Does 'Clash of Civilizations' Tell Us Anything Useful?

There are other divisions that matter more and help us make more sense of why conflicts occur.

Ross Douthat argues that Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis “would seem ripe for new attention in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the surprisingly unified Western response, the more uncertain reactions from China and India.” I don’t buy that the thesis tells us much that is useful about this conflict or the current state of affairs, but it’s worth thinking through why Huntington’s thesis doesn’t make much sense and doesn’t help us to explain why conflicts happen where they happen. It seems clear to me that civilization is not a useful unit of analysis, and it can’t explain the conflicts of the last thirty years very well at all.