Talk:Robert D. Kaplan
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[edit] Kaplan's 'Coming Anarchy'
Extracts from 'Coming Anarchy':
"Physical aggression is a part of being human. Only when people attain a certain economic, educational, and cultural standard is this trait tranquilized. In light of the fact that 95 percent of the earth's population growth [4.5 billion in the next 50 years] will be in the poorest areas of the globe, the question is not whether there will be war (there will be a lot of it) but what kind of war. And who will fight whom?"
"[S]tate armies will continue to shrink, being gradually replaced by a booming private security business, as in West Africa, and by urban mafias, especially in the former communist world, who may be better equipped than municipal police forces to grant physical protection to local inhabitants."
"To the average person, political values will mean less, personal security more. The belief that we are all equal is liable to be replaced. . ." http://members.shaw.ca/competitivenessofnations/Anno%20Kaplan.htm
Altogether a pessimistic view, but based on reality. On the other hand, Thomas Barnett argues that the solution is globalisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Thomas_Barnett). Nations will eventually have to join the global economy - and therefore abide by its norms. However, in fairness to Kaplan, the electorates will need to be convinced this is a good idea; moreover the economic norms will somehow have to be policed around the world.
- The problem with 'Coming Anarchy' is that Kaplan is using the book to raise a set of questions/problems which he doesn't answer in its pages. If you want Kaplan's answers to the problems he raises, look at "Warrior politics". Kaplan views peace as an illusion and conflict to be the natural state of man in the world. States rise and fall. He also seems to believe in a notion that life is competition and that unless America is strong, the uncivilzed peoples described in the Coming Anarchy will overwhelm America. I don't like to use the word, but quite frankly his ideas come from Italian and Spanish varities of Fascism down to his call to revive blood sports and paganism.
[edit] Why/how is he controversial?
The article repeatedly refers to Kaplan, or his writing, as being controversial/unorthodox. Why?
- Because he basically portends the end of "civilisation" and the resultant primordialisation of the globe. Furthermore, by selecting Africa as the catalyst for the coming anarchy Kaplan is prolonging Afro-pessimism.--220.238.218.119 10:50, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
-99% of the Earth's population has probably never heard of "Afro-pessimism," so I doubt his controversiality derives from it.
- He doesn't mince words about the current state of world affairs. He says democracy can be a bad thing (elections in Algeria) and some dictatorships are good (modernizing China); he says that despite the idealistic rhetoric on Africa, the continent has a dark future ahead of it; he says war can be better than peace; and much more. --Curzon 13:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
- To continue, see this excerpt on Africa from The Coming Anarchy:
I got a general sense of the future while driving from the airport to downtown Conakry, the capital of Guinea. The forty-five-minute journey in heavy traffic was through one never-ending shantytown: a nightmarish Dickensian spectacle to which Dickens himself would never have given credence. The corrugated metal shacks and scabrous walls were coated with black slime. Stores were built out of rusted shipping containers, junked cars, and jumbles of wire mesh. The streets were one long puddle of floating garbage. Mosquitoes and flies were everywhere. Children, many of whom had protruding bellies, seemed as numerous as ants. When the tide went out, dead rats and the skeletons of cars were exposed on the mucky beach. In twenty-eight years Guinea's population will double if growth goes on at current rates. Hardwood logging continues at a madcap speed, and people flee the Guinean countryside for Conakry. It seemed to me that here, as elsewhere in Africa and the Third World, man is challenging nature far beyond its limits, and nature is now beginning to take its revenge.
- In his most recent book, Kaplan supported the ideas of imperialism, colonialism and described America as having a mission to civilize the rest of the world by exactly the same methods which were used in the 1800s to subdue and civilize native Americans. Those are all rather controversal ideas. Its not JUST that he is an afro-pessimist, its that the solutions that he offers are totally reactionary and very controversial.
[edit] Neutrality Tag?
Someone tagged the Criticism section for its neutrality. It seemed balanced enough to me (it is criticism after all), although the section appeared a bit too large, and some quotes are probably overkill. Joshdboz 20:40, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
- Its gone now. The person who put on the tag has not explained their case. The criticism section is large, but by making it large a level of neturality can be preserved.
[edit] Should the passage really be titled "The Coming Anarchy"?
Wouldn't it be better to name it for example after the book he published? Or should it be an individual passage at all?Mackan 11:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
