Drawing on decades of firsthand experience as a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, and deep reading that ranges from the lessons of Thucydides and Sun Tzu to contemporary outcomes in the Middle East, Robert D. Kaplan makes a powerful case for what timeless principles and factors should shape America’s role in the world: a respect for the limits of Western-style democracy; a delineation between American interests versus American values; an awareness of the psychological toll of warfare; a projection of military power via a strong navy; and much more.

In a series of vivid and clear-eyed assessments, renowned foreign policy analyst Kaplan describes an increasingly unstable world—and how American strategy should adapt accordingly.

Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of eighteen books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including Earning the Rockies, In Europe’s Shadow, Asia’s Cauldron, The Revenge of Geography, Monsoon, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a senior advisor at Eurasia Group. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He held the national security chair at the United States Naval Academy and was a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. He is currently a member of the U.S. Navy’s Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers.