The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and America’s Interests in the Twenty-First Century

This volume compiles 16 major essays on America’s foreign policy from national security commentator Kaplan (Earning the Rockies). All but one were originally published in outlets such as the Atlantic and National Interest. The title essay was originally written for the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment. In the first section, entitled “Strategy,” Kaplan argues that, since the end of the Cold War, the globe’s map has fundamentally changed: “Europe disappears, Eurasia coheres.” The result is an “increasingly crowded and interconnected world” whose linkages are becoming so complex that the U.S. will be unable to exert pressure in the ways it has since WWII. Kaplan applies and supports these ideas in case studies of Vietnam and Iraq, asserting that the extravagant cost of maintaining maritime supremacy in the new world structure is leading to the “elegant decline” of America’s military might. Further sections delve into the experience of soldiers (“War and Its Costs”), appreciatively profile political scientists (“Thinkers”), and comment on the developments of the last few years (“Reflections” and “Marco Polo Redux”). Such wide horizons, and Kaplan’s decision not to update the previously published essays, preclude a central line of argument. The result is instead an overview of thoughtful, multilayered positions and perspectives evolving through changing circumstances. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents. (Mar.)