Is Huntington a neo-conservative?

For lot of people, the theory of clash of civilizations is a neo conservative theory in international relations. They see this as a creation of some thinkers close to some lobbies in Washington.

The creator of the theory of the « Clash of civilizations » is Samuel Huntington. He developed this view in his book The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order in 1996. Unlike the neo conservative philosophers or the political analysts, Huntington was a « culturalist », a minority school of international studies. The majority school is the « realist ». For them, the first and the most important actor in international policy is State. According to Huntington, it is the culture, and notably the cultures clash.
Huntington believed that civilizations embody cultures. The culture generates legal, political and economic facts. He followed the French historian Fernand Braudel, and especially his book Grammaire des civilisations that he often quoted to support his viewpoint.
Huntington was not a real democrat. For example, in his book Soldier and the state, published in 1957, he claimed for a military government in the United States. Unlike the neo conservative, he did not want to export human rights in other countries.

He cut out the world in nine civilizations, more or less open to the others: Western, Orthodox, Islamic, African, Latin American, Chinese, Japanese, Buddhist and Hindu. To preserve the might of the United States, he advocated an alliance between America and Europe, including Russia.

There were a lot of controversies about the existence of civilizations and the border between them. In practice, the neo conservative are not « huntingtonians ». Indeed, Huntington used to say: « Islamic civilization borders are bloody, you should not approach them ». He was in favour of remoteness and separation: the border between the western and the islamic civilization has to be sealed-off.

He was not interventionist or warmonger: he maintained that the civilizational wars are the only real total war because its goal is the total destruction of the enemy (he used the term « genocide » for example).

To understand his view, we must remember that he was a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) oligarch (he used himself the term « oligarchy » several times); he thought that the better government for the United States is the soft domination of rich white American protestant.
Unlike the neo conservative, the most dangerous enemies for him are the Latin Americans. He developed this point in the book Who are we?, published in 2004 (a recovery of the second part of his magnum opus).

The neo conservative think our type of government is a mix between democracy and free market (which bring peace to the others countries). They want to make « nation building » and « state building » from this two principles.

To conclude, we can say that Huntington was not a neo conservative and that the neo conservatives are not huntingtonians. In some situation (the situation of Russia, for example), there is an opposition between the two schools.

Bibliography:
- Le choc des civilisations, Samuel P. Huntington
- Qui sommes-nous? Identité nationale et choc des cultures, Samuel P. Huntington
- L'état et le soldat, Samuel P. Huntington
- Chrnonique du choc des civilisations, Aymeric Chauprade, édition 2011