Robert Kaplan | Veteran Geopolitical Analyst On A World In Permanent Crisis

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Robert Kaplan has been sighted as one of the most influential geopolitical thinkers of the modern era. The Revenge Of Geography, Surrender or Starve, Balkan Ghosts, Asias Cauldron, The Tragic Mind, and so on, I counted 18 books so far with his most recent being - Waste Land: A World In Permanent Crisis.

I’ve listened to many of his books at this point, I found Revenge Of Geography a few years ago whilst preparing for my interviews with Tim Marshall. 

00:00 - Robert D. Kaplan
00:54 - Deterioration Of The Rules Based Order
08:34 - Utopian Versus Tragic Leaders
14:32 - Geographies Role In Shaping Geopolitics
23:05 - Writing For History Or Influence?
25:13 - Australia
28:46 - A Position Robert Holds That Folds Against The Status Quo


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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Robert Kaplan has been cited as one of the most influential geopolitical thinkers of the modern era. The Revenge of Geography, Surrender of Starve, Balkan Ghosts, Asia's Cauldron, The Tragic Mind, and on and on. I counted 18 books so far, with his most recent being released now, Wasteland, A World in Permanent Crisis. I've listened to many of Robert's books at this point. I found Revenge of Geography a few years ago whilst preparing for my interviews with Tim Marshall, and therefore I hope this interview achieves a more pixelated cross-section of Bob's thoughts on the current moment that spans across the various subjects which he's dedicated his life to. In the podcast, we did the deterioration of the rules-based order, his prism of utopian versus tragic leaders, the persistent role of geography in conflict and culture, Australia, Taiwan, and hopefully a little bit more as well between those explicit questions. Please consider sharing this interview with a mate, colleague, brother, sister, whoever you think might be interested in it as well. And here he is, Robert D. Kaplan. If the linchpin of wasteland thesis is that the international rules-based order is deteriorating, in the last few days we've seen Trump call Zelensky a dictator, Rubio talk about a Russian US alliance, European defense stocks rally over US insecurity, Turkey cozy up alongside Ukraine, Taiwan looks more and more ripe for the taking. Just how badly is this proceeding?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Well, uh, you know, there's an old saying that's been ascribed to Lenin, but Lenin never actually said it, that which is that years go by and nothing happens. And then days and weeks go by and decades happen. And we're in one of those periods right now. Keep in mind that the post-war world lasted for eighty years. That's a very long time in history, especially given all the technological and economic and social changes. So to have a military alliance last for 80 years during any period of history, but particularly this period, which has been so tumultuous with change, is extraordinary. And the one thing history teaches is that nothing lasts forever. Everything ultimately evolves, essentially. You know, we're entering into a world that's more unstable because allies help you project power, they also protect you, and they also give you advice. You know, allies of eight decades give you advice. They'll tell you what you don't want to hear because they have a very close and therefore easy relationship with you. Once you start throwing away allies, you're really alone in the world. Um it's great when the wind is at your back, but when the wind is in your face, which ultimately happens, uh, you know, uh uh you don't have allies, it's very bad. So I think this is a very um, it's a very tumultuous period. Uh I obviously finished Wasteland months and months ago, you know, the way the books work in production. And when I finished it, I had no idea whatsoever that Trump would win. You know, it was just too close to call. There were just too many, this was even long before Biden had dropped out, kind of. Um so um, but I think um though circumstances are changing radically, uh, this bears out the message of the book.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

