Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus

Every author brings some baggage with him when he writes a book. Robert Kaplan brings a caravan. Variously known as "Mr. Anarchy" and "Mr. Chaos," Kaplan is a prolific writer of books on foreign relations and has written many articles for The Atlantic Monthly. He is best-known in foreign policy circles for his 1994 essay and subsequent book entitled "The Coming Anarchy." In them, Kaplan asserts that the world is on the verge of a crackup of Malthusian proportions. A recurring shortcoming of his writings, however, seems to be a lack of solutions for the problems he meticulously details. He has the ability to describe the human condition but has a singular inability to suggest fixes.What is Kaplan's purpose, then, in writing "Eastward to Tartary?" His mission seems to be to warn policy makers, and anyone who will listen, about the perils brewing in far off lands that may one day affect U.S. interests. He is more subtle and less bombastic in this book than in "The Coming Anarchy," but one can still clearly detect his world view that, "the end of the Cold War (has brought) on a cruel process of natural selection among existing states." His writings excel at describing a Hobbesian world where realist power politics must rule, but beyond that, he lacks any concrete prescriptions for what ails humanity. Suggestions for action are few. He is like a doctor who describes a disease, but has no treatment plan, other than to tell you what not to do. In Kaplan's case, he frequently suggests not introducing Western-style democracy too quickly. Kaplan makes this point by warning us that, "Democracy may not necessarily remain enlightened, or civil, in the decades to come.""Eastward to Tartary," is a travelogue about the Near East, where Kaplan chronicles the woes of local nations and populations but once again comes up with few solutions for their suffering. That essential part of the political equation is apparently left for someone else to solve. Taking his readers on an arduous 330 page journey through some of the most fragile and chaotic states on the planet, Kaplan obligingly relates all the social, economic, ethnic, religious and geographical ills befalling each country he visits, but offers scant solutions to the problems. A typical Kaplanian non-solution is to point out that many countries are simply not ready for democratic ideals and are incapable of supporting the institutions required for Western-style democracy. So, Kaplan's primary contribution is that democracy is not likely to be the sole solution for what ails the Near East, particularly in the trans-Caucasus area.Despite its lack of therapeutic action and its abundance of description rather than prescription, the book is an excellent overview of the vast and complex problems facing the U.S if America indeed wants to continue playing the role of global hegemon. In the trans-Caucasian region alone, we see through Kaplan's eyes that the task of U.S. management of global interests can be overwhelming. Kaplan's "You are there" descriptions of feral cities and states does a great service to readers - the book should be read by anyone who thinks that continued U.S. global dominance will be a cake-walk. If undertaken, the U.S. role of global Leviathan truly will not be easy, as we are seeing today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon and possibly one day in the Caspian Basin.We all strive to do what we are best at. Kaplan seems to be best at and most comfortable with identifying trouble spots and trends that may affect U.S. vital interests. He does not spend much time or energy looking for answers to the problems - he implicitly leaves that to other experts. He does a great service for Americans interested in making sense of a chaotic world. He does this by visiting and reporting from some of the most dangerous places on the planet. For this he is to be commended. Through his eyes we can see that simple platitudes are not enough to maintain U.S. hegemony in the world. It will continue to take much blood and treasure. Kaplan is preparing us for our possible future. Are we ready?

I first encountered Kaplan in his absorbing article on instability of Pakistan in the September 2000 Atlantic magazine. He warned then that the Taliban activities in Afghanistan were having a dangerously destabilizing effect on Pakistan and American foreign policy seemed to be alarmingly indifferent to what that fact could portend for the region and American interests in the middle east.That was 1 full year to the date before 9/11. Remarkably, he was eerily prescient. He has a habit of being so.When Kaplan travelled the Balkans in the late 80's, he foresaw the region lumbering toward war while the US and Europe seemed unwilling or unable to do anything meaningful but watch uneasily. Within a year of the publication his Balkan Ghosts, war broke out and occupied NATO forces and resources for several years before relative peace arose. Indeed, Clinton's reading of Balkan Ghosts has been rumored to have persuaded him that the US had to intervene.Kaplan's Eastward to Tartary covers what he referred to as "the new near east": the region east of the newly expanded NATO borders, west of China, and south of Russia. Why did he focus on this region? Because 70% of the then-known oil reserves and 40% of the then-known nat gas reserves were located in the region. That makes the region inherently important to all powerful nations who need a secure source of energy, including the US, Europe, China, and India. Combine that with the fact that 50% of the population of the entire region was then under 14, and that there were negligible education, growth, and employment opportunities for the young in those same nations, you have the recipe for volatility that is difficult if not impossible to control. The unemployed young have no loyalty to the regimes therein, at the same time democratic reform is inevitable. That in turn signalled that bottom-up revolutions would topple reliable despots in the region on whom the US has depended for 60 years to secure access to oil while at the same time the Iranian revolution in 1978 proved that democratizaing alone need not result in western-friendly nations.Kaplan predicted that the instability would run for 10 - 15 years. I write this review on the eve of Egypt's successful (at least temporarily) revolution. We know now in 2011 how prescient Kaplan was in 2000 and he merits reading and re-reading because we are not through this unstable period yet. I urge readers of this very current review to read the book to know how to assess whether the US policy is effective, but if you can't read the book, listen to Kaplan's presentation to the School of Advanced Military Studies at the Command and General Staff School, where American field grade officers are groomed for generalships. It can be found on C-SPAN's archives site under Kaplan's name and the title of the book.

