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Atlantic Unbound | Archive
Robert D. Kaplan
Now a correspondent for The Atlantic, Kaplan has reported on assignment for the magazine from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. He has been prolific in recent years. His books include Imperial Grunts (2005), Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus (2000), The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War (2000), An Empire Wilderness: Travels Into America's Future (1998), The Ends of the Earth (1995), The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite (1993), and Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (1993), all of which grew out of Atlantic articles. Kaplan has been writing as a foreign correspondent for more than twenty years, and his two-decades' worth of traveling and reporting experience—much of which he has accumulated in the world's most difficult and dangerous places— inform even his briefest contributions. His writing always combines on-the-ground reporting, rich academic context, a deep regard for the past, and an abiding concern for the future. Recent articles by Robert D. Kaplan: Lifting the Bamboo CurtainAs China and India vie for power and influence, Burma has become a strategic battleground. Four Americans with deep ties to this fractured, resource-rich country illuminate its current troubles, and what the U.S. should do to shape its future. Behind the Indian Embassy Bombing"You would think that the Bush administration would be coaching the Karzai government not to antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily by cozying up to India." What Rumsfeld Got RightHow Donald Rumsfeld remade the U.S. military for a more uncertain world [Web only: Video: "Donald Rumsfeld—The Change Agent"] No Greater HonorRobert D. Kaplan comments on what it takes to earn the highest award the military can bestow—and why the public fails to appreciate its worth. Oh! Kolkata!Calcutta has been renamed. Now, with investment on the rise, tech companies moving in, and a growing middle class, can it be reborn? [Web only: Slideshow: "The Streets of Kolkata"] WaterworldIs Bangladesh going under? The Next FrontierThe creation of AFRICOM, the U.S. military's new Africa Command, offers the hope of steady, low-key progress in the war on terror. It's the Tribes, Stupid!Quelling anarchy in Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere, will require building on tribal loyalties—not imposing democracy from the top down. America’s Elegant DeclineHulls in the water could soon displace boots on the ground as the most important military catchphrase of our time. But our Navy is stretched thin. How we manage dwindling naval resources will go a long way toward determining our future standing in the world. Burma’s Next ChapterWill the collapse of Burma’s oppressive junta bring democracy or ethnic turmoil? Earth, Fire, WaterRevisiting the Armenian genocide. The Navy’s New Flat-Earth StrategyThe U.S. unveils a collaborative plan for policing the seas. Bottom-Up ProgressRobert D. Kaplan gives credence to the testimony of Petraeus and Crocker and warns against a hasty withdrawal from Iraq. Military AirThe future of economy class? Outsourcing ConflictFor all the notoriety of private military contractors like Blackwater, they represent an important aspect of the future of war. And that future is not all bad. The Plane That Would Bomb IranInside the cockpit and culture of the B-2, whose pilots may carry the greatest responsibility in the U.S. military today [Web only: Slideshow: "Spirit in the Sky."] Rereading VietnamThe Vietnam analogy looms ever larger in the debate over Iraq, but the U.S. military has memories of that conflict that the public doesn't. Foreign Policy: Munich Versus Vietnam"At the moment, the Vietnam analogy has the upper-hand. But don't count Munich out." Smoke and MirrorsWhat the State Department is not accomplishing in Iraq. Was the Iraq Study Group Report Really a Flop?For a document that was supposedly "dead-on-arrival," it's certainly having a strong influence. A Historian For Our TimeThucydides may have been more trustworthy, but Herodotus would have been more fun to share a wineskin with—and is a far better guide to the present. The Iraq Study GroupA reaction That's CharacterThe dignity of Ford's post-presidency. We Can't Just WithdrawIraq may be closer to an explosion of genocide than we know. When North Korea FallsThe furor over Kim Jong Il’s missile tests and nuclear brinksmanship obscures the real threat: the prospect of North Korea’s catastrophic collapse. How the regime ends could determine the balance of power in Asia for decades. The likely winner? China. Hunting the Taliban in Las VegasIn trailers just minutes away from the slot machines, Air Force pilots control Predators over Iraq and Afghanistan. A case study in the marvels—and limits—of modern military technology. Colonel Cross of the GurkhasIn the mountains of strife-torn Nepal, some lessons about modern warfare from a British throwback. The Coming Normalcy?Whatever else the American occupation of Iraq may be, it serves as a laboratory for ideas about how to wring stability out of chaos—the great foreign-policy challenge of the twenty-first century. Imperial GruntsWith the Army Special Forces in the Philippines and Afghanistan—laboratories of counterinsurgency. How We Would Fight ChinaThe Middle East is just a blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was. America's African Rifles"Every time you fire, a bad guy should bleed!" At the heart of the U.S. military's imperial venture is the training of indigenous troops around the world—and at the heart of that training is the rifle range. A report from Niger. At the Gates of BrusselsIf Recep Tayyip Erdogan gets his way, Turkey will be more Islamic and Europe will be more Turkish. Both would be good news. The Media and the MilitaryAmerican reporters would shudder to think that they harbor class prejudice—but they do. Five Days in FallujahOur correspondent accompanied the first unit of Marines to assault Fallujah after the murder and mutilation last April of four American civilians. How Do I Look?Body armor is a must in some lines of work, and it gives "fashion plate" a whole new meaning. The Man Who Would Be KhanA new breed of American soldier—call him the soldier-diplomat—has come into being since the end of the Cold War. Meet the colonel who was our man in Mongolia, an officer who probably wielded more local influence than many Mongol rulers of yore. The Holy MountainIntimations of the geopolitical future in a place where time stands still. Supremacy by StealthIt is a cliché these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire—different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless. It is time to move beyond a statement of the obvious. Our recent effort in Iraq, with its large-scale mobilization of troops and immense concentration of risk, is not indicative of how we will want to act in the future. So how should we operate on a tactical level to manage an unruly world? What are the rules and what are the tools? Euphorias of HatredThe grim lessons of a novel by Gogol. A Tale of Two ColoniesOur correspondent travels to Yemen and Eritrea, and finds that the war on terrorism is forcing U.S. involvement with the one country's tribal turbulence and the other's obsessive fear of chaos. A Post-Saddam ScenarioIraq could become America's primary staging ground in the Middle East. And the greatest beneficial effect could come next door, in Iran. The World in 2005Hidden in plain sight. Looking the World in the EyeSamuel Huntington is a mild-mannered man whose sharp opinions—about the collision of Islam and the West, about the role of the military in a liberal society, about what separates countries that work from countries that don't—have proved to be as prescient as they have been controversial. Huntington has been ridiculed and vilified, but in the decades ahead his view of the world will be the way it really looks. Roman AfricaThe economic and political fault lines that separated Carthage and Numidia are the ones that separate Tunisia and Algeria—and the Romans drew them. Where Europe VanishesCivilizations have collided in the Caucasus Mountains since the dawn of history, and the region's dozens of ethnic groups have been noted for "obstinacy and ferocity" since ancient times. Stalin was born in these mountains, and it was also here that the Soviet empire began to crumble. The story of the Republic of Georgia illustrates that the peoples of the Caucasus may prove as incapable of self-rule as they were resistant to rule by outsiders. The Lawless FrontierThe tribal lands of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border reveal the future of conflict in the Subcontinent, along with the dark side of globalization. Israel NowThe author, a former resident of Israel, finds that raw power and economic forces are redrawing the map of the Middle East, and peace talks will merely formalize the emerging reality. Was Democracy Just a Moment?The global triumph of democracy was to be the glorious climax of the American Century. But democracy may not be the system that will best serve the world—or even the one that will prevail in places that now consider themselves bastions of freedom. A Bazaari's WorldTo understand Iran—and perhaps even the future of other parts of the Islamic world—one must understand a man like Mohsen Rafiqdoost. The Coming AnarchyHow scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet. Syria: Identity CrisisHafez-al Assad has so far prevented the Balkanization of his country, but he can't last forever. Tales From the BazaarAs individuals, few American diplomats have been as anonymous as the members of the group known as Arabists. And yet as a group, no cadre of diplomats has aroused more suspicion than the Arab experts have. Arabists are frequently accused of romanticism, of having "gone native"—charges brought with a special vehemence as a result of the recent Gulf War and the events leading up to it. Who are the Arabists? Where did they come from? Do they deserve our confidence? Sons of DevilsIn a turbulent region the stateless Kurds play the role of spoiler. Sudan: A Microcosm of Africa's IllsHostile neighbors and militant rebels imperil Khartoum's new regime. |
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Robert D. Kaplan's career started at a small U.S.
newspaper, but he soon grew frustrated with the work and began writing on
his own, as an overseas stringer and freelancer. Eight years later his
byline finally appeared in a major national magazine, and soon after he
began writing regularly for The Atlantic Monthly.