Fault Line Wars
The main theme of Huntington’s book is that the end of the Cold War has resulted in the emergence to positions of greater strength and influence of a number of civilizations, many, though not all, dominated by a core state, but each with a growing sense of ethnically or religiously reinforced identity. The risks to world peace from this new situation are no longer from intracivilizational wars sues as characterized European history for centuries, but from what Huntington calls fault-line wars between civilizations (Hebblethwaithe, 2003, p. 141). According to Huntington, world politics is entering a new and perilous stage of history. Instead of bringing about a universalist civilization of Western origins, modernization generally and the end of the cold war specifically both unite people and divide people in different parts of the world along cultural or civilization lines. General alignments of world politics defined by universal ideologies and superpower conflicts, which were characteristic of the post-1945 era, are giving way to post-war alignments defined by particular cultures and civilizations. Cultural communities are replacing cold-war blocs, and the fault lines between civilizations are becoming the points of conflict in world politics. Fault line conflicts are communal conflicts between groups from different civilizations. Political boundaries are being redrawn to coincide with communities based on ethnicity, religion, culture, and civilization. Fault-line conflicts are particularistic and relativist in character: they are struggles to divide the world into separate civilizational or cultural compartments with a high wall around each one (Huntington, 1996 cited in Jackson, 2003, p. 394).
Wars between clans, tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities, and nations have been prevalent in every era and in every civilization because they are rooted in the identities of people (Huntington, 1996, p. 252). Fault line wars happen when fault line conflicts become violent more aggressive and vicious. At a micro level, a fault line war results from a clash between neighboring states from different civilizations, between groups from different civilization within a state, and between groups from different civilizations within a state and between groups which are attempting to create new states. Fault line conflicts often happen between Muslims and Non Muslims. Global or macro level conflict occurs when two major states of different civilizations clash. Some of the issues that are involved in macro level conflicts are:
- Values and Culture – involves efforts by the state to impose its value on the people of another civilization
- People – involves efforts by a state from one civilization to exclude people belonging to another civilization from its territory
- Territory – in which core states become front line participants
The Dynamics of Fault Line Wars
Fault line wars, unlike communal wars, often happen between groups, which are part of large cultural entities. Fault line wars are more likely to spread and involve additional participants – kin groups in other parts of the world.
Identity: The Rise of Civilization Consciousness
According to Huntington (1996), fault line wars go through processes on intensification, expansion, containment, and, rarely resolution. These processes typically start in succession, but they also frequently overlap and may be repeated. Once started, fault line wars, like other communal conflicts tend to take on a life of their own and develop in an action-reaction pattern. Identities which had previously been multiple and casual become focused and hardened; communal conflicts are appropriately termed “identity wars”. As violence increases, the initial issues at stake tend to get redefined more exclusively as “us” against “them” and group cohesion and commitment are enhanced. Political leaders expand and deepen their appeals to ethnic and religious loyalties, and civilization consciousness strengthens in relation to other identities. A hate dynamic emerges, comparable to the security dilemma in international relations, in which mutual fears, distrust, and hatred feed on each other. Each side dramatizes and magnifies the distinction between the forces of virtue and the forces of evil and eventually attempts to transform this distinction into the ultimate distinction between the quick and the dead (Huntington, 1996. p. 270).
Civilization Rallying: Kin Countries and Diasporas
States and groups engage in fault line wars in different levels. The front liners who are doing the fighting and the killing are at the primary level. Fault line wars also may involve secondary participants. These states or groups that are at the secondary level are usually directly related to the primary participants. Tertiary participants are usually further removed from the actual fighting and are remotely connected with the conflict. The states at the third level of the conflict are usually the core states of their civilizations (Huntington 1996, p.273).
Where they exist, the diasporas of primary level participants also play a role in fault line wars. Given the small numbers of people and weapons usually involved in the primary level, relatively modest amount of external aid, in the form of money, weapons, or volunteers, can often have a significant impact on the outcome of the war. The stakes of the other parties to the conflict are not identical with those of primary level participants. The most devoted and wholehearted support for the primary level parties normally comes from diaspora communities who strongly identify with the cause of their kin. The second and third level participants may have complex interests. They usually support the first level participants. The second and third level participants may also make efforts to contain the fighting and avoid direct involvement. The second and third level participants, while supporting their kin also attempts restrain the front liners and persuade them to temperate their objectives. They also try to negotiate with their second and third counterparts to prevent a local war from growing to a wider war that may involve core states.
(Huntington 1996, p.273).
Negotiation and Mediation
A complex fault line is a three level game with at least six parties and at least seven relations among them. Horizontal relations across the fault lines between pairs of primary, secondary and tertiary parties. Vertical relations exist between parties of different levels within each civilization (Huntington 1996, p. 294).
Conflicts between countries or groups with a common culture can at times be resolved through mediation by disinterested third party who shares that culture, has recognized legitimacy within that culture, and hence can be trusted by both parties to find a solution rooted in the values of that culture. Mediation by disinterested third party can sometimes solve conflicts between countries or groups, which share a common culture. The third party usually has the same culture as the participants, has recognized legitimacy within that culture, and therefore can be trusted by both participants to find solutions ingrained in the values of that common culture. Conflicts between groups from different civilizations can be a great challenge because of the lack of any disinterested parties that can be trusted by both parties. Any potential mediator belongs to one of the conflicting civilizations or to a third civilization with another culture and interests. International organizations also fail because they lack the ability to impose significant benefits to the parties. Fault line wars are ended not by disinterested individuals, groups, or organizations but by interested secondary and tertiary parties who have rallied to the support of their kin and have the capability to negotiate agreements with their counterparts, on the one hand, and to induce their kin to accept those agreements, on the other. While rallying intensifies and prolongs the war, it generally is also a necessary although not sufficient condition for limiting and halting the war. Secondary and tertiary ralliers usually do not want to be transformed into primary level fighters and hence try to keep the war under control. They also have more diversified interests than primary participants, who are exclusively focused on the war, and they are concerned with other issues in their relations with each other. Hence, at some point they are likely to see it in their interest to stop the fighting. Because they have rallied behind their kin, they have leverage over their kin. Ralliers thus become restrainers and halters (Huntington 1996, p. 292). Core states of every civilizations have important role in controlling and avoiding communal and local fault line wars from growing to a major global war. The core states of different civilizations must avoid intervening in the internal conflicts of other civilizations. Core states also need to engage in joint mediation in order to contain or stop fault line wars between states from different civilizations.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment