Western globalists won’t last long.

Thirty-five years ago, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama made a name for himself by advancing the proposition that the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union promised the ascendency and universalization of so-called Western liberal democracy.  As a Marxist-Hegelian who saw the progression of history as an evolutionary process with a natural and predetermined conclusion, Fukuyama envisioned Western-styled liberalism as both “the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution” and “the final form of human government.”  Expecting all human struggles to barrel toward a state of imminent equilibrium and future peace, Fukuyama stated out loud what many other late-twentieth century thinkers also believed: Humanity had reached the end of history.

After the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks in the United States, two decades of the “Global War on Terrorism,” communist China’s expansive “Belt and Road Initiative,” immigration-fueled social strife, the collapse of public trust in government institutions, the prevalence of pre-civil war conditions across Europe, the rise of Indian economic power, the emergence of Donald Trump’s nationalism as a counterbalance to the World Economic Forum’s vaunted globalism, the return of the Russian Federation as a major source of European angst, the growth of “multiculturalism” and its attendant fracturing of national unity, the “great powers” competition for hydrocarbon energies and other natural resources, the new geopolitical race to project strength in the Arctic, and the ever-present discussion of an impending World War III — just to name a few of the numerous global conflicts of the first quarter of the present century — Fukuyama’s “end of history” argument has probably reached the end of its usefulness.

Before the curse of humanity’s short memory stores Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis in the cupboard until it can be retrieved, dusted off, and recycled for practical use next century (just as Fukuyama had done with the historical conceptions of Hegel and Marx), it is worth noting how much of the academic world bought into this argument.  I remember listening to two young political science professors discussing Fukuyama’s work after the 9/11 terror attacks, and even then — in the midst of such a horrific rebuke to the proposition that a globalized form of Western liberalism was preordained — both academics were staunch believers in the “end of history” and disagreed only about whether Professor Fukuyama was worthy of so much praise for having merely stated what was glaringly obvious.

I was around another man at the time named Samuel P. Huntington, and he had written an essay and book that took Fukuyama’s thesis to task.  In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Professor Huntington argued that unbridgeable cultural conflicts would continue to remake the world.  Although critics called him “racist,” “Islamophobic,” “ignorant,” and even “Hitlerian” for dismissing the unifying effects of “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” Huntington’s predictions for a volatile twenty-first century were much more accurate than anything coming from the “end of history” camp.  Still, even after death, the man who dispassionately forecasted a civilizational clash and an emerging period of global uncertainty is still maligned as “prejudicial,” “white supremacist,” “bigoted,” and “imperialist.”

Is there any conflict raging in the world today that can’t be described in terms of competing cultural values?  Israel and its Islamic neighbors have been in a perennial state of war for eighty years.  Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims remain at each other’s throats.  Christianity and Islam have added fuel to fiery tribal conflicts that continue to rage across the continent of Africa.  Armenia’s Christians and Azerbaijan’s Muslims struggle to maintain peace.  The Balkans remain a potpourri of combative cultures and ethnic groups whose simmering passions can quickly boil over.  Burma, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos fight against each other and themselves as civilizational loyalties turn ancient resentments into recurring bouts of violence.  The War in Ukraine centers around the contested Donbas region whose people more closely align with the language, religion, and culture of Russia than with the historic identity that unites the people living in the western two-thirds of Ukraine.

Everywhere in the world, battle lines are drawn around civilizational identity.  Religious conflict, historic grievance, and cultural incompatibility drive violence around the planet.

Yet Western globalists in Europe and North America pretend not to notice.  They organize annual conventions where members of the World Economic Forum or the Council on Foreign Relations or the Royal Institute of International Affairs can bloviate about “multiculturalism,” “open borders,” “established norms,” and the “rules-based international order.”  They speak about “nationalism” and “patriotism” as if they were diseases requiring quarantine for those showing symptoms.  They like Islam and are willing to imprison anyone seen as violating Sharia Law or causing offense to Muslims.  But they generally despise Christians and Jews and don’t mind when medieval cathedrals mysteriously burn to the ground or Hamas terrorists rape Israeli women and kill Israeli babies.  They pray fanatically at the altar of their “green energy” religion, while replacing entire domestic industries with the coal-powered, slave-labor-produced, government-subsidized exports of the Chinese Communist Party.  White, Western globalists prefer to ignore the threats of Islamic jihad and Chinese totalitarianism, sip from glasses brimming with crisp Sauvignon blanc, and stew in the intoxicating vapors of their own haughty uselessness.

One might think that the last twenty-five years of global volatility would have given globalism’s biggest promoters some measure of pause as the “end of history” arrived and passed.  But Western “elites” generally suffer from cerebral deficiency, shameless incuriosity, and pathological stubbornness.  According to the blue bloods on both sides of the Atlantic — such as Canada’s banker-turned-prime-minister Mark Carney, France’s banker-turned-president Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s BlackRock-board-member-turned-chancellor Friedrich Merz, and the European Commission’s noble-aristocrat-turned-installed-president Ursula von der Leyen — “multiculturalism” is our future, “diversity is our strength,” and “cultural nationalism” is a “terrorist ideology” that breeds “hate.”

