NOTES

Robert D. Kaplan, 1994 (February), "The Coming Anarchy," Atlantic Monthly 273(2):44-76.

Main Message

"The coming anarchy: nations break up under the tidal flow of refugees from environmental and social disaster. As borders crumble, another type of boundary is erected--- a wall of disease. Wars are fought over scarce resources, especially water, and war itself becomes continuous with crime, as armed bands of stateless marauders clash with the private security forces of elites. A preview of the first decades of the twenty-first century" [from the Magazine cover].

Overview

Kaplan provides a panoramic essay outlining the Hobbesian character and the eclectic complex of causes of future warfare in the form of low-intensity conflict. He begins with Sierra Leone as a microcosm, proceeds to other countries in West Africa such as Nigeria, and then to other regions and countries, especially Turkey, India and Pakistan. Kaplan asserts that there is a synergy among overpopulation, resource scarcity, poverty, disease, and "tribalism" that is rapidly destroying the fabric of civil society (44). He predicts that during the 21st century, social disintegration and urban dysfunction will grow in many regions, especially in developing countries. He views this as a reversion to some form of "primitive" or tribal violence, especially by young unemployed males. War and crime will fuse. He believes that this scenario may also apply to American cities (45).

Kaplan's strategy

"To understand the events of the next fifty years, then, one must understand environmental scarcity, cultural and racial clash, geographic destiny, and the transformation of war. The order of these is not accidental. Each concept except the first relies partly on the one or ones before it, meaning that the last two--- new approaches to mapmaking and to warfare--- are the most important" (54).

Environment pivotal

"It is time to understand "the environment" for what it is: the national-security issue of the early twenty-first century. The political and strategic impact of surging populations, spreading disease, deforestation and soil erosion, water depletion, air pollution, and, possibly, rising sea level in critical, overcrowded regions like the Nile Delta and Bagladesh--- developments that will prompt mass migrations and, in turn, incite group conflicts--- will be the core foreign-policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate, arousing the public and uniting assorted interests left over from the Cold War" (58).

West Africa as a predictor of the future

"West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and social stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real "strategic" danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate introduction to the issues, often extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will soon confront our civilization" (46). At the end of his essay Kaplan returns to West Africa and asserts that "we ignore this dying region at our own risk" (76).

Contributing factors

The various contributing causal factors which Kaplan touches on include:

(1) increasing competition with increasing scarcity of resources;

(2) environmental degradation, deterioration, and fluctuations;

(3) increasing population and poverty;

(4) the failure of state borders arbitrarily drawn by European colonials to attend to the realities of ethnic diversity and history;

(5) the decline of nationalism and rise of "tribalism";

(6) the emergence of Islamic extremists; and

(7) the decline of Western interest and influence in some regions like Africa.