Nearly 20 years ago, in February 1994, Robert Kaplan published an insightful essay in The Atlantic magazine entitled “The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are destroying the social fabric of our planet.” Interweaving his investigation of history, contemporary era, and several other cultures as well as religions, Kaplan deeply proposes a theory on how all these elements can predictably amount to anarchy. Kaplan’s essay was debated and commended by many scholars, from various regions of the world (Kaplan, 1994; Iriye, 2018) . Kaplan is much admired, because of his heartlessly honest argument of, why coming anarchy will be what will overwhelm this globe if things continue going in the same direction, it has already taken.
Kaplan implements Thomas Homer-Dixon’s ideas to his propositions, indicating that they will be the reason for the loss of the nation-state. If nature is unchecked, it may result in an environmental shortage, cultural and racial conflicts such as in Rwanda, and result into another geographic fate that was imagined. Kaplan feels that maps are a concept of modernism. In colonial eras, country maps to the colonizers were like an accountant’s ledger book. The maps caused the colonizers to concentrate on their holdings by way of a totalizing classificatory grid. Kaplan reiterates Benedict Anderson’s models that indicate that maps are entirely a Western formation and up until the twentieth century they covered only three percent of the nations that in the world (Kaplan, 1994) . Anderson observed that the map of the world that had more than 190 nations is largely a construction of modernism, particularly of European colonization.
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Francis Fukuyama indicates that a small percentage of the human population will be sufficiently resourced and sheltered to be able to enjoy a post-historical domain. People trying to earn a living with a rise of poverty, no water, and inadequate land to occupy and survive will characterize the larger part of the world. Samuel Huntington suggests that the world has been in motion in this century, from nation-state conflict to ideological conflicts to eventually cultural conflicts. Huntington is worried that the movement of migrants to cities across the world will create a situation in which much power will be availed to the unlearned and less cultured groups (Kaplan, 1994) . Martin Van Creveld indicates that the circles of trust within tribal groups is lessened to one’s immediate family and rebellious colleagues, ceasefires are arranged with one Bosnian commander can be terminated by another Bosnian commander. The repeated occurrences of short-lived truces in Balkans provide evidence that we live in a world where the old direction of state warfare is implemented. The coming anarchy is such that the war-making organizations will not be limited to just particular religions or regions (Kaplan, 2016) . Cultures instead of states will be fighting. Thomas Hobbes emphasizes this observation of Van Creveld by even giving an example of ISIS attack on other cultures and religions that are not Islamic.
Environmental pressures in the global society will only allow a small minority of the entire world’s population to enjoy secure cities and suburbs. The rest of people will be exposed to pathetic environmental conditions that will stimulate mass migrations as well as social conflicts globally. They will be fighting for survival. Kaplan introduces the metaphor of the Limousine to elaborate on this situation. A limo that is being driven in a potholed road of New York City, which has beggars sitting beside the streets, depicts the situation vividly (Kaplan, 1994) . Within the limo is fresh and uncontaminated air that is controlled representing postindustrial places such as North America, Europe, the developing Pacific Rim, and some few privileged regions, with their trade developments and advanced highways. However, the outside of the limo contains the rest of humanity that totally do not understand the meaning of life, in fact, they are taking a different direction. Personally, I seem to be riding outside the limo because I am not enjoying maximally the air-conditioned post-industrial developments enjoyed in few sections of the world. Even in the developed countries, we are struggling with issues of corruption such that some resources are not equally contributed to the society (Iriye, 2018). The clashes brought about by environmental crises that manifest in form of cultural and racial conflicts will be felt even in the developed regions like the United States.
Anarchy is not coming. In his explanation, Kaplan builds a lot of praise on Gibbon’s failure and the decline of the Roman Empire, showing Gibbon’s position to the modern times since history normally repeats itself. Kaplan cannot have it both ways. Either history is reshuffled with order and chaos in continued and dangerous competition in the world, or we are challenging a new period that is characterized by chaos and calamities (Iriye, 2018). Kaplan must decide on one. His recommendations for foreign aid to bring down deterioration rebuts his doubts as well. He suggests a proper framework for healthier politics (Kaplan, 1994) . What Kaplan argues is true, but there are other holistic views to be explored, and, on balance, he seems not to be carrying the day for such an observation. As one who has been very keen on the politics of AIDs in Africa for quite some time, I can learn of the pessimistic position of Africa. However, Kaplan’s ideology does not suffice to this case. Perhaps we are just obligated to be mindful of our environment and every move that we take so that we can enjoy a promising world.
From the article by Kaplan, it is evident that most people are not cognizant of the realities on the global affairs in the twenty-first centuries. We learn that it is likely that the rest of the world take the demising path that West Africa was following if we do not wisely utilize our resources. However, as much as there is an imminent scarcity of resources globally, there are also opportunities in innovation, technological development and a global system that has the potential to self-correct itself to maximize resources. This implies that in the phase of diminishing natural resources, we can still utilize technology to get the best. Kaplan’s lens is one that the dominant power takes the lead so that the strongest is the one that survives. Our global system self-corrects so that it is committed to an equilibrium in which there is the balance of power and a commitment to have resources shared equally with all. Thus, irrespective of identity conflicts, nations eventually attain a state of balance in place of an unknown imbalance or anarchy .
References
Iriye, A. (2018). Pearl Harbor and the coming of the Pacific War: A brief history with documents and essays . Macmillan Higher Education.
Kaplan, R. D. (1994). The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are destroying the social fabric of our planet . New York: Vintage .
Kaplan, R. D. (2016). Eurasia's coming anarchy: The risks of Chinese and Russian weakness. Foreign Aff. , 95 , 33.
