Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific
Foreign affairs scholar Kaplan considers the geopolitics of the South China Sea and makes a compelling argument that the strategically important body of water is likely to become the “Mitteleuropa of the twenty-first century,” a flashpoint for future regional power struggles with serious international consequences.   There are several reasons for this: a broad shift away from land wars in favor of less overt maritime territorial claims, China’s patient but unrelenting military buildup, the sheer volume of tonnage passing through the South China Sea, and diminishing American budgets and appetite for global naval hegemony.  Though much of the groundwork for his thesis was laid in Monsoon (2010), his book on the Indian Ocean, here Kaplan pays particular attention to Vietnam (the region’s emergent power), Malaysia (its success story), the Philippines (its failed state), and Taiwan (its “Berlin”).  In support of some of his conclusions, he offers statistics and the logic of realpolitik; for others, travel-diary anecdotes or historical, even classical, analogy.  The result is a riveting, multitextured look at an underexamined region of the world and, perhaps, at the “anxious, complicated world” of the future. --Brendan Driscoll