Robert Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy

The world we live in today is easily compared to the world we lived in yesterday simply because hindsight is proverbial “20/20”. Anyone who has matured enough to actually pay attention to the surrounding world events will notice changes in their environment, politics and population. Once you identify with these worldly changes, you will begin to equate their impact on our collective future as a human race. The publication of The Coming Anarchy, by Robert Kaplan in 1994, recognized governments are quickly being converted to “centers of power” and is directly related to environmental changes, resource scarcity, overpopulation, and tribalism. I fully agree with the author’s observations that local populations are disregarding country borders
In our modern era, we are capable of leveraging technology and quickly derive that our environment is rapidly changing, and not necessarily for the better of mankind. Significant weather pattern changes have lead to severe drought, devastating storms, and tremendous changes to our fresh water supplies worldwide. Couple these changes with world government distribution models and we will quickly agree that “Democracy is problematic; scarcity is more certain” (Kaplan, p82). Worldwide forms of government function somewhat fine until faced with forces, including the environment that it can neither control nor manage for its population. As the environment reclaims its natural resources, governments are challenged with mere survival itself and will instinctively choose self preservation over caring for the already poorest of its citizens. Populations simply left to survive will naturally seek basic needs where it can and disregard borders based on its own survival opportunities. “To the average person, political values will mean less, personal security more” (Kaplan, p93). Again, when choosing between following established border agreements or searching for fresh water, all desperate humans will choose the
Basically, when there is not enough of sustainment to share, security is the means to ensure availability. As governments give way to local and tribal factions, “then “national security” may in the future be viewed as a local concept” (Kaplan, p93). Many times throughout recorded history where governments have not provided needed security, other factions have graciously filled the need. We can refer to our recent African example where “the radius of trust within tribal societies is narrowed to one’s immediate family and guerrilla comrades” (Kaplan, p92). The government’s inability to function as a provider of basic needs to include security simply opens the door for tribal self survival and governance. Continuing this line of thought leads us to recognize how a guerrilla style group can become a welcomed leader when security is paramount to managing scarce resources. “Instead of borders, there would be moving “centers” of power, as in the Middle Ages” (Kaplan, p93). Reviewing world events provide an instant picture of how tribal migration and radical faction control quickly assumes power in areas of overpopulation, scarce resources and government failure. Accepting the reality that devastating environmental changes, government inabilities, and increasing resource scarcity will indeed force the world’s population to seek survivability regardless of well defined country