And generally the theme is in your answer there as well that given the rule-based order of diplomacy, economic integration, international standards, it's transitioning to this more regional, hard power, military force, narrower thinking, transactional alliances. Um you also mentioned there it's great when the wind is at your back that um you can say fuck you to your allies, but when it's not, you need to rely on your allies. This is the whole point of a trade-off in a relationship. Not everything's gonna be all good all the time. But what are the implications of this transition, which you've written about in Wasteland and are describing now?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Um well the implications are uh remember, we're in a world that's more anxious, more claustrophobic, more tightly connected than ever before because of technology. Technology has shrunk geography. And that makes it all closer, but not necessarily safer. Uh the fact that the fact that an event or a geopolitical crisis in the Middle East can affect a social campus crisis in the United States to a degree never before, that's new. Uh you know, attrition of the same adds up to big change. And therefore, this tightening of the world due to technology often goes unnoticed because it's so gradual, um, essentially. So when we have a world that's you know moving into the direction, as you said, um uh and which I agree with of military-oriented regional alliances, it makes things even more dangerous. Because you know, we have we have Russia, North Korea, China uh united against Ukraine, Israel. I mean, everything is connected. You know, um everything is connected, and connections are great in the financial world. I mean, interconnectivity has created global markets, extreme wealth, all of that. But in the geopolitical world, it's a negative.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yeah, you'd rather have many, many linchpins rather than one or two key ones that connect the entire globe. Is it primarily disruptions to global supply chains that small conflicts now have global implications, or are there more important factors as well?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Well, I would put it this way. Um, you know, in in the business and financial world, it's like a cliche to say that we have to take into account geopolitics, you know? But the fact is that um that that the financial markets have priced in rather impressively. Twenty-five years of war in the Middle East, three years of war in Ukraine. Nobody can look at their uh retirement statements and see a big change because of a war in Ukraine or a war between Israel and Gaza. Uh but there's a but here. Uh the one area of the world that could cause a tr you know really almost an extinction-level event in financial markets would be a war in the Western Pacific between the United States and China, the world's two largest economies, engaged in a high-end conflict over the South China Sea or Taiwan, and right in the middle of the world's most busiest commercial shipping lanes, which automatically uh disrupt supply chains in a way that supply chains were not even have not even been disrupted in Ukraine and certainly not between Israel and Gaza.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

It sounds like as well because the because of the raw efficiency that globalization has allowed that I can be consuming a microphone here that has products from 14 different places in each corner of the world, um, there is no sort of elasticity in when force is applied to it. It just breaks.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Um you've cut you've cut to the chase. There's no elasticity. Um we live in you know, globalization is fantastic, but it's also very fragile. You know, it's amazing how fragile our world is. Imagine if we had a financial markets taken down for a week in two or three large cities in the world, um, or if we had an electric power blackout that would not allow internet use for like a week, you know, on the East Coast or something like that. You know, what that would do to markets and you know and everything. So we live in a, you know, our good luck, our good fortune to be alive at a time when most of us have no physical threats or financial threats is based on a very fragile equilibrium of sorts that can be disrupted by by war and conflict.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Robert, just a quick change of tack. In one of your books, you contrast tragic wisdom versus utopian thinking to characterize two different types of leaders. Do you think that they're both contagious? So, for instance, if leaders at any given time understand that history is full of unintended consequences, that power is inherently corrupting, that even the best intentions can lead them to disaster, then they set that model for everyone else around them and keep those utopian thinking as at bay. But since Trump is a classic utopian, his success, influence, and power is as well contagious, creating room for many other utopian thinkers that have now copied a playbook.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

He Donald Trump has, to put it mildly, no sense of the tragic. And if you think about it, all of our impressive presidents throughout American history. I'm not just talking about Roosevelt and Lincoln. Uh, you know, Roosevelt was the ultimate realist with a sense of the tragic. He gave m billions of dollars of weapons to Stalin, who is a mass murderer, so that Stalin could fight a war with the other mass murderer, Hitler. I mean, that's how much of a realist uh Roosevelt was. Lend Lease was not just with Great Britain, it was it was with Soviet Russia. People often forget that. Um it's not just Roosevelt and Lincoln, but George H.W. Bush, you know, who is always thinking naturally tragically. Kennedy, who is a real warrior, the more I read about him, the more impressed I am, and the more convinced I am that his assassination was a terrible tragedy because had he lived, we would not have gotten involved in the Vietnam War to the degree that we did. So I Trump has no sense of the tragic because he's ultimately not a serious person. And that is that is somewhat new in American politics. I mean, you know, Nixon may have done wrong, but he had a conscience. He sweated when he lied. You know, serious, you know, not to make fun of him, but Nixon understood shame. Um, and when Nixon retired, he never got on the speaking surface uh circuit, never tried to make a lot of money, just wrote serious books the rest of his life. Carter was very serious. Um George W. Bush, who perpetrated the Iraq War, has known shame and you know, and and um, you know, just he paints portraits of uh of soldiers, you know, in his uh retirement, and that's a way of dealing, I think, uh in in an inarticulate way with the shame that he's experienced. But Trump knows nothing like this. Um Trump, I would say go further. I I want to be careful with the word I use here. He's post-literate, not illiterate, post-literate means he doesn't read narrative history. He knows nothing about the history of the NATO alliance about or World War II or anything. He lives in a world of smartphones and social media. Uh and and frankly, he may not be the last president like that, given the way that the technology has changed media. But, you know, people call Trump a fascist. He's not serious enough to be a fascist. You know, you know, I mean, you know, he doesn't have a worked-out program to be a fascist. He's, you know, he you know, he's he's unique. He's a world historical figure, not because he understands the world and history, but because his very impulses are changing the direction of history.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

