After the end of the cold war, many writers and theorists predicted no other such historical events. However, according to Huntington, the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.
Today’s “Thomas Barnett’s American military geostrategist ideas involve the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world in past, present, and future contexts.” His ideas portray the United States to have been found unprepared for the September 11 attacks. He points out that after the world war, the military focus was shifted to holding the Soviet Union at check. However, with its collapse in the 1980s argument was that what remained was to keep anti-US states like Iraq and South Korea in check.
These two theorists portray today’s conflict (terrorism) as a product of new world order. Suppression of one conflict marks the beginning of another. This means that law enforcer efforts can only prepare for new and worse conflicts. Their strategies should then be long-term to handle worse conflicts in the future. One such conflict is the pirates along the Somali coastline,
They also imply that the American Foreign policy on terrorism will continue to face more and bigger challenges. This means “Counterterrorism policy should be designed as but one part of a broader effort to maintain national security and should be integrated into all foreign policy decision making.” Policies should be long-term and should oversee worse disasters that may arise even with the containment of terrorism.