The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War

by Robert D. Kaplan

Book Overview

Robert Kaplan, bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts , offers up scrupulous, far-ranging insights on the world to come in a spirited, rousing, and provocative book that has earned a place at the top of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375503544
• ISBN13: 9780375503542
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Don't give up after the first essay...read on!!

"Kaplan is no more than an alarmist." That is what I thought somewhere in the middle of the first essay from which the book gains its title, The Coming Anarchy. Then I began the second of the nine essays which make up the book, "Was Democracy just a Moment?" "O.K., he's an alarmist who believes democracy will destroy the world," my thinking continued. But by about page 69 I began to find insightful principles like, "States have never been formed by elections. Geography, settlement patterns, the rise of literate bourgeoisie, and, tragically, ethnic cleansing have formed states." And, "Social stability results from the establishment of a middle class" (70). These were the kinds of foundational thinking I could agree with. "Maybe I shouldn't dismiss this guy altogether," I speculated. At that point I never imagined that I would find what I did, at the end of the book. The fact that Robert Kaplan recognizes the import of powers of observation is one of the things that impressed me as I continued to read Kaplan's essays. The first several essays of the book paint graphic pictures of a not-so-idealistic post Cold War world. Kaplan undauntingly portrays the chaos in most Third World countries. He draws parallels that cannot be dismissed. Whether you agree or not, you are forced to consider. While many people look away, and journalists won't consider writing, Kaplan keeps watching and composing. Linked with his deductions resulting from observation, Kaplan combines a commanding respect for understanding the significance of human nature. In the fifth essay in the book, "And Now for the News..." he establishes the value of history as related in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbons. He says, "The Decline and Fall instructs that human nature never changes, and that mankind's predilection for faction, augmented by environmental and cultural differences, is what determines history" (113). Throughout all of his essays, I began to see the basis for his theses are amazingly simple, at least insofar as understanding human nature is simple. When he concludes this essay with, "When Gibbon describes everyday people in poor nations as exhibiting a `carelessness of futurity,' he exposes one tragic effect of underdevelopment in a way that many more-careful and polite tomes of today do not" (117), I realized that this guy is not only observant and somewhat discerning, he is brave, it's just not politically correct to insult people who live in the Third World. The third, fourth, and sixth essays in the book establish without a doubt, Kaplan's identity as a realist. This fact coincides with his attention to observation and study of human nature. In the last sentence of the third essay, "Idealism won't Stop Mass Murder," he says, "But many Americans think that it may be possible to afford some protection to all those other people. If so, I fear that we may have to be very ruthless indeed" (104). "Uh oh," I thought, "he's crossing t

A Primer on the 21st Century

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism led to a search for a new paradigm to explain the post-Cold War world. Three major works have been written (originally as articles in Atlantic Monthly and Foreign Affairs) to explain this new era. Robert Kaplan's A Coming Anarchy, Francis Fukuyama's End of History and the Last Man, and Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order attempted to provide a framework for international relations in the 90s and beyond. Of the three authors, Robert Kaplan approaches the subject not from an academic background but as a reporter and a world traveler. The Coming Anarchy is he view of the state of the world. It is a world where globalization only serves to link the Western World towards a sinking Third World. It is a world where stability is a fleeting goal that can never be achieved. Of the three authors, Kaplan's view is the most stark and unforgiving. Fukuyama presents a more optimistic view where liberal democracies have triumphed over the world and the next golden age is in the world's grasp. The truth probably lies between them. Kaplan has no confidence in the abilities of the Western world to help stabilize the Third world. The relative success of the United Nations and NATO in Bosnia serve to contradict Kaplan's argument but the real test will occur when forces withdrawal. Samuel Huntington attempts to paint a new Cold War not between ideologies but between the fundamental civilizations of the world. This echoes Kaplan's articles and the events between Israel and Palestine. As one of the three signature attempts to envision the post Cold War world; the Coming Anarchy alone deserves attention. For good or ill, the article presents a reasoned approach towards world affairs that policy makers are in part basing US policy on. The remainder of the book presents other essay's the Robert Kaplan has written. Although they display the breadth of Kaplan's knowledge, the star of the book is the Coming Anarchy. Without that article, the book looses it focus... Despite this, the book is must read for anyone interested in international affairs and want to understand how the world is changing and why.

Chilling realism

"Anarchy" aptly describes the world envisioned by Kaplan in this collection of essays. He builds on his vast experience working with the U.S. military and third world countries to construct the ultimate pragmatical, yet in his mind bone-chillingly true, prediction for the future. His vision consists of a bifurcated world divided between the first-world economic superpowers and everyone else; a world in which the gap between the two will be ever more exacerbated as time goes on. In such a world, he envisions the devolution of the nation-state(which he believes to be largely a fantastical Western construct when applied to most of the world) into what can be described as nothing else but barely controlled chaos or anarchy. He predicts dramatic changes in the world power system in the next century, brought on by dramatic negative political and socioeconomic changes in the least developed but fastest-growing areas of the earth. Another perspective I found interesting came from the final essay in the book, in which he criticized the idealist foreign-policy views of many American intellectuals, an argument I have found in my experience to be dead-on.From a critical perspective, I believe that Kaplan takes too negative a take on the world's prospects for the next century for two reasons. First, he draws from his experiences with underdeveloped nations and extrapolates to make generalizations about the world's economic superpowers, an oversimplification that I found astounding given his depth of knowledge on the subject. Second, he largely excludes economics from his direct analysis, an omission which, given the phenomenal grobalization trend that we are witnessing now(see The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman), is inexcusable from a truly pragmatical analysis of the world. In defense of Kaplan's stance, he draws largely from his experience as a military consultant for his experiences, so an understandably narrow view based solely on physical force and largely ignoring non-physical forces of coercion(i.e. economics) emerges. Also, I doubt if he truly feels the extremes that he sets forth in his book; in order to lay out his true feelings, he had to polarize to the extreme realist/negative viewpoint. I highly advise this book to anyone who harbors an idealist perspective on the future of the world; although a bit extreme, it will rightfully shatter many of your naive preconceptions of the world. Beyond my humble viewpoint, Thomas Friedman cited Kaplan's work as one of four major perspectives of the post-Cold war era, along with Fukuyama, Kennedy, and Huntington. All in all, a seminal and extremely important work that I recommend to anyone interested in obtaining a more truthful perspective on the world than that advanced by the mass media

A Warning On The State of the Third World.

Although I do not agree with the pessimism of Neo-Malthusians and end-of-history advocates, I found Robert Kaplan's new book an eloquent warning against apathy as we enter a new century. Kaplan correctly points out that the map of the world is deceiving. Most frontiers do not include or define nations based on a single ethnicity and/or religion, i.e., the essential cohesive force for a stable society is missing. Based on his travels around the Third World, the author observed that rapidly expanding populations, urbanization without adequate infrastructures and environmental disasters are causing the collapse of marginal states and their forcible integration into Yugoslavia-type states. Soaring populations and shrinking raw materials make democracy problematic and stability uncertain ,espcially, in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Influenced by such writers as Huntington, Home-Dixon, van Gleveld, Rahe and others cited in the text - unfortunately there is no bibliography - Kaplan believes that homogeneous states such as Germany and Japan may not face the certain fragmentation of multiethnic societies, perhaps even the United States. Although the writing is uneven - the last third of the book consists of essays published previously - Kaplan does develop some interesting themes: Democratically elected regimes do not survive if the economy is not developed enough to prevent the return of authoritarian governments. Enlightened despotism is not preferable to democracy. The preferred alternative may be the middle for those countries which are trying to develop their economies without falling into anarchy. Like Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts, this book is a warning and perhaps a prohesy.

Chilling and Fascinating

For anyone familiar with The Ends of the Earth and Balkan Ghosts, Kaplan's dark views on the next century will be familiar. His latest has more of a political edge. The rhetorical questions he poses ask what we can do to intervene and fix social collapse in places like Congo and Pakistan. The answer, coldly logical, is that we can't do much. Techno-optimism (for the most part) seems to rule the day in the West for now. Somehow we've convinced ourselves that because we can use our computers to order merchandise through the mail, the future is inescapably bright and free from the constraints of rainfall, population density and tribal rivalry. This book is a needle which neatly punctures this Panglossian balloon and as such is sorely needed.