Saudi-Pak-Turkiye axis: A partial vindication of Samuel Huntington's 'Clash of Civilisations' thesis

The signing of a mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan, all Sunni Islamic countries, is a small signal that there is something to Samual Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations thesis. The defence pact, while not clear on when one country will go to war if another is attacked, is probably driven by a sense of common threat from Shia Iran and the Jewish state of Israel – both mortal enemies to each other themselves. Sunni religious identity is the basis of this pact for none of the three shares any common enemy that is existential in nature for all of them. Each one has a different enemy – Iran for the Saudis, India for the Pakistanis, and possibly Greece and Armenia for Turkiye, though both are minnows compared to Turkiye.

In 1993, Samuel Huntington wrote The Clash of Civilisations in Foreign Affairs magazine, where he hypothesised that future conflicts and wars would be fought not only between countries but on the edges of “civilisations”. Huntington, a professor at Harvard, died in 2008, but his thesis seems to find some kind of traction at least partially at some time or the other.

Huntington defined a civilisation as a broad cultural collective of people who subscribed to some form of common identity shaped by religion, history, language and inherited cultural experience and symbolism.

The thesis is difficult to prove as past attempts to unify countries that saw themselves as part of the same civilisation have seldom worked. In the Islamic world, the Shia-Sunni hiatus is often too big to be bridged. Even within the Sunni world, the Gulf Cooperation Council now has the UAE odds with the Saudis. Christian Europe has seen more wars with itself than almost any other part of the world over the last few centuries. Even the Orthodox Christian world is now in conflict - as the Russia-Ukraine war attests. Islamic Pakistan and Bangladesh broke up over language and distance in 1971.

Without denying this reality, it may partly be true that other things being equal, countries may prefer allies within the same civilisation, whether defined by religion, or language or culture. Civilisational connect makes the vocabulary and architecture of broader alliances easier to build.

Huntington, whose first-hand knowledge of other cultures and civilisations can hardly be called accurate, grouped the world into a few broad civilisations. His starting point was the western civilisation, which includes North America, Western Europe and Australia and New Zealand. Then there was the Slavic-Orthodox civilisation comprising Russia and Eastern European Orthodox Christian countries. He lumped the Islamic world into one, including large parts of West Asia, North Africa, and parts of South and South-east Asia. The partition of India on religious lines would seem to confirm this thesis at least in the Indian sub-continent. Then there was the Sinic civilisation (China, Koreas, and Vietnam), Japan, Hindu (India and Nepal), Latin American (largely Catholic) and African civilisation (albeit broken into various tribalisms).

That it needed only a Donald Trump to break the so-called “western” civilisation into partially conflicting parts shows the limits of trying to build broader identities out of merely religious-cultural heritage. India and Nepal, despite being Hindu civilisationally speaking, can hardly be termed as BFFs.

However, there is one reality of Huntington’s thesis that cannot be understated: India unusually stands alone. As a geographically separate and separate civilisation in a world largely defined by Abrahamic traditions and ideologies, India will always find it tough to talk the language of civilisational connect with the rest of the world. Our alliances will be tactical in nature, never based on common civilisation or culture.

This is why a Pakistan can sew up Islamic or western alliances, but India cannot. India is too big to be a vassal state of any major power, and not big enough or economically strong enough (as yet) to expand its cultural impact to regions outside the Indian sub-continent.

A civilisational entity defined by tradition, practices, rituals and shared stories may not find the kind of broader cross-country connect that is driven by expansionist ideologies defined by religious affiliation to a common founder. We have our work cut out when it comes to building partnerships for mutual benefit.