Robert D. Kaplan put up a literary construct (wrote an
article) that turned out to hide a mystery. Careful study shows that the
mystery challenges the reader to find the key to its solution. It is that
Kaplan wrote: “The Trap of Empire and Authoritarianism,” a piece that was
published in The National Interest on March 5, 2018.
Look at the opening sentence of the article: “For thousands
of years the tragedy of politics has been that empire affords the answer to
chaos.” Kaplan means to say that only the creation of an empire can provide the
answer to chaos. But how do you build an empire in the first place? This
happens, he says, when one lucky state finds itself in the right sort of
geographical position. That is, he contends that the process of becoming an
empire is haphazard. When this happens to an ethnic group of people, their
state grows to a level that allows it to turn imperialistic and invade its
neighbors, Kaplan goes on to explain. And this is how the world gains a new
empire, which in his opinion, is the normal state of affairs for our human
civilization.
He goes on to say that because empires end in tragedy, the
current imperialists in-waiting are obsessing about finding a way to build an
empire that will be sustainable. That is, they are trying to determine what
system they must adopt to attain their ultimate goal. He names the current
giants actively seeking to become the imperial power of the future, and studies
the chance that each has to reach a high enough level that it can become one.
The contenders are China , Russia , the European Union and America .
From this point on, Robert Kaplan disappoints the reader in
that he uses two concepts interchangeably as if they were one and the same. One
concept is that of a country dominating another. The only such example in
existence today is that of Israel
colonizing Palestine
… although Kaplan does not mention this example or any other for that matter.
The second concept is that of one country having a strong and almost
imperialistic influence on another. A glaring example is that of the United States dominating Canada culturally
and economically. But Robert Kaplan does not mention this example either.
However, the net effect of his conflating the two concepts is that he makes it
sound as if Canada were America 's “West Bank ”.
Another disappointing feature of the Kaplan article is that
he neglected to fully describe the relationship that exists between the
internal politics of each contender in the race, and the outward effort that
each makes to dominate other nations. This leaves the reader with the image of
an ongoing fierce race between the chariots of China ,
Russia , the European Union
and America .
But you wonder if they'll all stay in the race to the end … without the wheels
of anyone coming off.
What Kaplan does instead, is describe how each contender is
going about building an empire by working on other nations. Whereas he relies
on the readers accepting that liberal democracy – practiced in America and the European Union – will survive
the race and win because its internal politics is based on universal values,
Kaplan casts doubt on China
and Russia
without explaining how their internal politics interfere with their external
undertakings.
For example, Kaplan says that Russia
is subverting the countries of Central and Eastern Europe without trying to
reconstitute the old Soviet Union . However, he
does not tell in what way Russia 's
system of governance causes it to resort to the negative approach that keeps
failing, instead of trying something else. As to China , he says it has a “Belt and
Road Initiative” with which it tries to draw other nations into an economic
zone around itself. But he predicts that the effort will not have much success.
He says so without explaining how or why China 's internal politics will
offset the economic advantages it offers to other countries.
But then Robert Kaplan seems to mysteriously reverse
himself, and praises the Chinese system. He does it with these words: “China is not a
democracy, but neither is it totalitarian. That is precisely its appeal”.
Is he trying to say that writing the article caused him to
appreciate the Chinese model of governance? In fact, Kaplan may have answered
the question already. This is what he says: “We should not assume that liberal
democracy is the last word in human-political development. China 's model
may prove a more obvious successor to empire.” Is he now saying that China is not
trying to build an empire after all; only working to bring harmony to the world?