Why the West Misread the Post-Cold War World: What Fukuyama, Huntington, and Strauss–Howe Still Teach Us About the New International Order

Thirty-five years after the end of the Cold War, the optimism that shaped the 1990s has largely disappeared. The liberal international order, once regarded as the inevitable destination of history under the unipolar direction of the United States, is under pressure and in retreat. Russia has returned as a geopolitical challenger. China has emerged as a global rival. Europe faces internal fragmentation, while the United States itself is deeply polarized. Rather than entering an era of perpetual peace and balanced global stability, the world has returned to great-power rivalry, geopolitical instability, a multipolar design and even faces a year-long war in Europe.

This outcome was not inevitable. Nor was it entirely unpredictable. It resulted from poor political choices throughout.

Three of the most influential political thinkers of the 1990s—Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, and William Strauss and Neil Howe—identified remarkably different, and yet equally essential interpretations of the post-Cold War world. Yet Western policymakers either misunderstood or ignored their deeper insights.

Understanding these theories today is not only critical for understanding why Western strategy has repeatedly failed over the past three decades but, even more importantly, to cast a prosperous way forward.

Recognition Before Power

Francis Fukuyama became famous for proclaiming "the End of History." His argument, however, has often been reduced to the prediction that liberal democracy had permanently triumphed in the ideological evolution of mankind.

But this was not his central philosophical insight for organizing international relations.

Drawing upon Hegel and Plato, Fukuyama argued that human beings seek, individually and as collectives, not only material prosperity and well-being but also recognition—thymos, the desire for dignity, respect, and equal standing.

This dimension was largely ignored after 1991.

Rather than integrating Russia into a genuinely new European security architecture based on equal partnership, the West increasingly treated Russia as a defeated power expected to adapt unconditionally to an expanding liberal order. NATO enlargement, successive interventions, and support for political transformations throughout the post-Soviet space were interpreted in Western capitals as the natural expansion of democracy.

In Moscow they were perceived differently: as strategic encirclement and denial of recognition.

Dismissing this psychological and political dimension proved to be a profound strategic mistake. Stable international order cannot rest upon attempted unilateral military dominance. It also requires mutual recognition among major powers. A denial of these parameters triggers resistance and defiance.

This is why ignoring Fukuyama's concept of recognition contributed significantly to today's confrontation.

Civilizations Never Disappeared

If Fukuyama emphasized recognition, Samuel Huntington emphasized identity.

In The Clash of Civilizations, Huntington argued that the ideological conflicts of the twentieth century would increasingly give way to conflicts rooted in civilization, culture, and religion. The principal dividing lines would no longer be political borders but competing cultural worlds.

Many critics dismissed Huntington as overly pessimistic.

Events since then suggest otherwise.

The assumption that liberal democracy represented a universally attractive destination underestimated the enduring importance of civilizational identity. Russia increasingly defined itself through Orthodox Christianity and sovereign statehood and looked with disdain at the civilizational deterioration of the West. China emphasized its own civilizational continuity. Large parts of the Islamic world resisted Western liberal universalism. In Europe and North America, debates over national identity, immigration, and cultural cohesion became increasingly central.

The Western tendency to interpret international politics primarily through liberal universal values frequently overlooked these deeper cultural realities.

This does not imply that civilizations are destined for conflict. It does suggest though that a lasting international order requires respect for civilizational diversity and overcoming the assumption that all societies across the globe will eventually adopt the model offered and imposed by the West.

History Moves in Cycles

The least discussed—but perhaps most intriguing—theory comes from William Strauss and Neil Howe.

Their book The Fourth Turning proposed that Anglo-American history develops through recurring generational cycles of roughly eighty to one hundred years. Each cycle culminates in a period of profound institutional crisis—a "Fourth Turning"—during which political orders are fundamentally transformed.

Whether one accepts the theory literally is less important than recognizing its explanatory power.

The financial crisis of 2008, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing political polarization, declining trust in institutions, and renewed geopolitical rivalry all resemble the characteristics Strauss and Howe associated with systemic crisis.

Their theory also helps explain the rise of political movements rejecting the assumptions of the post-Cold War era.

In this context, Donald Trump's "America First" foreign policy appears less as an historical anomaly than as a symptom of a broader structural transition. It reflects growing scepticism toward global interventionism, puts increasing emphasis on national sovereignty, and a reassessment of America's strategic priorities.

Whether one supports or opposes these policies is secondary. Of primary importance is the realization that they represent deeper historical forces rather than merely temporary political preferences.

From Wilsonian Universalism to Strategic Realism

Taken together, these three theories reveal a common weakness in Western strategy after the Cold War.

The dominant foreign-policy establishment increasingly embraced a Wilsonian vision of international politics based upon democratic universalism, humanitarian intervention, and the expansion of a liberal international order.

This approach often underestimated the three enduring realities introduced here:

First, nations seek recognition, not merely economic integration. Second, civilizations preserve distinct historical identities that cannot simply be transformed through political engineering. Third, historical orders eventually reach points of exhaustion requiring strategic adaptation rather than ideological persistence.

The failed policies resulted in a succession of costly strategic disappointments—from Iraq and Libya to the deterioration of relations with Russia and the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

The problem was not the probably good-willed aspiration toward peace or democracy. The problem was the misconception that these objectives could be achieved while ignoring power, history, identity, and recognition.

 

A Multipolar Future

The liberal international order is not simply collapsing. It is being transformed.

The emerging world is increasingly multipolar. Great powers pursue distinct civilizational interests. National sovereignty has returned as a central organizing principle of international politics. Strategic competition has replaced assumptions of inevitable convergence.

Recognizing this reality does not require abandoning liberal values in whatever configuration they are present in Western societies. It certainly requires abandoning the belief that those values alone can organize international politics.

