It is time to understand the environment for what it is: the national security issue of the early twenty-first century.
Robert D. KaplanThe United States is not overdeployed or overextended with deployments in 150 countries on any given year. On any given week we have about 65 deployments.
Robert D. KaplanThe closer one gets to either the eastern or the southern fringe of the German-speaking world-the closer one gets, in other words, to the threatening and more numerous Slavs-the more insecure and dangerous nationalism becomes.
Robert D. KaplanWhile the foreign policy elite in Washington focuses on the 8,000 deaths in a conflict in Syria โ half a world away from the United States โ more than 47,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006 in Mexico. A deeply troubled state as well as a demographic and economic giant on the United Statesโ southern border, Mexico will affect Americaโs destiny in coming decades more than any state or combination of states in the Middle East.
Robert D. Kaplan