But to the central point of the question, Robert, the contagion. Have you just noticed in the cycles of history that tragic thinkers are contagious to their contemporaries, and now utopian thinkers, with Trump as the absolute model of them, is contagious. If you look around the world, there's a couple utopian guys that are getting very, very popular.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah, I hadn't I hadn't actually thought of that. That's you know, that that's a very good point. I would put it that each each um category of thinkers encourages the same category in other world leaders, I would I would say. You know, we've had like Reagan got along great with Thatcher, you know, and that that made world history um in a sense. Reagan got along great with Pope John Paul II, you know. That that but Trump gets along with Putin, you know? And Putin is Putin is a reader. He's not like Trump, you know, he's a much deeper, more serious person than Trump. I hate to use the word evil because it's so overused. Uh, you know, it's and it becomes a lazy journalist term, so to speak. But the Wall Street Journal news section ran a front-page long essay, article, researched article about 10 days ago about all the methods of torture that the Soviets have that the Russians have perfected to use against Ukrainian prisoners. Uh and you you got a sense reading, a chilling sense reading that article of real pure evil. You know, there's nothing accidental or emotional or overheated about what they were doing to Ukrainian prisoners. It was all very methodical and thought out and approved at the highest levels.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

And informed by their experiences elsewhere. Yeah. In Revenge of Geography, you write about the geography's role in shaping nation and politics. Before I ask you that question, what do you make of Tim Marshall's work?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I'm actually not that familiar with it. Um, you know, it's the thing is after I've finished the re I'm ashamed to say. Um after I finished the reven the revenge of geography, I moved on, you know, and I had to read a lot of other books for other subjects. Um I'm aware of him, I'm aware that he sells very well, but I'm not familiar enough to have an opinion.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

No problem. Um, this is the point of me bringing up Revenge of Geography. The question being that you've said geography is destiny, but what if in the modern era, invisible infrastructures such as semiconductors, data flows, technological edge are in fact geographical checkpoints? Think about TSMC in Taiwan, subsea internet cables, a Russian gas pipeline into Germany. If this is true, then future wars might not necessarily be fought over land. They'll be fought over who controls the networks that make civilization function. Would you agree with this, or do you still see physical geography as a bigger force?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Um I see the point you're making is becoming stronger and stronger as we go on, but it's a long process. And it's like oil. We're still in the oil age. You know, we may have wind and solar and all of that, but for a time being, we'll still be in the oil and gas age. Um and it's the same with geography. Geography still matters. And what what encouraged me to write this that book was um uh I wasn't being a fatalist. You know, the subtitle of the book was about, you know, how to avoid the battle against fate, you know, the revenge of geography, you know, future conflicts, and the battle against fate. Um but I may I wrote the book because the the intellectual journalistic world in the United States was totally taken up by ideas, that ideas were everything, and therefore they discounted physical factors. Um, you know, because it wasn't interesting to them. It was just there, you know, and what could you do about it, so why write about it? So it's 50, I so I was covering the other 50 percent of reality that the media was missing. And I often start off with this anecdote, which will get to the point. Taiwan is about 98 miles away from mainland China. Were it 20 miles away, the width of the English Channel, mainland China would have conquered Taiwan back in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Uh there wouldn't be a Taiwan today, it would just be a province of China. Um, so geography matters. I mean, why did we dig the Panama Canal? You know, why did the the French dig the Suez Canal? You know, you know, if geography didn't matter, none of these things would have happened.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yeah. Um, or another Taiwan example, which just I'm preparing for an interview with Kerry Brown, the Sinologist, and listening to an interview with Maurice Chang, the CEO of TSMC, for that. And he made this comment that um for their facilities, Taiwan has this abundance of very, very fresh water at the back of their facility, which isn't unique across the world, obviously, but it is uh one small geographical reason why this company does thrive so well here and potentially couldn't elsewhere, and therefore, you know, it's downstairs.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

And that's also true of semiconductor, you know, that's true of Silicon Valley too. You know, you need you need it needs to be near fresh water. I mean, um, and um, you know, why why is America a great country? Well, one of the reasons is not only because it's a continent with two oceans, uh, with an ocean on each side of it, but because it has an internal navigable river system larger than most of the rest of the world combined, which facilitated commerce and the development of the nation in the 19th century.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Furthermore, one more point on sort of the interplay between technology and geography. Do you see that technology might mitigate a country's geographical defenses? Think of thousands of drones, faster planes, higher planes, missiles that take less than a minute to travel 100 kilometers. How how much do these geographical blessings uh no longer actually count for much?

