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Jan

6

Fareed Zakaria on Samuel Huntington


I wrote about it a week or so ago.  Here’s Fareed in Newsweek:

Huntington is most famous for “The Clash of Civilizations,” but his
scholarly reputation properly rests on his earlier work. His analysis of
political order had immediate, real-world applications. While studying the
topic, he was asked by the Johnson administration to assess the progress of
the Vietnam War. After a tour of that country, he argued, in 1967 and 1968,
that America’s strategy in South Vietnam was fatally flawed. The United
States was trying to buy the support of the population through aid and
development. But money wasn’t the key, in Huntington’s view. The South
Vietnamese who resisted the Viet Cong’s efforts did so because they were
secure within effective communities structured around religious or ethnic
ties. The United States, though, wanted to create a modern Vietnamese
nation, and it refused to reinforce these “backward” sources of authority.
Sadly, this 40-year-old analysis describes our dilemma in Afghanistan
today.

Huntington noticed a troubling trend. Sometimes, American-style
progress — more political participation or faster economic growth –
actually created more problems than it solved. If a country had more people
who were economically, politically and socially active yet lacked effective
political institutions, such as political parties, civic organizations or
credible courts, the result was greater instability. Think of Pakistan,
whose population has skyrocketed from 68 million in 1975 to more than 165
million today, while its government has proved ill-equipped to tackle the
basic tasks of education, security and social welfare.

My emphasis, but Zakaria’s words about Huntington’s ideas.  Really wise ideas.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:12 pm January 6th, 2009 in Foreign Affairs, Military, Politics 

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