilizations" thesis, predicting global conflict along cultural and religious fault lines, is fundamentally challenged by contemporary geopolitical realities. Huntington argued that eight civilizations would inevitably clash due to insuperable differences, and that "Western ideas" like democracy had little resonance outside Western culture.
However, recent decades demonstrate that ideological divides, specifically between liberal democracy and authoritarianism, are the primary drivers of conflict, not civilizational identity. Taiwan's alignment with the democratic West against Beijing, despite shared cultural ties, refutes Huntington's prediction of Sino solidarity. Similarly, Ukraine's fight for liberty and democracy against Russia, despite shared Orthodox culture, directly contradicts Huntington's assumption that violence between them would be unlikely. The author contends that the world did not enter a post-ideological age, but rather that the central conflict now exists between liberal democracy and authoritarianism, both internationally and within democratic nations, exemplified by China's market-based authoritarianism and former President Trump's actions undermining democratic norms and institutions.
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