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Well, they start to count for less and less. Um still, planes have to pass mountain ranges. Um and, you know, when they and when I'm asked to define Russia, I say it's the classic insecure land power. It covers 11 time zones, but no natural borders with Europe. So unless it's on the move in an aggressive way, it feels itself under threat. Um, there's a reason why uh why democracy and liberal governments in general have tended to come from Venice, from the from from England, from the United States, because they're all sea powers. You know, and sea powers bring are all about cosmopolitanism from ports. Um so and sea powers are protected by water, so they feel safer and they're able to take more chances with their domestic politics.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Can you give uh more examples about what you've researched and how drones might be a significant part of warfare going forward?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, well, we're end we're ending the we're moving out of the era of heroic war in some senses. Uh I think the last fighter jet pilot has already been born. You know? Right. Um so that you know, it we may still have aircraft carriers, but because they're moving bases at sea, essentially, that are sovereign. But they may in the future only carry drones. You know, you know, uh you know, when we think of drones, we think of small model planes and maybe a little bigger, but you can have drones the size of fighter jets in the future uh and with the same power. Um so that um I I I think uh uh drones may lead to smaller armed forces in terms of manpower. Um, and again, it will take the heroism out of war. But still I can tell you, I once um researched the story for the Atlantic on drone pilots um at a base in Nevada, and they suffered from real anxiety because they were killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan from half a world away, and then they just get up from their desk and be in Las Vegas, you know, essentially. You know, it sounds funny, but it's not. You know, be they have nobody to talk to, they're totally disoriented, and they've just g sat down at a chair and killed people. So Yeah, you know, drone dr drones are very interesting, you know, and in ways that people often don't think about.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

And it sort of compounds into the opening points that we were making, which is uh the fragility of having such a tightly efficient uh global economic supply chain. Because, for instance, were there to be a war, these are extremely complicated products that come from tens, twenty, thirty different different countries. Um type of aggression could be the hoarding of these certain types of materials.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah. And and drones also make the war uh uh military budget smaller. They save money. Because mo much of what's in a fighter jet or a bomber is designed, is money spent on protecting the human being flying it. You know, um once you don't need to protect any individual flying it, you can produce the thing at much greater, at much lesser cost. All right, Robert, I've got a few more for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

I think we're gonna run on time. You've been thinking about the interplay of cultures and nations for 40 years, probably longer, but that's at least how long you've been writing about it. And that's taking you all over the world. Supposedly Bill Clinton was reading a book on the Balkans while he was uh involved in the Yugoslav Wars. Do you see your work more as a service to the historical record when people look back a hundred years from now, or something to influence those in power today and force policy?

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Well, um I'm I'm always nervous when it influences policy, because it can influence, you know, because a reader can take a different lesson from your book than you intended. Um you know, once you do a book, people will interpret it any way they want. I think when I look back at my earlier books, what I see is the best thing that I can do is that I painted a picture of reality as it existed at that particular moment in history. Like when I'm writing about soldiers in Iraq and Imperial grunts or something like that, or American soldiers special forces training in Colombia in 2003 or uh or in the Philippines or something. That's the way it was at that time. It may have been very different a year or two later, but you know, but that if you want a gritty feel for what it was like uh, you know, uh in the field at that particular moment, the book is useful. And that's I think the best that I can do.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Have there been any instances that you know of where you have influenced policy?

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yes. Um uh I supported the Iraq War, which I came to regret. Um and I think Clinton took the wrong lessons from uh Balkan Ghost. So um I'm I'm a fairly uh y you know, th those kinds of things really chasen.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

