The article examines global and regional confrontations in modern international relations from the standpoint of civilizational theory. The prerequisites of “civilizationization” are considered, namely the increasing political and scholarly attention to global and local civilizational subsystems since the 1990s. Civilizations are studied as subsystems of international relations, and civilizational subsystems as actors in multilevel intercivilizational interactions. The multilayered nature of modern civilizational, regional, and cross-regional areas, and their formation on the basis of interactions among noncoinciding geographical, geopolitical, geo-economic, geo-philosophical, and other levels are demonstrated. The types of intercivilizational interactions between civilizational clusters at various levels, the roles of actors, and the specifics of border territories and intermediate regions are differentiated. Special attention is paid to the practical implementation of hybrid confrontations as a contemporary form of intercivilizational contradiction, manifested in the actions of states and other actors aimed at suppressing opponents and striving to control their ideology and worldview, culture, institutions, and traditions. The historical and geopolitical aspects of intercivilizational confrontations between the West and Russia, the West and the Islamic world, and the Sunni–Shia confrontation as the largest civilizationalsubsystem confrontations in contemporary international relations are analyzed in detail, while the duration of these confrontations is considered to have a predominantly destructive effect. Conclusions are drawn about the determining influence of civilizational subsystems on contemporary international relations and the nature of confrontations, about the resulting interaction of opposing vectors of development aimed at deepening intercivilizational confrontations and at seeking consensus and compromise, and, as a consequence, about a new, relatively stable yet dynamic distribution of international roles among key actors.
local civilizations; civilizational subsystems; inter-civilizational confrontations; civilizationization; systemic approach; regional subsystems; the West; Russia; Islamic world; Sunni-Shia relations.