Realism is the contrast to the idealistic conception according to which society can change on the basis of an idea. The “Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington is a brilliant illustration which shows the power of ideas which has largely influenced both the foreign policies of countries, but also the discipline of international relations. Samuel Huntington's “Clash of Civilizations” is based on the following hypothesis: “In the post-Cold War world, the most important distinctions between people are not ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural.” (Huntington, 1996, p. 21) Huntington recognizes the importance of the realist approach according to which nation states will remain the most influential actors in international relations, but he refutes that the interests of nations can be described without any reference to culture (Huntington, 1996, p. 21). 1996, p. 34). Instead, it suggests the civilization paradigm in which "supranational civilizations" that act primarily as nation-states and implement the interests of their own civilization within a global framework structurally comparable to that described by neo-realism (Milani and Gibbons, 2001). He asserts that the clash of civilizations will dictate international politics and relations, particularly between the West and Islam (Huntington, 1996, p. 208). In this essay, I attempt to analyze the extent to which Huntington's notion applies to the current global scenario of international jihadist terrorism and the "war on terror" waged by the United States and other states. - 8According to Milani & Gibbons (2001), Huntington considers Islam to be monolithic, atrocious and deficient in diversity. In reality, Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is wonderfully varied and its history is truly complex, much more than Huntington seems to...... middle of paper...... civilizations suited to the dynamics of the modern world. In the 2006 midterm elections, American voters challenged the clash of civilizations by opposing the Bush administration's policy toward Iraq (Kellner, 2004). – 3 (spelling punctuation, verbosity) In conclusion, Huntington's approach of describing cultural differences between the West and Islam does not fully explain current global jihadist terrorism and the response of the United States and its allied to this terrorism. The tendency of his paradigm is that one culture must win and another must lose. His hypothesis thus encourages political actors, policy makers and citizens to understand cultural dissimilarities as devastating and to support these differences. Therefore, his civilizational approach may not provide a standard paradigm, but it can add to realist and liberal approaches in explaining international relations.. – 3