The Gulf War’s meaning shifted from local conflict to civilizational one

Evidence

The Western military effort also drew little support from the people of non-Western, non-Muslim civilizations. In January 1991, 53 percent of Japanese polled opposed the war, while 25 percent supported it. Hindus split evenly in blaming Saddam Hussein and George Bush for the war, which The Times of India warned, could lead to “a far more sweeping confrontation between a strong and arrogant Judeo-Christian world and a weak Muslim world fired by religious zeal.” The Gulf War thus began as a war between Iraq and Kuwait, then became a war between Iraq and the West, then one between Islam and the West, and eventually came to be viewed by many non-Westerners as a war of East versus West, “a white man’s war, a new outbreak of old-fashioned imperialism.” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 693

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Huntington’s own clash thesis and connects to post-9/11 framing debates about how conflict labels escalate.