Bolado, Monica October 11, 2010

3POL1 International Relations

Samuel Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order” states that a civilization as a cultural entity is the highest cultural grouping of people and
the broadest level of cultural identity people have. It is defined by both common objective
elements and subjective self identification of people. Civilizational conflicts arise from many
factors. Differences among civilizations can be the taken first into account; civilizations differ
from history, language, culture, tradition and religion, differences that are products of centuries
that have passed. Interaction between peoples of different civilizations increases the awareness
of civilizations about their differences and commonalities. These differences may lead to
conflicts while commonalities might lead to the containment and ending of such conflicts.
Huntington states that “As a result of this ‘kin-country syndrome,’ fault line conflicts have a
much higher potential for escalation than do intracivilizational conflicts and usually require
intercivilizational cooperation to contain and end them.” and “The Structure of a Complex Fault
Line War… outlines the relationships of these potential parties to fault line wars.” Fault line
conflicts occur between states belonging to different civilizations. States and groups have
different levels of participation in fault line conflicts. At the primary level are the parties or
states actually engaging in violence or fighting, parties such as states or embryonic states. At
the secondary level are those states directly related to the primary level participants, related in
terms of civilizational identity. Lastly, at the tertiary level are those states that are further
removed from the actual conflict but having civilizational ties with the primary level
participants, they are often core states of civilizations. Intracivilizational conflicts occur between
states belonging to same civilizations. Kin-country syndrome makes intracivilizational conflicts
less probable than fault line conflicts through the states’ sense of identity of belonging to the
same civilization. States belonging to the same civilization tend to cooperate with each other
when of one them gets involve in a conflict against states of a different civilization. States
naturally try to rally support from other members of their own civilization. When fault line
conflict occurs, the different levels of participation become evident. The structure of a complex
fault line war can be seen through the different level of participations that states have during a
conflict. The primary level participants that fight with each other are supported by the diaspora
communities who intensely identify with the cause of their kin. The secondary and the tertiary
level participants also provide support for the primary level participants and try to restrain and
induce them to moderate their objectives. They are doing so because they have intensions of
containing and ending such conflicts. They also try to negotiate with their secondary and
tertiary counterparts on the other side of the fault line to prevent a local war or conflict from
escalating into a broader war that may directly involve them or other core states. Thus, greater
wars are prevented. Conflicts are seldom ended, prolonged but can be contained,
commonalities and sense of civilizational identity play great roles in containing or ending such.