Robert D. Kaplan

Robert D. Kaplan is a foreign correspondent for The Atlantic, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. His most recent book is Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (Random House, 2010).


Essays

Global Governance

The Divided Map of Europe

| 06.28.12

The Continent’s many identities and fault lines stretch back into the nether centuries of European history. All have been influenced by the immutable force of geography, which also will shape Europe’s future.

Society

The Good Autocrat

| 06.21.11

A stark contrast exists between the tyrannical rulers of the Middle East and the benign despots of East Asia. The precepts of Enlightenment thought dictate freedom for all, but Confucian leaders offer a heretical alternative to Western ideals.

Security

America Primed

| 02.23.11

To write America’s great-power obituary is beyond premature. Herein lies a grand strategy for maintaining US power—from the Anglosphere to the Middle East.

Security

The World of Achilles: Ancient Soldiers, Modern Warriors

| 12.01.01

Homer, not Woodrow Wilson, may prove to be the best source of wisdom for the 21st century.

Society

The Little Man's Revenge

| 11.01.01

The Secret Agent, published in 1907, is about a shadowy anarchist, Adolf Verloc, who owns a shop selling low-end goods in a grimy, working class district of London.

Reviews

Society

Heirs of Sargon

| 06.30.09

Iraq has a long and tortured history. Home to the tyrant, the origins of despotism lie in the primordial ooze of the Mesopotamian swamp. Yet for a brief moment fifty years ago, the land of two rivers experienced democracy.

Society

Conrad's Nostromo and the Third World

| 03.01.98

Joseph Conrad's Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, a 1904 novel about Westerners and indigenous inhabitants of an imaginary South American country, skillfully defines and dissects the problems of the Third World.

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May 24, 2013