It's not that these divisions are completely wrong, but they are superficial at best and lump together places that are vastly different from each other. Indonesia is very different from Iran or Morocco even if they are both Muslims.
I criticised a few issues with this map in the past. For example, there is a religious division between Orthodox and Western civilizations, yet there is no such division between say Catholic or Protestants. Sure, east west, schism happened earlier, but ground for the split was much more serious in Catholic vs Protestant split. Sure, there are many visual differences between Orthodox and Western churches,, but Western churches also differ from each other. That is far to arbitrary to just select out Orthodox but lump the rest together.
That also overlooks the elephant in the room, the fact that Islam branched out from Christianity. Christians deny is as fervently as Muslims deny that Bahaullah is the new prophet or how Judaists deny that Jesus was the Messiah their religion have promised them. Inglehard-Welzel cultural values, place Muslims close to Indians, Latin Americans and Catholic Europeans.
On the other hand, there is a division between Latin and Anglophone Americas. This cultural values chart for example places the US a lot closer to their Latin American neighbors, than to certain Europeans. Catholic Europeans are very close in values to Latin America; they are former Spanish and Portuguese colonies after all.
If you take into account time or history, you will get a different picture. Turns out that these civilizations are not distinct entities with completely different origins but branches that ultimately came from a single past. It might be possible to connect Asians and Africans to this too, if we dig further into history, but that far documented records are scarce.
If they came from a common past, then why are they different now? Simple evolution, basic principle of live. The same reason why cells divide or we evolved from chimpanzees. Just as tree branches into different directions as it grows so are human societies occasionally split into different groups. When old ways stop working, a certain group decides it's time for a change and splits up.
It's not just these groups, but countries within these groups split from a common whole precisely because common leadership stopped working for them and they needed autonomy. East West Christian split was ostensively about theology, but in reality, it was about power. Pope of Rome grew powerful enough and no longer wished to share equal status with eastern patriarchs who lost their people to Islam and became but a token authority backed by nothing more than past status. As much as one might be inclined to see such act as cynical power grab, there was nothing wrong with that. Why remain shackled to the dying corpse of pentarchy, when you are the only one of the pentarchs with any real authority? To quote Pearl Jam: "Its evolution, baby."
This is but one example where new better and more fitting structures replace those that are outdated and outlived their usefulness. Rome collapsed because it was too unwieldy and corrupt. Ottoman Empire replaced even more corrupt and useless Paleologi of Byzantine Empire and in turn was replaced by the new ascending European powers as well as Turkic ethnostate.
These changes are not something to lament. Structures and systems of society are evolving to better serve the people they represent, replacing old and dysfunctional with new and better that allows society to grow and evolve instead of stagnating and repeating the same old patters, their ancestors used to do.
Thus, Huntington map represents not the future or even current times, but the past, times where these entities were still connected as well as features that they still share in common. By now religions is a dying phenomenon as it does not serve any meaningful purpose, there is no point in dividing humanity based on this outdated concept.
Reality proves that right. Many orthodox countries in easter Europe choosing EU over their fellow Orthodox brothers. The reason is simple, the EU has answers to the problems and challenges they are facing, the Orthodox faith does not. As much as Eurasian Duginite fanatics in Russia dream of some sort of Russia centered Orthodox Eurasian world, its but a dead and useless concept that cannot solve the challenges the region faces and not even majority of Russians can believe in it, much less their neighbors, like Ukrainians or Romanians who already joined the EU.
Because of that future will not revolve around these civilizations outlined by Huntington. Instead, it will revolve around entities like European Union who can invent solutions for the problems of the future and create opportunities for prosperity and growth.
Regional unions like the EU, that allows for free trade and well-functioning economy like that in a large nation, but without compromising individual identities and cultures of member nations, is the solution to many challenges the world is facing.
World will gradually federalise along the EU model, that fundamentally is based and expanded on the US and Swiss examples of federal-confederal type of union with powers divided between local and federal levels to accommodate conflicting interests in the union, and pave way forward.
There will be a certain interregional rivalry between such regional unions. Current back and forth between the US and the EU is an example of such rivalry. However, such rivalries will be unlikely to lead to war or any serious military conflicts. Geo-politics and military will likely stay out of it. Politicians, economists and cultural figures however will squabble over whose side of the pond is better. "Look at our better healthcare, that is miles ahead of what is available at that dump across the pond." That kind of thing.
The biggest battlelines of the 21st century will be between Democracies vs Autocracies. Autocracies feel threatened by spread of democracy because autocrats and elites in charge there do not want to share power and be accountable to their people. Being autocracies that suppress rather than listen to their people is the only thing that unites countries as different as Russia, China and Iran, Bermuda triangular of Autocracy.
Autocrats however face an ultimately losing battle as in connected world, people in their countries could see how people in democracies live and ask a simple question of "why can we have democracy and prosper like them?" No amount of building Great Firewalls of China or blocking internet altogether like in North Korea can ultimately stop democratisation of these countries.
However, the fact that they are facing a losing battle, makes them dangerous, as in their desperation they could destroy the world with nuclear weapons they still have. The Free World will have to manage this transition carefully to avoid nuclear apocalypse. Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals will have to be somehow disabled from within.
To avoid cornering the proverbial rat, one has to offer them a form of exit, perhaps in a form of an autocratic rump state, where they could continue to rule as before. European microstates, like Liechtenstein or Monaco are examples of such solution. It would be best if they agree to exile in cozy safe haven like Monaco or Bora Bora.
As much as it will be well deserved and just to do so, one cannot leave them at the mercy of their people who will make them pay for their past grievances by lynching them in cruel way. End of Muammar Gaddafi is one such example of just that kind of outcome. Other autocrats are fully aware that this or even worse is what awaits them if their people take control of their states, so they might as well just blow the world in a nuclear apocalypse, just so that if they are going down anyway, they will take the rest of the world with them.
Overall future looks rather optimistic for democracies, but one cannot get too complacent. There are still a few challenges that might destroy humanity if things go wrong. Nonetheless a hand of time cannot be stopped, and future is coming whether one likes it or not. One cannot stop the spread of democracy and freedom; one can only find a better place to be in this transforming world, be on the right side of history.
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