Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump issued an apocalyptic warning to Iran’s leaders on Truth Social: Reopen the Strait of Hormuz or else “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” This might, then, be a good time to rethink Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order, arguably the most influential theoretical framework and thesis in international relations since its publication three decades ago. Huntington’s thesis is that future geopolitical conflicts will increasingly be among the world’s major civilisations, defined along cultural, religious, and racial categories. “The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle lines of the future,” he maintained.
In 2012, Zhang Weiwei described the rise of China as the “Rise of a Civilisational State”, challenging the Western concepts of democracy, good governance, and human rights. The very next year, Vladimir Putin declared Russia a civilisational state, which has since become his leitmotif, whenever he wants to proclaim the end of the liberal international order. Leaders and public intellectuals in India, Iran, and Turkey have emphasised that their countries are ancient, continuous civilisations with a shared consciousness, cultural continuity, and deep-rooted history.
Moreover, the concept has moved from a singular, 18th-century European “standard of civilisation” (with colonial and imperialist tones) into a pluralistic concept, that is, “civilisations” that enables non-Western actors to resist, contest, and challenge the Western liberal order. While “civilisationism” has become a counter-hegemonic ideology for many non-Western states, it is sometimes criticised as an attempt by not-fully liberal actors (Russia, China, Iran) to legitimise their undemocratic regimes.
The emphasis on identity and religion has also been evident in US President Trump’s foreign policy. Conscious of the Catholic opposition to his war on Iran, Trump hosted and participated in a week-long Bible reading event, soon after posting an image that showed him like Christ (which was taken down after criticism). He criticised the Pope for calling for peace, but wants America to “return to the spiritual foundation that has shaped the country”. He forgets that the Catholic just war tradition rejects the targeting of civilians, and civilian infrastructure in wartime.
The US and Iran may be polar opposites in every other sense, but there is one lesson that is equally useful for both. In his “Death of Civilisations” thesis, Arnold Toynbee contends that civilisations are rarely conquered from outside; rather, they commit “suicide” through internal decline. He maintained that civilisations rise by successfully responding to challenges, but collapse when they fail to adapt creatively to new, usually internal, crises. He points to the failure of creative leadership to guide society through a period of social disorder and political disruption caused by the deterioration of the creative minority.
Toynbee’s idea of “Universal State” (like the Roman Empire), which offers temporary peace but cannot prevent the ultimate collapse, is a lesson for the US. He argues that arrogance and rigidity, a tendency to idolise the past, and a failure to meet new challenges lead to the death of civilisation. The main causes of downfall, according to Toynbee, are war between local states and conflict between social classes. These insights are relevant for Iran’s leadership and for other “civilisation states”.
Though criticised as a fatalist, Toynbee also talks about the revival and rebirth of civilisation, though he more frequently refers to it as the “reintegration” or “transmutation” of a decaying civilisation into a new, younger one. For him, true revival of a civilisation is not material, but spiritual, driven by a creative response to challenges, and not a return to the old ways. Today, the signs of decay and decline are overwhelming, and the pursuit of a new universe of meaning is still in its infancy.
But there is hope, provided Trump and his MAGA base, as well as the Ayatollahs and their Velayat-e-Faqih, learn the right lesson from the very past which they often invoke.
The writer is professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
