Huntington's paradigm and political realism

Huntington's proposal of a new paradigm for international politics (focused on the idea of "civilizations"), meant to replace the paradigm of realism, is examined. It is shown that the proposed new paradigm should in fact be viewed as as sub-paradigm of the realist one. In particular, it is pointed out that Huntington's proposal, in a realist vein, draws on the idea of "containment", which is now directed (instead of its former target, the soviet expansionism) to non-Western civilizations.