海角大神

You wouldn鈥檛 mistake Robert Kaplan for Bertie Wooster. He radiates a seriousness of purpose. He is a roving geopolitical analyst, which is up there with astrophysicist in the sheer specific gravity of its title. His method is that of a foreign correspondent, firing off dispatches from the South China Sea to North Yemen to the darkest corners of Eastern Europe when it was still Iron Curtain country, and his approach has a Thucydidean texture: a gimlet-eyed realism as gathered by evidence, and guided by an understanding that the knee-jerk of history is self-interest.

Even in his professional postings 鈥� teaching at the Naval Academy; as chief analyst at Stratfor, the global strategic forecasting service; as a member of the Pentagon鈥檚 Defense Policy Board; and now as a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security 鈥� he has safeguarded his identity as lone wolf and self-made, the Technicolor underpinnings of the foreign correspondent who knows his beat like an Old Hand and how to insert opinions into his journalism to give of his experience. He came to his calling serendipitously, but honestly: apprentice, freeman, master. In Europe鈥檚 Shadow is cut from all that cloth, though allowing now, after decades in the field, to let memoir touch his thoughts. Analytical memoir, of course.

This is a welcome peek into how Kaplan became Kaplan; admire him or not, his writings have influence on policymakers, and he is heading toward the kingdom of 茅minence grise. 鈥淔or life to be life requires complications and even unpleasantness,鈥� is the kind of hard-nose tack he takes, which can lead into some uncomfortable precincts, such as that experts may be better problem-solvers than the democratic process, compromised as it is by the emotions of the vox populi. Yes, democracy, messy. But 鈥渆xperts鈥�? That鈥檚 chilling, for experts often make it into government, and as we know: history is the story of self-interest.

Here, Kaplan is back where he cut his teeth as a foreign correspondent in the 1970s: Romania. If you don鈥檛 think that alone gives him some street cred, then consider his approach to journalism in general: 鈥減roperly observing the world is a matter of deliberation and serious reading over decades in the fields of history, philosophy, and political science,鈥� but also 鈥渓iterature, architecture, art, and so on.鈥� He pretty much had Romania to himself as a correspondent back then, so he didn鈥檛 have to rush to judgment. He would learn that 鈥淎uthentic, undistracted travel also introduced me to the challenges of area specialization ... blending the appreciation of a particular aesthetic with the requirement of cold-blooded analysis.鈥� This way of reading the world, this way of being in the world, also goes by a softer, more inviting name: regional geographer.

Kaplan is a regional geographer par excellence 鈥� undeniably, whatever you think of his conclusions 鈥� a big-picture man. 鈥淟andscape requires total and unyielding concentration,鈥� and by 鈥渓andscape鈥� he means the human impact upon the surface of the earth, how we have shaped it, melded to it, abandoned it, made our story upon it, how the genus loci has made its influence felt. This is not the dreaded geographical determinism (鈥淰oltaire would not accept that humankind must give in to fate.... For the acceptance of any force 鈥� natural, geographical, cultural, ethnic, economic 鈥� over the direction of society is an affront to 鈥榟uman dignity"), but geography as a manner of seeing and translating.

While Kaplan hungrily plunges into a dissection of Romanian nationalism 鈥� the flabbergasting expressions of national myths and symbols; the protective, pagan, elemental rural anticosmopolitanism; the yearning Latinity of the mid-19th century, the romantic movement鈥檚 鈥渞ediscovery of their classical history鈥� of ancient Dacia and the Roman West; the anti-Semitism and communo-fascism 鈥� he explains the sources of his thinking with leisure and example: the copious reading to gain background and unveil circumstance, the interviews, the atmospheric testing on long, solitary walks. Romania is often grim, though the Romania of today appears to be reconsidering the holiness of 鈥渕ud and tools and earthen objects.鈥澛�

Herta M眉ller, 2009 Nobel Prize winner for literature, brought the Romanian earth to earth. 鈥淪now fell on stray dogs.... The cold eats away at the gables of the houses with its salt.... water is yellow and hard, and in the laundry it feels gritty, not foamy, and the clothes turn gray.... father comes home drunk every day.... Mother was leaning her whole body against the tiled stove and crying in shrieks.鈥�

The 1930s to 2010s are clawed through: Nazi-inspired Romanian holocaust, the hateful years of Soviet domination 鈥� 鈥渢he total thought control over a ideologically hostile population,鈥� the pillbox Stalinism and industrial feudalism, the 鈥減rofound cretin鈥� Nicolae Ceau艧escu鈥檚 鈥溾�榖aroque synthesis鈥� of Communism and fascism鈥� 鈥� to the more savvy, if unpleasant, strategic importance Romanians appreciate they hold today, still half in and half out of Europe鈥檚 long shadow. Along the way, Kaplan reveals a fondness for icons and wooden Orthodox churches, which in turn exposes something of Kaplan鈥檚 soul. Yes, he is a hardnose and his brow is knit to the point of becoming a sweater, but he is also a Romantic of the Robert Byron stripe 鈥� "In Europe鈥檚 Shadow" is his "Road to Oxiana" 鈥� and holds a deep respect for 鈥渢he sanctity of the individual and his right to freedom and existence.鈥澛�

Back to being a hard-nosed geopolitical analyst. Bulgaria: 鈥渁 political and institutional basket case.鈥� Serbia: 鈥渁 veritable satellite of Russia, in organized crime and politics both.鈥� Hungary: 鈥渘eo-authoritarian.鈥� Austria: 鈥渁 certain reputation for double-dealing.鈥� When Romania emerges as a bright spot.... well, Kaplan did write that life requires complication. He can also be bracingly flinty: 鈥渁s awful as such regimes as Ceau艧escu鈥檚 and Saddam鈥檚 were ... in the end their subjects would have to liberate themselves.鈥� That鈥檚 called tough geopolitical realism.

When Kaplan lets his emotions speak, his cup overfloweth. 鈥淭he ultimate purpose of existence is to sanctify beauty,鈥� say, or 鈥淭ravel is about movement through stages of landscape, mirroring one鈥檚 journey through life.鈥� These pronouncements are disarmingly passionate. No one would accuse Kaplan of being a softnose, but that kind of talk, that鈥檚 called vulnerability.