Samuel P. Huntington, the influential American political scientist whose ideas shaped much of Western foreign policy – particularly that of the United States – once made a blunt observation about the foundations of global power. In his controversial book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, he wrote that “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
Huntington’s remark captures an uncomfortable historical reality: the modern international order did not emerge solely through…