Civilisationalism and the future of the world order

Sir Halford Mackinder argued in the early 20th century that geography matters because location shapes power. More than a century later, this fundamental principle of geopolitics remains as relevant as ever. As far back as the fifth century BC, during the Peloponnesian War, Sparta occupied the Dardanelles to deny Athens access to imported grain. The strategic logic of controlling geographical chokepoints has endured across centuries, even as technology has transformed warfare, communication and commerce.

The modern world came to believe that innovation and globalisation had diminished geography's constraints. That assumption is now being challenged. Geography is returning with a vengeance. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the prospect of disrupted maritime traffic through Bab-el-Mandeb expose the vulnerability of a globalised economy that depends on the uninterrupted flow of energy, goods and trade. These geographic chokepoints suggest that while globalisation has integrated economies across borders, the great powers have struggled to reconcile their pursuit of national interests with their responsibility for sustaining the global order on which their own prosperity depends.

The US and its allies constructed the post-war international order around the twin principles of primacy and restraint. Today, however, the limits of American power in the Persian Gulf have raised fundamental questions about the credibility of US primacy. The inability to guarantee the security of American military installations in the region, coupled with the difficulties of confronting Iran through conventional military means, has exposed a widening gap between Washington's global ambitions and its capacity to translate military superiority into strategic outcomes. The US now faces the formidable task of reshaping the global economic and geopolitical order, a challenge increasingly framed as the basis of a new American grand strategy. But does Washington possess the political resolve, economic resources and military capacity to undertake such a project? And can it secure the cooperation of allies and partners whose support would be indispensable to its success? During the Cold War, the containment of communism provided a strategic purpose around which the US mobilised an extensive network of international support. The global war on terror subsequently offered another organising framework for American power, with achievement of varying degrees of results. Can Washington generate comparable support for a strategy aimed at reconfiguring global geoeconomics and geopolitics in an era when hybrid warfare, grey-zone competition and the weaponisation of economic interdependence are increasingly shaping international relations? The challenge is no longer simply whether the US can exercise primacy, but whether it can convert that primacy into a sustainable global order.

American grand strategy has historically been organised around an identifiable adversary. During the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union and the ideological challenge of communism. In the aftermath of 9/11, it was the threat of terrorism, increasingly framed through the lens of the Islamic world. Today, Iran, as the principal state representing Persian civilisation, and Russia, engaged in a war on the European theatre, appear to occupy central positions in a broader strategic contest over the future of the global geopolitical and geoeconomic order. When Marco Rubio declared that "we must fight to defend Western civilization with the same passion as our forefathers did", his words evoked the language of a civilisational struggle reminiscent of the Crusades. Yet the question that such rhetoric raises is whether the defence of civilisation is being invoked to uphold universal principles or to legitimise the pursuit of geopolitical interests. The conduct of any civilisation must ultimately be measured against the professed principles of the pursuit of truth, the recognition of human dignity and worth, and the rule of law. By these standards, the US, despite its unrivalled position during the unipolar moment, has repeatedly faced questions about the consistency between its declared values and its actions as a global hegemon. Meanwhile, Washington's defence and security strategies have identified China as a major geopolitical challenge of the 21st century. Beijing, therefore, has reason to view the unfolding crises in the Middle East and Ukraine not merely as separate regional conflicts, but as potential stages in a wider strategic contest. Once Washington has addressed these theatres, China may find itself at the centre of the next phase of American strategic competition. The dilemma is that a strategy intended to preserve a particular vision of global order may instead widen the divisions between civilisations and accelerate the very geopolitical fragmentation it seeks to prevent.

The Cold War demonstrated that the world can remain relatively peaceful when deterrence holds and competing powers recognise the costs of confrontation. Deterrence, however, rests on two essential elements: capacity and credibility of will. Both are increasingly under strain in the present international order. The difficulties faced by the US and its allies in deterring Iran, alongside their reluctance to confront Russia directly, have raised questions about the credibility of Western deterrence and Washington's ability to dictate the outcomes of these conflicts. How the US responds to these challenges will help determine the kind of international order that emerges.

It is in this context that I propose civilisationalism as a work in progress, a potential theoretical framework for understanding a less hegemonic and more pluralistic world. Its central proposition is that major powers should recognise the civilisational spheres within which their historical, cultural and strategic interests are concentrated, pursue peaceful coexistence and cooperation across these spheres, and abandon the ambition of imposing a single model of global leadership. No civilisation should claim an exclusive right to organise the world in its own image. The irony facing the US is that it may strengthen its claim to leadership not by insisting on being first, but by accepting that it cannot, and perhaps should not, lead everywhere. America may have to learn to put itself second in the pursuit of a shared global order. If it insists on remaining first, it must relinquish the ambition of exercising universal leadership and make room for a civilisational order founded on mutual restraint, sovereign equality and peaceful coexistence. Such a transition would not eliminate competition or conflict, but it could offer the world a more sustainable alternative to the endless struggle for global primacy.