This is as well totally tangential, Robert, but where does Australia ever enter into your worldview?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Uh yes, it does. I've written about Australia. Uh because I've I I've written several books about the Pacific. Um uh uh Asia's Cauldron, published in 2014, and uh Monsoon published in 2010. Monsoon was about the Indian Ocean, the Greater Indian Ocean, and Asia's Cauldron was about the Greater South China Sea. So what I noticed about Australia is that it's a vast continent, but it has very few people, and there are most of them are clustered in the Southeast. Um it makes it very hard to defend the continent. So for decades, Australia had a very good situation. It was able to get rich off the rising Chinese economy, particularly in the Perth area, and yet it was defended ultimately by the United States Navy and Air Force in the Pacific. Because though Australia has a great military tradition, because of its small population, um it doesn't really it cannot really have a strategic military, you know, uh um in that sense. So um but now that U.S.-China relations, not just now for the last eight years or so, uh that you the U.S.-China relations have gotten fairly tense because mainly because of uh you know a Leninist autocrat in power in Beijing, it's harder for China for Australia to enjoy both worlds, getting rich off China and being protected by America. And I think Australia has jumped to the side of America with the uh with the uh AUKUS deal, you know, which is which, as you know, is about um getting a few nuclear-powered submarines through British and American technology.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Could you ever make sense for why we don't have any deeper cultural relations, diplomatic relations, or economic relations with our closest neighbors, Indonesia, or more with Singapore, more with the Philippines?

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Aaron Powell I think Australia is uh for Australia, Indonesia is the closest dangerous place in a way, because it's very populous, uh um, it's been unstable at times, um, it has a lot of far-flung islands with a lot going on in them. So uh Indonesia has always been a challenge for Australia. And I've often heard that Australians sometimes get um frustrated with New Zealanders because New Zealand can afford to have its more idealistic foreign policy because it's physically protected by Australia, which serves as a buffer. So there you have geography again.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Absolutely. Yeah. And also part of the geography of Australia is that because the populace is so far in the southeast, were someone to attack us, they've just got this incomprehensibly large amount of land to sort of get through beforehand. Yeah. And our internal river system is nothing like the United States. It's actually when you just look at the geography comparison, it's quite a good one because we're similarly sized, yet you're popular all the way throughout, and we've got, you know, as many people as you have in Los Angeles or something like that in the entire country. What's a position that you hold that rubs up against those who believe in the status quo?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Um It's nor you know, everyone wants things to stay the same. I mean, most people do. Uh you know, we're always upset by change when someone is fired from a job, when a boss changes hands, you get very nervous who's the new boss is gonna be. But, you know, as I said earlier, history is all about change. Things are constantly changing. The status quo is always very tenuous, it can always be shaken. Um, and I think we're living through that right now.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

You're gonna drive yourself nuts um l holding on to the sentimental past of what you wanted rather than just embracing the change, however, it will go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

And we all do that, you know, and that operates in foreign policy as well. And you you see that now, the you know, the collective um elite, uh, you know, even mass democracies require a bureaucratic elite to run things, you know. The collective elite is driving itself crazy and for good reason at some of the tumultuous changes going on in Washington.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

So, with that all being said, you are constantly riding the waves of change, trying to remain conscious of the fact that you know you just can't settle for the status quo. Things are gonna always be in flux, things are always changing. But clearly you see Trump as a um destructive, I would say altogether not good figure for the world or for the United States. Like how do you make sense of this moment and how pessimistic are you for the future of your own country and then say the next 10-15 years for global order?

SPEAKER_00 30:30

All right. Well, I'll conclude by saying that um the United States has been a great powerful mass democracy in the print and typewriter age that emerged as an empire at the end of World War II. And that lasted for 80 years of, you know, of relative stability. Um and that age is passing now. It's not just what we spoke about earlier of uh uh you know, about the post-war order changing, but also the technology is changing. We're no longer in the print and typewriter age, we're in the digital video, social media uh era, uh, which I think gives a uh you know gives an advantage to passion, to simplistic solutions, which are all the enemies of analysis. So I'm not convinced that America will will lead the world uh in this new era that we're just embarking upon now.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Robert, I know that you were tied on 30, but just let me finish off with this question if you don't mind. If life is made up of a large number of small moments, a small note mo and a small number of large ones, what is the role that serendipity has played throughout your career and throughout your life?

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Well, um the person who did the most for my journalistic career died um uh several months ago, um, William Whitworth, who is the uh editor-in-chief of The Atlantic for 20 years. And before that, he was deputy editor of The New Yorker. And uh I submitted a few pieces to him um on speculation uh back in the 1980s, and he and the long and the short of it was he brought me to the Atlantic where I wrote for decades, and that was it wasn't completely serendipity, but he was a sympathetic editor, is the way I would put it.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Robert, thank you so much for um being so generous this morning.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

All right, well, thank you so much. That was a really super intelligent interview, so I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Oh, it's nice of you to say. Thank you, Robert. Have a good one.