Deciphering US Strategy in the Clash of Civilizations

"In a time of universal deceit — telling the truth is a revolutionary act” ~George Orwell

Last night marked the start Yom Hashoah, the day of remembrance for the millions of Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. While I’m not Jewish, I’m intrigued by Jewish traditions, as they are related to my religious upbringing, especially Kaballah and Yom Kippur. However, I struggle to deal with the double edged sword which confronts anyone critical of Israel, for I’m highly critical of the policies of Israel, which I consider to be engaging in atrocious behavior against the people of Palestine. I try to understand the spiral of growing intolerance and outward hate towards the other, especially given the intolerance Jews have endured throughout history. The narrative that Jews, Muslims and Christians have never been able to live together is false, as centuries of life in Jerusalem before the modern era can attest, and today’s conflicts are a result of a long process to foment division and hatred against the other.

It has always seemed shocking to me an entire ethnic group must endure such hatred & violence as that suffered by the Jews during WWII. Even more shocking is the treatment of Palestinians by the Jewish state, which recently has becoming shockingly reminiscent of the intolerance during WWII. Simply contemplating the difficulty of the situation, especially given the enormity of conflict both within and surrounding Israel has caused me great pain and set me about the deep thought. To me, it is inescapable to draw parallels to the plight of Jews in WWII and to those displaced in the Middle East in the past decade, although the situations are very different. At one time, the Jewish refugees fleeing Europe were barred entry by the United States, despite the enormity of resources the US had to offer a group clearly persecuted by the growing menace of German Nationalism. Today, the refugees in the Middle East flee the wars in Iraq and now Syria started by the US and its client state, while ethnocentric opposition to these refugees mirror that of the WWII era. While the circumstances are different, the underlying reality is the same, and it causes me to reflect deeply.

This solemn day follows on the heels of Tuesday’s US Presidential Primary in Indiana, where Donald Trump virtually sealed the GOP nomination. I’ve felt astonishment and true fright for months by the GOP rhetoric used against Middle East refugees, the scapegoating of immigrants in the US, and threats to use terrifying amounts of violence to solve political problems across the Middle East and beyond. That the Mainstream News media seems compliant in promoting this rhetoric, with some even inciting more strongly, causes me to pull back to avoid becoming depressed. For, I see similarities in the anger expressed by some Americans over the hidden inflation, job-loss, change in traditional culture, and extreme polarization of the public.

My remembrance tonight has taken me back to where I first began to wake up to political polarization and the feeling of cognitive dissonance over world events. It takes me back to the year I graduated from college in 1992, during the run-up to the first Presidential election of Bill Clinton. I had started my first job during the fall and was largely oblivious to the coverage. I had entered the workforce in a depressed job market, the worst since WWII it was said at the time, but fortunately received a generous offer from Anderson Consulting. The job carried some prestige, although I was simply excited to be able to work in Chicago, program computers and feel like an adult, although I had to have short hair and wear a suit and tie every day.

It was during my 3 weeks of training the Andersen’s International training center in St. Charles, IL that I remember awakening to the polarized Politics I hadn’t expected. The training involved working a 10–12 hour days, then after 10pm we’d retire to the bar to drink $1 beers til close. Those nightmare hours were meant to simulate the worst that could be expected from a client project, yet I found it great fun to meet consultants from across the Globe training together and programing in COBOL all day. However, election night was particularly memorable. As Clinton was announced winner, a number of older partner types in the bar not simply booed and hissed, but hurled harsh insults that completely stunned me. I found it difficult to believe such an attitude could be had when the reality of the Economy, although my naiveté prevented me from understanding the extent of the momentous shift that was occurring globally at the time.

The years before I had attended college during the fall of the Berlin Wall, Perestroika & Glasnost in the Soviet Union, as well as the live televised spectacle of war in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. So much had happened, yet my optimism continued to grow in those years as the Economy rebounded, the deficit shrank and all seemed to improve politically. The threat of Soviet Communism faded into the past, although curious events like Yugoslavia and Serbia confused me. It wasn’t until the 2000 election that I began to question what was happening, as I witnessed the Mainstream Media attack on Al Gore’s Social Security lock box while ignoring George Bush’s rhetoric and general political awkwardness. At the same time, I had discovered Noam Chomsky’s dissent while studying linguistics and tried to comprehend how his detailed research of the Vietnam & Central American wars could have been so clearly omitted by History books, nor why it wasn’t reported on by any News Media, ever.