A more durable international order will depend upon mutual recognition among major powers, respect for cultural diversity, and a realistic understanding of geopolitical interests.

The post-Cold War era demonstrated the limits of ideological certainty. The decades ahead will demand something different: strategic prudence grounded in political philosophy rather than political wishful thinking.

The insights of Fukuyama, Huntington, and Strauss–Howe remain valuable precisely because they remind us that successful statecraft begins not with universal power aspirations but with a clear understanding of human nature, historical development, and the enduring diversity of civilizations. Only by recovering these insights can the West hope to navigate an increasingly complex international order. 

If Fukuyama, Huntington, and Strauss–Howe each illuminate one dimension of political reality, what philosophical framework can reconcile their insights within a single theory of strategy? This question forms the point of departure for my next essay, where I introduce Idealistic Realism—an attempt to recover the transcendental foundations of strategic thought that have largely disappeared from contemporary international relations. Without such philosophical grounding, strategy risks becoming little more than the management of power without wisdom.

Right becomes Wrong – Arizona Immigration Law Turned Down!

People are holding up a sign that shows an American flag in which the fifty stars are replaced by a swastika, thus claiming their protest against the Arizona Immigration Law! Mexicans are happily embracing each other because a federal judge has just turned down the core elements of this law, depriving it of its most essential elements for enhanced immigration enforcement in Arizona! 

 

There can be no doubt anymore! The right has become wrong; straight is now crooked; common sense turned into no(n)sense; the upstanding transforms into insincerity; upswing into downturn! What is the reason for all this? Why is it that the longer we walk toward the future in our civilization, the more we step backward, deteriorate, decline? 

One reason is the ubiquitous arbitrariness of values and convictions, generated and driven solely by individual and self-centered aspirations, making people lose sight of more comprehensive perspectives. Another reason is that educational institutions and processes no longer convey the profound foundation for understanding political issues on more or less all levels of schooling, teaching, and instruction. Who has learned about the subsidiary principle, the history of ideas of statehood, forms of state and government, division of powers, genesis, purpose, and necessity of state organization and state institutions? The knowledge about the holistic underpinning of Western culture alone provides the foundation for independent thinking and judgment.

The philosophical reason for the misconceptions of immigration and immigration control lies in what we might call a neo-cosmopolitan idea. It claims the individual human being, not the (nation-) state, to be the protagonist in interstate and international relations. While the traditional position sees the (nation-) state as the moral actor in political affairs through which individual rights can be guaranteed, the neo-cosmopolitan stance stipulates a radical reduction of state-sovereignty. It promotes the idea of a global social contract. Indeed, this position presupposes the state to be a mere transient circumstance of political relations whose regulatory and hindering mechanisms – such as borders and stringent immigration policies – stand in the way of individual freedom. 

 

For people thinking – or rather intuitively opinionating – along these lines, citizens' interests within the boundaries of any given (nation-) state are not and must not be considered superior or more exclusive vis-à-vis any other individual that stands outside these limits. For them, not the nation is the subject of the ius gentium, the law of nations, and the protagonist of international relations, but rather the individual human being. There are no international relations at the end of the day. It is only the individual who has and may stipulate legal claims in a global society's cosmopolitan community. This democratic universalism builds the nucleus of this particular strand of political thinking that rejects nation-states' right and political necessity to uphold clear rights (and duties) for their citizens and due process for attaining citizenship. 

 

Both positions – the traditional and the cosmopolitan – promote individual rights and are rooted in the normative ontology of individualism and human rights. However, the difference lies in what each side considers to be the protagonist of political relations. The traditional approach accepts the organization of the (nation-) state as the inevitable perennial model for the protection and promotion of human and individual rights and a potentially peaceful international order. The position of political cosmopolitanism considers the Westphalia nation-state model to be an instrument of oppression and failure that stands in the way of individual liberty and progress. phantasm

 

It would go far beyond the purview of this brief essay to outline all the epistemological, ontological, anthropological, and historical reasons why a world republic will forever remain a romantic illusion. Language and religion have been named two more pragmatic reasons for the impossibility of establishing a global society, no longer divided up by state boundaries and national confinements. The nation-state's condition, clearly defined by territorial borders and distinct legal order, is and will be the best form for a just social order in which the individual's rights are promoted and protected at the same time. We can only base a functional and indeed humane world order on the constitution of (nation-) states and their behavior toward each other guided by an international legal order. It is precisely through international relations that the community of states influences one another and promotes, by way of public opinion, diplomacy, and yes, under specific circumstances, forceful intervention into domestic affairs of a nation, the protection of individual human rights. 

 

The current political debate in the US shows that not even the federal government's exponents are aware of this circumstance. A liberal bias seems to precede the observance of one of the core purposes and tasks of any (nation-) state – to protect its borders and provide security and safety for its citizens. But the misperceptions in this particular regard join hands with the neglect of another essential principle of good governance – the principle of subsidiarity. The subsidiarity principle says that the level of (political) organization that is best able to deal with a task efficiently should take care of that task. While constitutional and federal rules should guide immigration and immigration enforcement, there is no doubt that particular regions and states face specific challenges that need countering in different and proportional ways. The immigration situation for states like California, Arizona, or Texas is different. The federal government must grant those states some leeway in how they safeguard and enforce federal immigration laws. 

 

It makes one wonder why immigration, while it clearly should allow for regional arrangements, is dominated by federal mandate. It astounds even more how liberal bias and political correctness undermines genuine police work. 

 

The results of these failed policies are apparent, and recent developments prove the authority of the outlined arguments. The case of Arizona attests that states take matters into their own hands when the federal government falls short of necessary relegation they should derive from the principle of subsidiarity.