Intercultural Communication is panacea to avoid 3rd World War
“Wars of the Future will be fought along civilizational faultlines.”
Samuel P. Huntington
In Clash of Civilizations, Huntington had predicted that wars of future, and by extension World War III, will be fought among civilizations. The differences among various civilizations, and a sense of conflict between them, has been steadily increasing over the last few decades. The signs are hard to miss: the rising wave of Islamophobia in the West, the superpower conflict between China and the U.S., Russia flexing its muscles in front of Europe, and multiple conflict hotspots around the world that pit one civilization against another such as Kashmir, Palestine, and Nagorno-Karabakh etc. These conflicts are essentially pulling the world into two opposing poles, and instead of being divided by ideology like the main conflicts of the previous century, these two poles are divided among conflicting civilizations and cultures. The idea that if another world war happens, it is most likely to happen due exacerbated cultural and civilizational differences, has some appeal to it. So if the world wants to avoid another devastating world war, a war that might exterminate the entire human race due to the existence of weapons of mass destruction, it would need to bridge the differences among various conflicting cultures. If world war 3 is to happen, the most likely reason would be conflicting cultures and civilizations not being able to coexist in an inclusive global system; and if another world war is to be avoided, bridging the gaps among these differences through intercultural communication is the way forward.
The world, in its current state and direction, is heading into a bipolar formation. It is effectively being divided into two separate spheres of influence, and if another world war is to happen, it is becoming more and more clear how the two sides would be defined.
It is very clear that the U.S. will be at the helm of the new Allied Powers, with the entirety of the western civilization following their lead. But not just the West, other completely distinct civilizations like Japan and India are also likely to be a part of this pro-Western alliance. Even though India and Japan are entirely distinct cultures in their own, they are influenced by the West to the point that it will be next to impossible for them to be at conflict with the West on purely cultural grounds. This is also true for some rapidly westernizing Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and it’s sphere of influence in the Middle east, plus Israel which has always been a very important ally of the U.S. and the West. Every civilization, however, does not have this cultural compatibility with the West.
The triumph of the Taliban over a superpower, the U.S., has created a sense of religious self-belief in some Muslim countries. These Muslim countries, being backed by the emerging superpower China, are finding it easier to contradict the West. Russia is also once again asserting itself at the world stage, and is flexing its military muscles on its European borders. All of these countries, which are culturally distinct civilizations in themselves, seem more confident than ever to take on the Western status quo at multiple diplomatic/economic avenues, and a kinetic conflict between the two sides is seeming more and more likely. Just like the new Allied Powers, Axis Powers 2.0 are also clearly defined at this stage, and another world war is looking like a very real possibility.
Both sides are inching towards conflict. Some analysts assume that because all the major powers of the world possess nuclear weapons, none would dare attack another. It is, however, public knowledge how close the Soviets and the U.S. had come to a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Just like Cuba was a flashpoint during the Cold War, many flashpoints exist in the modern world as that could start a kinetic conflict and events could quickly escalate into another world war (this is not impossible to imagine: a single assassination had dragged Eurasia into WWI a century ago; that was only possible because Europe, at that point, was also divided into two conflicting halves).
A YouTuber had created a simulation for WWIII, and the starting point in his war was North Korea doing certain nuclear ICBM tests, and the U.S. considering that as declaration of war and invading North Korea which quickly brought China and Russia into the equation and the situation spirals into a full fledged world war. North Korea is certainly a flashpoint for another world war, but there are several others as well: South China sea, Kashmir, Palestine, and Taiwan etc. that could pit civilizations from opposing camps against each other and possibly start WWIII. When culturally different civilizations/powers are pitted against each other, cultural intercommunication is a powerful tool to start bridging gaps and diffusing tensions between opposing sides.
The modern world is increasingly being considered to be a global village. Everyone simply assumes that all cultures, societies, and civilizations are connected, and that everyone around the world simply knows and understands everyone else. This dangerously common assumption is also dangerously far from the truth. Propaganda and misinformation on the media, both electronic TV media and digital social media, have created dangerously inaccurate perceptions about people from other regions/civilizations/cultures in virtually everyone. These misconceptions create enmities amongst differing peoples, and a conscious effort for intercommunication is needed to fill in these artificially created gaps among cultures.
Even though all these different cultural hubs and civilizations — the West, China, and the Muslim etc. — might think that they are vastly different from each other, they also have much in common. The internet, and especially the social media, have brought individuals and ideas closer from regions across the world. Western media is popular across almost all of the above mentioned societies. An Iranian Muslim will be wearing a Western outfit, eating an Arabic dish while criticizing America at a social gathering and might go back home to tune into a Turkish drama on Netflix. And the western outfit that that Iranian would be wearing would be manufactured in some South Asian or South east Asian country like Pakistan or Bangladesh. The world today is interconnected and interdependent in many more ways than most people realize today.
