A lot of the changes are so gradual that they don't even qualify as news, or even as interesting: they're so mundane that we just take them for granted. But history shows that it's the mundane changes that are more important than the dramatic 'newsworthy' events.

Robert D. Kaplan

Categorized in : Interesting Important Events

Travel is like a good challenging book: It demands presentness-the ability to live completely in the moment.

Robert D. Kaplan

demand challenges book

If you look at the history of the U.S., we were an empire long before we were a nation.

Robert D. Kaplan

empires long looks

It is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire - different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless.

Robert D. Kaplan

rome united-states america

The first thing to recognize not just about Afghanistan but about any poor undeveloped country is that as big as it looks on the map, it's much bigger when you're there.

Robert D. Kaplan

maps country looks

What does the earth look like in the places where people commit atrocities? Is there a bad smell, a genius loci, something about the landscape that might incriminate?

Robert D. Kaplan

atrocities smell people

Prostitution, black marketeering, and informing on ones neighbors and friends all had such a deep-rooted tradition in Romania that there was a charming naturalness and innocence about it.

Robert D. Kaplan

innocence neighbors-and-friends black

It is time to understand the environment for what it is: the national security issue of the early twenty-first century.

Robert D. Kaplan

future issues twenties

It is development, not poverty, that causes upheaval and terrorism.

Robert D. Kaplan

upheaval poverty development

Wherever you have weakening states and turmoil, you will have a fertile petri dish for terrorism.

Robert D. Kaplan

dishes terrorism states

What Americans cant face is that one of the reasons that the Russians and the Chinese were so impressed with us during the Cold War was the fact that Nixon and Kissinger went on bombing despite public reaction.

Robert D. Kaplan

chinese faces war

What happened on September 11th is at least, theoretically, small stuff compared to what can happen.

Robert D. Kaplan

september-11 happened stuff

The 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. Kaplan

deployment country years

Given the level of anti-Americanism in the world, given the level of frustration with the United States throughout the Muslim world, you've got a homegrown attack or you have a nuclear explosion in the air that is not a test somewhere. Those are still the biggest threats out there.

Robert D. Kaplan

united-states frustration air

The most important thing I learned as a foreign correspondent in about 80 countries is that it takes a very shallow knowledge of history to think that there are solutions to most problems.

Robert D. Kaplan

important country thinking

If you travel around America you see different sections of highways donated by this or that person, and that's a slow beginning of what may end up being a situation common in the Third World: some sections of highways in wealthy areas are beautifully maintained and other parts are just dirt-strewn potholes.

Robert D. Kaplan

different america world

When you talk about aiding this country against that country or about fighting terrorism, when you actually take that decision and strip it down, it always comes down to one person in the field giving specialized training to somebody else in the field.

Robert D. Kaplan

fighting giving country

An idea is only an idea if it causes unease, debate and reflection. By that standard, Thomas Homer-Dixon's concept of an 'ingenuity gap' is truly a new idea. I can think of no other new concept that so fully condenses all of the challenges we face as a human civilization than the 'ingenuity gap'. Homer-Dixon has found a way to unite all of our concerns about economics, war, population growth, complexity, etc. under a single heading. He is one of an elite group of academics who can write for a mass audience.

Robert D. Kaplan

reflection writing war

The masses cannot ultimately be free: only the individual can be.

Robert D. Kaplan

individual mass

The more dynamic the capitalistic expansion, the greater the disparity. It is from the disparity that we are going to get all the political upheaval for the next few years.

Robert D. Kaplan

expansion political years

We talk a lot about individual rights, but in fact Americans are very willing to give up our individual rights if it means our property values will be protected, and so on.

Robert D. Kaplan

giving-up rights mean