Civilizational domino fears drove major states to treat distant border conflicts as their own.

Evidence

The perception of fault line wars as civilizational clashes also gave new life to the domino theory which had existed during the Cold War. Now, however, it was the major states of civilizations who saw the need to prevent defeat in a local conflict, which could trigger a sequence of escalating losses leading to disaster. The Indian government’s tough stand on Kashmir derived in large part from the fear that its loss would stimulate other ethnic and religious minorities to push for independence and thus lead to the breakup of India. If Russia did not end the political violence in Tajikistan, Foreign Minister Kozyrev warned, it was likely to spread to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. This, it was argued, could then promote secessionist movements in the Muslim republics of the Russian Federation, with some people suggesting the ultimate result might be Islamic fundamentalism in Red Square. Hence the Afghan-Tajik border, Yeltsin said, is “in effect, Russia’s.” Europeans, in turn, expressed concern that the establishment of a Muslim state in the former Yugoslavia would create a base for the spread of Muslim immigrants and Islamic fundamentalism, reinforcing what the French press, interpreting Jacques Chirac, termed “les odeurs d’Islam” in Europe. Croatia’s border is, in effect, Europe’s. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 752

Categorization

• SEED: The post-Cold War revival of domino theory as civilizational containment is a rich essay angle: how the same psychological logic recurred under new framing.
• CANDY: Yeltsin saying the Afghan-Tajik border is ‘in effect, Russia’s’ and Croatia’s border being ‘in effect, Europe’s’ is a crisp symmetrical quote for casual conversation.