And not just cultural commonalities, the world is full of common issues and problems as well.
The corona virus showed how disease outbreaks are no longer a state or region based problem. Pandemics, and by extension healthcare, are a global phenomenon and a global problem now. Scenes of Doctors arriving from Communist Cuba into virus devastated capitalist Italy gave hope that culturally and ideologically different civilizations can work together on common issues such as the COVID pandemic and start a dialogue to work together towards goals of common importance.
Similarly, the issue of global warming is also one that merits global cooperation. Rival powers such as China, India and the U.S. share the largest burden of global warming as they are the biggest carbon contributors to the atmosphere (these three countries alone contribute to more than half of global carbon emissions). If global warming is to be kept at 1.5 degrees, such rival cultures and politically rival civilizations would need to sit together and draw up a greener future for upcoming generations.
Immigration and issues of international security such as cross border crime and terrorism etc. also require countries from differing cultural beliefs to come together and find solutions to these problems. Immigration requires the assimilation cultures that seemingly have nothing in common with each other. The issue of terrorism is already forcing rival powers and cultures like Taliban and the U.S. to cooperate even though they were enemies merely months ago. And if such diametrically opposing cultures and warring enemies could sit together to find solutions to common problems, it is surely possible for them ignore their cultural differences in the long run and make a culturally tolerant international society.
Despite talk of deglobalization, slobalization or regionalization etc., the world today is more interconnected and interdependent than it ever was. As mentioned before, this globally interconnected world has multiple common issues and those issues would require cooperation between opposing cultural civilizations. But imagining a future where such vastly different cultures learn to live together without running into any major conflict is not impossible either. In fact, avoiding such major conflicts in the future — such as a world war three — will require a tolerant and inclusive global culture where conflicting features of differing civilizations are minimized while commonalities would be highlighted and positive aspects of all cultures would be pushed forward.
This cultural inclusivity and tolerance can be achieved through multiple ways. And one of them would be cultural exchanges. Although cultural exchanges are nothing new, and have been happening for a very long time in many countries, their scale is still very small. Majority of the friction that exists among various civilizations is because of the misconceptions they have of each other. This problem could be solved if people from different cultures were made to visit and experience each other’s ways of life. This could be achieved through student exchanges but in higher volumes, through promoting tourism, and media projects that accurately depict other cultural nuances to home audiences.
The online world, in this whole scenario, could either make it or break it for intercultural communication. Studies show that fake news and negative propaganda can travel online on average six times faster than actual facts. Because they are mostly fabricated lies or twisted versions of the truth, they are molded into a version that resonates with a larger audience. This can make it very hard to promote inclusivity and cultural intercommunication online. But it would certainly not be impossible. Targeted social media campaigns that promote tolerance and refute notions of cultural hatred would be a good place to start. It would need much more effort than that though, from governments across the board and individuals as well.
Again mentioning the example of that Iranian guy: it showed how modern cultures are a mixture of ideas and artifacts from across the world. Almost all cultures today are, to some extent, different versions of a singular global culture. So imagining a global culture, where cultural differences are celebrated and promoted, is not impossible either. Culturally differing civilizations can simply ignore and tolerate conflicting aspects of each other’s ways of life. Culture, according to sociologists, is like a living organism — it is always growing, changing and evolving. So differing cultures could integrate into each other and maybe create a new amalgam as the new global way of life. This level of cultural integration and intercommunication would go a long way into avoiding another world war.
However, the question merits asking: is cultural intercommunication enough? Is cultural pluralism and tolerance enough to save the world from another devastation like the previous two world wars. Where do geo-politics and geo-economics and great power competition sit in the equation? Assuming that cultural intercommunication will be enough to divert another great conflict would be naive. European rivals from both the world wars were, culturally speaking, not on opposing poles. They had many aspects of their cultures, lifestyles, and thinking in common. And yet they went into a war, hell bent on completely annihilating their opposition. This shows that economic and political integration and inclusivity will be as important, if not more, as cultural intercommunication.
To sum it all up, trends in conflict in the modern world increasingly show that future wars are likely to happen across differing cultures and civilizations. The two new emerging poles of power politics and spheres of influence show a pattern of differing cultures aligning with the side that connects more to its own culture. In this scenario, it could be argued that conflicts of the future can be diffused through cultural intercommunication. Intercommunication and cooperation are the key to solving most of today’s global issues, and they would be needed to solve problems of the future as well. However, culture alone cannot save the world from another world war. More complex steps considering politics and economics would be needed to diffuse the bomb of another world war that could potentially exterminate humanity.
Also read, CSS Essay 2022: Digital Democracy, Social media and Political Participation