Too Many Excuses for Tyrants

“Despite all of this, [Robert D.] Kaplan’s analysis of the greater Middle East should not be ignored. His travels throughout this vast region across the decades give him insights into its diverse challenges that few Americans possess.”

Robert D. Kaplan is one of the most prominent pessimists in Western media of recent decades. President Bill Clinton saw his 1993 book Balkan Ghosts as a reason not to intervene in the Bosnian war during his first year in office (though Kaplan supported intervention). His 1994 Atlantic article, “The Coming Anarchy” (later expanded into a book) laid out a vision of an unstable 21st century, a rejoinder to the joyful prognostications of some observers of the age of globalization. As journalist David Plotz wrote in Slate in 2002, “Kaplan’s idea of foreign policy sometimes seems to be a shrug and an M-16.”

His underrated 2001 work Warrior Politics made the case for realism in foreign policy, shortly before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 shook the United States out of its post-Cold War complacency. It was a prescient statement of the need for Americans to confront the limits of their belief in universal human rights. Humane causes can be fought for, but only if those fighting for them realize they will only succeed in some places and at some times. A grand ideological vision is something to avoid.

Kaplan’s 2023 book, The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China, shows him crossing the greater Middle East. He speaks to figures in countries across the region, gauging their opinions of long-term trends. At the core of the book, however, is the author’s experience with Iraq, an experience that, while it is a useful warning about the folly of grand designs, also shows the danger of overcorrection, of being too willing to give autocrats the benefit of the doubt.