However, it wasn’t until the events of September 11, 2001 that I, along with many others, were forced awake by the shocking tragedy of being attacked and seeing destruction of the homeland, which seemed unthinkable. Yet it was the reaction shortly after and the growing drumbeat of war that caused me to seek out the truth of what my country was doing overseas and how that related to our Domestic policy, which never seemed to agree with how I envisioned the most successful country would carry itself. The best explanation I can find comes from Political Scientist Samuel Huntington, and his body of work/career, which sheds light on the US strategy Domestically and Overseas. It was his Clash of Civilizations that drew much attention after 9/11, and which first drew me to him, since the “religion” of the hijackers and the targeting of Muslim nations seemed to be predicted by him several years earlier. Sadly, I’ve come to realize that prediction was actually an argument for the Strategy to be employed by the US in the 21st century.

Samuel P. Huntinton

Huntington’s body of work has often been included in Noam Chomsky’s critique of US Militarism and domestic repression against public dissent. Chomsky considered Huntington a perfect example of a Liberal planner who behind the scenes advocated and implemented policy that caused great harm and suffering. Huntington taught Political Science at Harvard University, whose body of theory in foreign policy proved incredibly influential to several generations of students who went on to careers in government in State and Foreign policy. His Clash of Civilizations theory of the inevitability of conflict between civilizations seemed seemed to mirror the fantasy world of my favorite video game, Sid Meier’s Civilization (2.0).

However, as I read more work and discovered his role in Government and in service of other governments, I realized his Clash thesis, in his words, did not serve as a “descriptive hypothesis as to what the future may be like.” Rather, his thesis was crafted as a rationalization for the planned confrontation with Muslim countries, who happened to sit atop of 70% of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves and figured prominently in American geostrategy. However, it was his earlier writings that seemed most telling, those pertaining internationally to the conduct of war and domestically to stem popular resistance to US Foreign policy.

Huntington advocated several strategies that were and continue to be used to conduct war. During the Vietnam era, working for the Secretary of State, Huntington argued for the mass carpet bombing of the Vietnamese countryside (South & North), in order to drive civilians to cities under massive internal migration. To him this served to both stunt the effectiveness of peasant revolutionary war, but also spur Urbanization & Modernization, both aims of American strategy, since they indirectly serve the interests of pacifying Communism. That the US followed this course and killed millions across Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia fails to acknowledge these are crimes against humanity, violate international law and constitute genocide. This was the reality of US strategy in South Asian wars and why so many US citizens protested so vehemently against that war in the 1960’s and 70’s. This policy has been repeated during the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, and in fact, mass migration is a useful destabilizing tool used not only against target populations, but also against host countries the US wants to burden strategically, including allies like Greece & Germany.

Huntington also advocated the use of radical Islamic mercenary armies to destabilize Adversary countries. During his stint in the Carter administration as Coordinator of Security Planning for the National Security Council, where along with NSC Advisor Zbigniew Brezinski, they planned the creation of Al-Queda to be used in proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. At this very moment, Al-Queda in Syria (Al-Nusra) is fighting a proxy war against Syria in Allepo, and is refusing to adhere to the cease-fire engineered between the US & Russia. Who controls or supports Al-Queda now?

Additionally, Huntington’s Foreign Policy recommendations included the balkanization of the Middle East into ethnic splinter states, to divide and conquer. Like the strategy employed during the destruction of Yugoslavia & Serbia in the 1990’s in the Balkans, this strategy was floated since the early years of the Iraq war as a hopeful outcome while Huntington was still alive. It is now becoming a reality, with the many ethnic factions fighting in Iraq and Syria.

