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From: Matthew Yglesias

Robert Kaplan Smackdown

By Matthew Yglesias - June 23, 2006, 7:00AM

I have no idea what The Virginia Quarterly Review is, but via Brian Doherty I learn that the new issue contains the ultimate Robert Kaplan takedown. It's long, but worth your time.

5 Comments

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Besides being long it is also not very good. Kaplan is not perfect, but the article really doesn't do much in the way of laying the smackdown. For an interesting critique see here.

Posted by bp32
June 23, 2006 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink

"A National Journal of Literature and Discussion," so saith the website to which your link directs me.

btw, the author of siad ultimate Robert Kaplan takedown, one Tom Bissell, is incredibly cute.

Posted by flippantangel
June 23, 2006 7:21 AM | Reply | Permalink

Darn. bp32 beat me to it. I wasn't even sure who Robert Kaplan was, but any blog called The Coming Anarchy had to be on my blogroll.

Posted by bob mcmanus
June 23, 2006 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink

"Imperialism is but a form of isolationism, in which the demand for absolute, undefiled security at home leads one to conquer the world.” ...Kaplan, from Bissell's article. Bissell does not seem to disapprove of this particular insight, tho he despises how RK uses it.

It struck me as an adequate explanation of certain apparent contradictions in 20th century Republican foreign policy.

OK, Kaplan may be inconsistent, crazy, and maybe wicked. These kinds of contradictions haven't stopped me from reading Marx or Nietzsche. If we are negotiating with the Tragedy of American Imperialism, it is sane to view it as a tragedy, not a melodrama, where the good guys in white hats ride in to save the day. It doesn't seem to me particularly moral to try to push back the hurricane with a box fan. Exile or Syracuse, die with family or die alone.

Tragedies are defined by their lack of moral choices.

Posted by bob mcmanus
June 23, 2006 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink

RogerGathman
The Virginia Quarterly Review won six national magazine awards this year -- more than the New Yorker. It is one of the best quarterlies.

Posted by rogerwg
June 23, 2006 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink

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