Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927 – December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser, and academic. He was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University, where he directed the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
During the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Huntington was the White House coordinator of security planning for the National Security Council. Huntington is known best for his 1993 theory, the "Clash of Civilizations" otherwise known as COC, of a post–Cold War new world order. He argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures, and that Islamic civilization would become the greatest threat to Western domination of the world. Huntington is credited with helping to shape American opinions on civilian-military relations, political development, and comparative government. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Huntington is the second most frequently cited author on college syllabi for political science courses.