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Title: Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos by Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 0-375-50563-6 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 26 December, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.51 (55 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A good introduction
Comment: Kaplan does a good job relating history to current issues facing American foreign policy makers. The essays are purposefully compact and light on theoretical and philosophical backing. For example, Kaplan's handling of the philosophical antinomies of necessity and freedom is overly simplistic and does not really speak to the issue as raised by the historical figures of political philosophy he discusses. Kaplan references the conceptual political systems of realist philosophers but does not attempt to present a thorough delineation of political realism as such, choosing rather to rely on the veracity of the insights of the likes of Hobbes, Machiavelli and Thucydides put forth in truncated form. As a result, those who are realists in the sense that Kaplan champions will find the book insightful; those who are not are unlikely to to be persueded to Kaplan's way of seeing things. Overall however the book is a good introduction to those looking for a realistic approach to foreign policy that is grounded in real historical scholarship rather than foreign policy which is merely the expression of the kind of juridical utopianism that seeks to avoid all conflict and dominates much of the debate in Europe and the United States today. Also, Kaplan's work sheds light on the differences between Neoconservative approaches to foreign policy in the United States (which are usually antihistorical in many ways, dedidedly unpagan, and often dripping with an overbearing American exceptionalism) and a more consistent, intellectual, and far less chauvinistic political Neorealism. For those looking for more in the realistic vein after reading _Warrior Politics_ (outside of the sources Kaplan references) I would suggest an essay from a great modern political and social scientist Kaplan does not discuss, Max Weber and his "Politics as a Vocation." It deals with many of the fundamental issues touched on by Kaplan and provides much of the theoretical foundation--backed with the voluminous empirical and historical sociological research of a great social scientist--for the arguments advanced but not fully explained.
Rating: 4
Summary: Keeping It Real
Comment: I've read a couple of Kaplan's books, and read his column in The Atlantic regularly. What I like about Kaplan's approach to global politics is that it is rooted in the two things that most academic writers' and policos' views are not: on-the-ground experiences of life across the globe and history. In my experience (I'm an academic) most American thinkers, especially academics, but also people who write about and do politcs, think narrowly and unhistorically. This leads to a rather predictable and probably outdated political imagination. For me, Kaplan's writing is interesting because it is the expression of a political imagination that has moved beyond the liberal-conservative divide that defined political debate since the turbulent sixties. Central to Kaplan's vision of politics, and one of the defining strands of this provocative book, is the notion that politics must be rooted in reality. Too dogmatic a moral outlook, whether its lenses be crafted by fanaticism, altruism, ambition, or something else, produces a political policy out of touch with reality and, hence, doomed to failure.
In this new book, Kaplan presents a rough theoretical and historical sketch of the ideas that have been in the background of his other writings. The morality and political virtue outlined here is neither amoral nor a variation on the theme of "might makes right," as some other reviewers have suggested. It is a morality rooted not in ideals, but in experience. For Kaplan, as for Machiavelli, political virtue is formed not by a vision of how things ought to be, but by how things are. And how things are, as documented by the likes of Thucydides and Livy from the classical world, by the horrors of the Holocaust from our own not-too-distant past, and by recent events like the bloodshed in Sierra Leone and elsewere - how things are is not always pretty. Though we may be much, much more than beasts - and who having listened to voice of a young Elvis, having read the "Divine Comedy," or having seen the temple of Nefertari, would deny that! - our virtue as well as our taste is defined by the beastly, the cruel, and the evil. This point is most vividly expressed in the words of Thomas Malthus: "moral evil is absolutely necessary to the production of moral excellence." To deny that is foolhardy and dangerous. To affirm it is the necessary first step in cultivating the pagan virtue that Kaplan advocates.
Rating: 3
Summary: Machiavelli's Busboy
Comment: Spin Doctor Robert D Kaplan in his book 'Warrior Politics' reminds us (once again) that the world is a very dangerous place.
He suggests dining on the works of political thinkers of the past as the 'roadmap' for today's 'western murderers'.
While insightful in some ways, his 'unsophisticated and general assumptions' of the marvels of past 'leaders'
and those who write about them, qualify state murder against 'enemies' as wonderful, necessary and MORAL.
Survival of the fittest is basically his tome. In Kaplan's world, there' s no compassion, love, respect or humility.
If he hadn't peppered 'Warrior Politics' with his 'personal ideas', that amount to spewing a 'narrow and hidden right-wing
agenda', this book would have been more interesting.
Here's a couple of quotes:
"Because the elite media is dominated by cosmopolitians who inhabit the wider world beyond the nation-state,
it has the tendency to emphasize moral principles over national self-interest."
"The power of the media is wilful and dangerous because it dramatically affects Western policy,
while bearing no responsibility for the outcome. Indeed, the media's moral perfectionism is
possible because it is politically unaccountable."
Is he talking about 'embedded journalists' who 'write what they're told'?
or is he referring to cnn or fox? or others?
Where would Mr. Kaplan advise us to seek objective news?
Robert D Kaplan is another 'know-it-all pundit' who wants you to think like him.
Let's face it, when you read quotes by mass murderers like Henry Kissinger, William J Perry, William S Cohn,
and disgraced criminal politicians like Newt Ginrich,
quoted on the back cover, take a big gulp before you read.
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Title: The Coming Anarchy : Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War by Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 037570759X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Robert D. Kaplan, Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 1400030250 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 27 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Balkan Ghosts : A Journey Through History by Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 0679749810 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 15 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Eastward to Tartary : Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus by Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 0375705767 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Ends of the Earth : From Togo to Turkmenistan, from Iran to Cambodia, a Journey to the Frontiers ofAnarchy by Robert D. Kaplan ISBN: 0679751238 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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