This division of Yugoslavia is especially insightful, for it not only demonstrated that the US and NATO would attack any country resisting western Free Market policies. Yugoslavia was the most successful and viable of the post Soviet states, with a vibrant economy, strong education and healthcare, a dangerous rival to a post Cold War model free market idealism. It was targeted by the US and NATO for deliberate destruction into many ethnic states because of its success, and was the source of the term balkanization. The later Serbian conflict saw the US use of Al-Queda mercenaries covertly transported from Afghanistan and other Arab countries directly to Serbia to train and support Islamic KLA opposition fighters. Serbia was overwhelmed by months of aerial bombing by US/NATO forces, which preceded and provoked the Serbian genocide and for which Serbian leaders were convicted by the World Court. The responsibility for these atrocities is also shared by the US and NATO, thanks largely to the strategies propounded by Huntington and carried out by a Democratic Executive branch.

Additionally, Huntington also asserted that Islam would be “the biggest threat to US world domination” shortly before the US launched Imperial war against the Muslim world following the 911 attacks. This was not an example of prescience but one of strategy, planning and targeting. This was later used as rationalization for public consumption, although simply as theory it rings hollow when examining how closely his theory has prefigured actual US strategy.

At home, these foreign policy measures would be very unpopular if they were fully digested by the American public. Huntington therefore advocated for strong domestic measures which would safeguard American policies from popular resistance. He outlined distinct policy recommendations for Domestic governance that limited popular citizen involvement, increased the status and authority of parts of the Government, recruited private Institutional support to carry out these policies and argued for other societal changes that would weaken the ability of certain groups of the public to engage in dissent.

Huntington makes a key assertion in American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, that increasing Polarization of the public helps in Governance, for a public that is able to be consistent in its ideology becomes easier to message and directly propagandize. The rise of the Internet and splintering of the major Media into rival camps with specifically tailored ideological messaging has created a population that is siloed into distinct Ideologically consistent media coverage. Even beyond the news, entertainment functions in this way too, as popular Reality TV, drama and even comedy include ideological content tailored for a targeted audience. This has resulted in the most extreme polarization of the country in its history and in effect has allowed those controlling messaging to divide and conquer the American public.

Earlier, Huntington’s The Crisis of Democracy most clearly shows his fear that an active & distrustful public would seek to challenge the institutional reality of American foreign policy. Reeling from the activism & political fragmentation of the 60’s and early 70’s and the failure of 3 successive Presidencies (Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon), Huntington decried against the formal restrictions on Presidential power and the leadership failures in other branches of Government, which eroded the “authority, status, influence, and effectiveness of the presidency.” He argued that a strong President was necessary to restore US Authority. His argument essentially was that the crisis of Democracy was that the public had too much of it, that it should be restricted, especially against Blacks, women, students, and any other dispossessed group. Instead the authority of the Government, and particularly that of the President be enlarged, the opposite of democratic reform.

It was like a playbook that has been implemented in the US in the following 42 years in the system we see today. The office of the President has greatly enhanced powers, with the ability to conduct war without Congressional or International consent, and the ability to conduct assassination abroad even of American citizens. The power of the Media has changed from watchdog and critic of the State to partner in the divide and conquer of the electorate through finely tailored ideological content targeting a pliant and unaware public.



Why this is important should be obvious if one attends to the Syrian crisis and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Huntington serves as archetype for US Foreign policy strategist, as is evident by the implementation of his strategies under both Parties. His domestic policy recommendations also seem to have been implemented across the board, again with the consent of both parties. While he considered himself a Democrat, albeit a staunchly conservative one, his policy advice was on the dovish side of US Imperialism when compared to that of the brutish, more lethal NeoCon strategy showing that both DEM and GOP foreign policy strategies are Imperial, devastating to innocent civilian populations across the world, and quite dangerous to our own Society.

In the end, Huntington’s body of work sought to ensure the ability for US world domination. The National Security Statement of 2002 (The Bush Doctrine) allowing no other nation to challenge US supremacy across any sphere of activity, whether militarily, economically, technologically, or in space or perhaps even in entertainment has been public strategy of the US Ruling class. That a huge destabilized area has been created across the entire swath of Huntington’s Muslim region, from Tunisia east all the way to Pakistan at the doorstep of India, shows the US is engaged in world domination and a remaking of the world order.