Eastward to Tartary, like its predecessor Balkan Ghosts, is a travel memoir with underlying themes. As I have previously stated with Kaplan's work, it remains defiant to classification, and Eastward to Tartary is no exception. It is essentially travel writing with underlying political analysis, and while adherents of both field may wince at the idea of a hybrid, it is through my estimation all the more rewarding, and far more than the sum of its parts. Kaplan avoids the analysis that would be found in a book written by a political science professor or a State Department veteran, but at the same time avoids the naïve romanticizing found in many travel memoirs. What we have instead is a realistic, yet heartfelt, recollection of travels in the Balkans, Caucasus, and Middle East, and the underlying social issues affecting the regions. While the more immediate predecessor, Ends of the Earth, had the underlying theme of population growth and resource scarcity, the more directly related predecessor, Balkan Ghosts, concerned the adjustment of countries in the wake of the demise of communism, and historical legacies, Eastward to Tartary is in many ways a re-examination of the adjustment of society, coupled with the impact of historical legacies and its modern manifestation, ethnic rivalry. Kaplan's critics like to tar him with the Neocon label, however close introspection of his work reveals a way of thinking far removed from the dogmatic liberal democratic worldview associated with so called Neocons. What Kaplan examines is not democracy, or lack of, but the difficulties of building the civil societies that are the essential pre-requisite of democracy. Beginning in Bulgaria and moving eastward through Anatolia to the Middle East, then the Caucasus, and crossing the Caspian to Turkmenistan within Central Asia (the Tartary of the title) and back to Armenia, the underlying theme is civil society development, and underlying issues. A recurrent theme throughout the book is corruption, prevalent throughout Bulgaria and Romania in the form of criminal gangs, and Neo Communists who dominated the political system until the late 90s, and ever more brazen in the Caucasus with its corrupt police, and political meddling from the surrounding regional powers. In the case of Turkey, the underlying theme is a political system wherein the military hold a veto over most, if not all, civic matters, and how secularists and Islamists have accommodated themselves to the rules of the game. With Syria it is the one party secular Arab nationalist regime, and the extent it has gone to impose its will upon the population, and with Lebanon it is the machinations of Syria within Lebanon, and how it was (at the time of writing) a mere satellite of Syria. Most curious of all is Turkmenistan, a sparsely populated place with a mainly nomadic history, which gave birth to an autocratic, almost Stalinist, one man system of the Turkmenbashi, and his bizarre personality cult. Israel is also visited, though rather briefly and containing nothing unfamiliar for those acquainted with the study of the region, however the final chapter on Armenia provides an excellent ending for the book. Here the impact of historical legacies, Soviet gerrymandering of borders, and ethnic conflict have both harmed, and invigorated, a proud and ancient people. Kaplan is an excellent writer, exhibiting both a literary prose, and historical insight, that cannot be acquired overnight. A work that is in many ways prophetic, as despite being written over 10 years ago, many of the people featured in the book, such as Mikheil Saakashvili and Abdullah Gul, are now Presidents of their respective countries. A book that is wholly recommendable to many, whether ones primary interest is current events, history, or simply travel writing.

I first read the book before traveling through the region in the early 2000's. Loved it then and still love it now. Together with "Balkan Ghosts" my favorite Kaplan books. It is not only written well. But also is still very informative. For fellow Europeans I would like to add: please do read the book, because it will tell you a lot about our neighbors and some fellow EU states.

de mes trois commandes je n'ai eçu qeu une- esatwards to Tartary; in Europes shadow n'est jamais arricvé et the Arabiosts est arrivé après une deuxième commande ä à mon domiciel en Suisse....

この書は絶望的なまでの世界描写です。前作のbalkan ghostの中でも、悲観的な世界認識を示していた著者ですが、今回の作品ではより彼の絶望感が増しているようです。前半部分は、balkan ghostの続編であり、１９９８年時のハンガリー、ルーマニア、ブルガリアを取り上げています。著者の旅程は、バルカンの根源を探るため、より東へと向かいます。それぞれの地域での歴史的な業の積み重ねとそれぞれの状況についての絶望的な観察が続きます。共通点は中産階級の未成熟とグローバリゼーションのもたらす西側の消費文化のグロテスクな一部new rich層への加速度的な流入です。でも著者の言うとおり、どれも、最後の到達点turkmenistanの状況に比べればすべて相対的な絶望感です。ここにはインターネットのもたらす福音や新しい新世界秩序などの言葉の遊びが通じる世界はありません。むしろ通信手段や消費文化の同時代的な伝播が過去の業をむしろ加速化していくという絶望的なまでの世界認識が示されています。