Political Scientist Samuel P. Huntington, 81, Dies

Unless you're an academic, you've probably never heard of Samuel P. Huntington. But you should have. That's because 15 years ago he argued (emphasis added) "that in a post-Cold War world, violent conflict would come not from ideological friction between nation states, but from cultural and religious differences among the world's major civilizations."

After introducing his thesis in an article in Foreign Affairs in 1993, he expounded on it in "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," which has been translated into 39 languages.

Moreover, in the late 1970s he was "skeptical about putting troops on the ground to build Western-style democracy in places with no tradition of it." Huntington wrote, "The problem is not to hold elections but to create organizations."

Both of these themes have played out for the past seven years in Afghanistan and Iraq. What if Huntington's theories had been the foundation of American foreign policy in the Bush Administration?

Back Story
In 1957, Huntington's first book, "The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations," was extremely controversial. It was so controversial that Harvard denied him tenure.

Huntington and Zbigniew Brzezinski both received their doctorate in political science from Harvard and both went to Columbia University after Harvard denied them tenure. Four years later, Harvard invited them back. Huntington did not leave until he retired in 2007. Brzezinski stayed at Columbia and advised Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson before becoming Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. Brzezinski is the Democratic Party counterpart to Henry Kissinger, who was Huntington's peer when he returned to Harvard.

Today "The Soldier and the State" is considered a classic and is in its 14th printing. The book "was inspired by President Harry Truman's firing of General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination, in 1951."

Why His Death Is Important
Huntington may not be well-known outside of academic circles, but his contribution to foreign policy theory is unparalleled. In 1959, Huntington wrote, "The quest for truths is synonymous with intellectual controversy." Daniel W. Drezner argues that Huntington was not afraid "of taking the iconoclastic position and making the politically incorrect argument." Moreover, he writes, "One could always debate Huntington’s hypotheses, but only fools would dismiss them out of hand."

As Robert Kaplan wrote in The Atlantic in 2001:

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon highlight the tragic relevance not just of Huntington's ideas about a clash of civilizations but of his entire life's work... He has written that liberalism thrives only when security can be taken for granted—and that in the future we may not have that luxury. And he has warned that the West may one day have to fight for its most cherished values and, indeed, physical survival against extremists from other cultures who despise our country and who will embroil us in a civilizational war that is real, even if political leaders and polite punditry must call it by another name.