Description
Kaplan (Center for a New American Security) claims that the 21st century will be about the countries of the Indian Ocean region, from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, the Iranian Plateau, the Indian subcontinent, and all the way to the Indonesian archipelago. His predictions are based on the region's centrality in conflicts related to clashes between Western and Islamic civilizations, energy independence and global energy trade and distribution routes, religious freedom, and American hegemony and American foreign policy. The book begins with a broad strategic overview of the region, then moves on to individual locations, reflecting on topics such as ethnic rivalry in Sri Lanka, Hindu extremism in India, Chinese naval expansion in the eastern end of the Greater Indian Ocean, renewal in Zanzibar, and climate change, extreme poverty, and Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh. This paperback edition includes a new afterword. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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On the world maps common in America, the Western Hemisphere lies front and center, while the Indian Ocean region all but disappears. This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed twentieth century, but in the twenty-first century that focus will fundamentally change. In this pivotal examination of the countries known as “Monsoon Asia”—which include India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania—bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan shows how crucial this dynamic area has become to American power. It is here that the fight for democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom will be lost or won, and it is here that American foreign policy must concentrate if the United States is to remain relevant in an ever-changing world. From the Horn of Africa to the Indonesian archipelago and beyond, Kaplan exposes the effects of population growth, climate change, and extremist politics on this unstable region, demonstrating why Americans can no longer afford to ignore this important area of the world.
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