Even after President George W. Bush’s failed “nation-building” gambit to bring “democracy” and “women’s rights” to Afghanistan and the Middle East, Western globalists insist that civilizational clashes aren’t real.  Even after the exposure of Muslim “rape gangs” trading local girls as sex slaves in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France, Western globalists insist that “diversity is our strength” and “multiculturalism” is our future.  Even after communist China’s increasingly provocative saber-rattling regarding Taiwan, pervasive espionage and sabotage within the United States, and public promises of world domination, Western globalists insist on transferring huge sums of national wealth to the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for China’s lip service to “international norms.”  What Talleyrand said of the Bourbons applies equally well to the West’s suicidal cult of self-hating globalists: “They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

As we enter the second quarter of the twentieth century, the world is about to receive a harsh education in the persistent reality of civilizational conflict.  The “end of history” tripe was always a figment of self-deluding theoreticians who envision themselves as philosopher kings.  In the real world, values matter.  Culture matters.  Religion matters.  The past matters.  Honor matters.  Violent conflict does not disappear in a puff of smoke when Marxist-Hegelians hold up their dog-eared copies of Das Kapital and declare it must be so.  In the real world — where bullets fly faster than words — theories written on scraps of paper are rolled up into cigarettes or left under a rock near the trench latrine.  In the real world, people fight.  Cultures compete.  And civilizations clash.

Western globalists who refuse to learn the basics won’t long last.  From the Arctic to the Antarctic, battle lines are being drawn and redrawn everywhere.  The past informs the present.  The present informs the future.  The rest of history is just now beginning.

J.B. Shurk | February 25, 2026

Source: The Clash of Civilizations Restarts History – American Thinker

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke in Munich last week about the necessity of preserving Western Civilization, critics labeled his remarks “far right” and “sugar coated racism.” While that reaction is nearly reflexive for the modern left, it avoids the point Secretary Rubio was trying to make: Western Civilization is good and worth preserving.

This is not a remotely racist thing to say because Western Civilization is not an ethnicity. It’s not a genetic inheritance passed down through European bloodlines or a cultural preference for pastries and Bach. It is, at its core, a set of ideas about human dignity and the purpose of government; all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights that precede government itself. Because of this, the West determined that good government would serve the individual when the historical norm was that people served their government. The result has been unprecedented freedom and prosperity, but it still has serious competition.

Islamic theocracies believe the proper role of government is to compel submission to Islamic law for believers and infidels alike. In its most rigid forms, this produces governments with little respect for individual liberty—which explains why the most strictly Islamic nations rank among the world’s most oppressive.

Progressivism presents perhaps the most insidious challenge to Western ideals because it speaks the language of justice and equal rights while fundamentally rejecting Western principles. Where the West sees individuals, progressivism sees group identities. Where Western thought enshrines equal treatment under law, progressivism demands equal outcomes.

Under progressivism’s framework, government always takes the side of “the oppressed” who are to be believed and even obeyed regardless of facts, character, or competence. If you say you are a woman, then you are. Meanwhile, those deemed “oppressors” can expect to have their concerns ignored, their feelings dismissed, and their possession redistributed in the name of “equality.”

While these are not the only civilizational models, they illustrate that civilizational values can be mutually exclusive. You cannot merge Western Civilization and an Islamic theocracy. While it’s necessary to peacefully coexistence with people who are different than you, some differences are irreconcilable. Someone heading north cannot accommodate a travel companion determined to go south. At some point, we must agree to the same destination or part ways.

The disproportionate flow of migration into Western nations suggests there is something uniquely good about what the West has built.

None of this is racist.

Yes, Western Civilization developed in Europe, but the ideas on which Western Civilization is built have been embraced by people of every ethnicity because they’re good, true, and beautiful. The notion that we should reject these principles because of their European heritage is the actual racism—judging ideas not by their merit but by the skin color of their earliest proponents. Condemning Western Civilization because long-deceased Europeans did bad things is like refusing to use electricity because Thomas Edison mistreated animals in some of his experiments. It’s virtue signaling to your own detriment.

Does this mean Western Civilization is intolerant? In a sense, yes. If Western civilization is worth preserving, then we must oppose efforts to destroy it. But this is the productive intolerance of an immune system fighting disease, not the arbitrary bigotry of prejudice. It’s the kind of intolerance wisdom demands and survival requires.

None of this means Western Civilization is static. The arrival of an Indian restaurant is not a sign of civilizational collapse. In fact, the disproportionate flow of migration into Western nations suggests there is something uniquely good about what the West has built. But the kind of diversity that strengthens rather than destroys requires an understanding of why some places are better than others and a willingness to help move in that direction. Provided the people who love curry also come to understand that God made us in His image and gave us rights the government is obligated to protect, their curry makes us stronger.

Marco Rubio wasn’t engaging in coded racism last week. He was acknowledging and reasserting the choice every society must make: Which foundational principles will guide us? Refusing to have this conversation doesn’t make the question disappear—it simply ensures we’ll end up somewhere on accident. Despite the well-document imperfections of the people involved, Western Civilization represents humanity’s best answer yet to the question of how people should live together.

Defending that isn’t bigotry. It’s wisdom.

Joseph Backholm is senior fellow for Biblical worldview and strategic engagement at the Family Research Council.

Source: Defending Western Civilization Is Not Bigotry, It’s Wisdom – Harbinger’s Daily