NOTED geopolitical analyst Robert Kaplan, who currently works for the private global intelligence firm, Stratfor, and holds the distinction of having served on the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board, has well over a dozen books to his credit. These cover pertinent international issues related to a staggering variety of locations ranging from Africa and the Middle East to the Mediterranean and India.

In his recent text, Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, he highlights the increasing importance of the political and military aspects of the South China Sea. This is a body of water bordered by South China to the north, the Philippines on the east, Vietnam at the west, and Malaysia in the south.

At a relatively slim couple of hundred pages, the book, although undoubtedly dense, is not a laborious read, and Kaplan helpfully provides some maps at its commencement to better orient the reader. Nevertheless, in spite of fairly detailed bibliographical notes, the work does suffer from the lack of an actual bibliography. This is surprising, since Kaplan appears to be remarkably well-read in history and the humanities, as well as international relations. Regardless, he makes good use of the work of other contemporary experts, such as University of Chicago scholar John Mearsheimer, in order to delineate how this region is now indubitably a vital fulcrum between the ongoing political struggle for supremacy between the United States and China. Kaplan’s plausible contention is that China may be interested in a ‘Finlandisation’ of this region, whereby it would retain a dominant maritime hegemony over its weaker neighbours, namely Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Borneo, and Taiwan.

Given that China, in the post Chairman Mao era, readily established itself as a genuine rival to many affluent Western powers, this point is in and of itself not surprising. Rather, it is the plethora of facts concerning the South China Sea itself that Kaplan brings to the reader’s attention which contribute towards making his overarching arguments especially noteworthy. For instance, apparently the region contains one of the world’s greatest reserves of oil and natural gas (after Saudi Arabia). While China houses its diesel electric submarines and nuclear ballistic missile subs in the sea’s Hainan Island region, Kaplan notes that the archipelagoes of the Spratlys, Paracels, and Pratas are strongly desired territories from the perspectives of governments other than that of China, especially the Vietnamese regime.

This ongoing, internecine struggle for control has been considerably complicated by US intervention in the region. For example, America’s historic, colonial control over the Philippines, and its recurring modern involvement in Taiwanese politics have led to the South China Sea becoming a potential future war-zone, with the welfare of many countries being at stake.

Lest one begins to assume that Kaplan’s book represents a segment of alarmist politics, I must hasten to reassure the reader that his tone, while authoritative, remains measured and fairly balanced throughout. The book is divided into a number of chapters that loosely dwell on a specific country each. Through this geographical lens, Kaplan examines the history of the relevant countries, and spends considerable effort in sketching the careers and motivations of their respective leaders.

He regards Mahathir bin Mohammad as effectively uniting disparate factions in Malaysia, while simultaneously making the country adhere to a global vision of Islam. Short shrift is paid to Mao Zedong in the chapter on Taiwan, but this is naturally due to the somewhat polemical stance adopted by Kaplan towards buttressing Chiang Kai-Shek. The author takes care to note that recent biographers of Kai-Shek have engaged in much revisionist history in order to obtain a more nuanced portrayal of him.

Particularly fascinating are the sections on Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, whom Kaplan regards as the ideal autocrat, even though this admission invariably undercuts whatever the author may feel about American democracy.

I admire Kaplan’s ability to provide condensed, yet oddly comprehensive, accounts of men who have shaped Asia’s recent history. However, I was baffled at the manner in which he then proceeds to contrast these leaders with Middle Eastern dictators who lost power during the Arab Spring.

Although well-versed in the contemporary politics of the Middle East, Kaplan’s attitude towards figures such as Hosni Mubarak seems disparaging and reductively dismissive, especially since he omits essential details such as the fact that much of Mubarak’s rule was spent safeguarding Egypt’s highly sensitive border with Israel in the region of the Sinai.Equally discordant is Kaplan’s insistence on using the work of Western philosophers such as Aristotle and John Stuart Mill in order to ascertain whether Mahathir Mohammad, Yew, and Kai-Shek measure up to desirable standards of leadership. Given that the author toured the South China Sea very extensively and wishes to present a culturally sensitive and global view of matters, points such as these sadly detract from an otherwise compelling analysis.

However, perhaps in aggregate Kaplan wishes to remain faithful to his agenda at all costs. He consistently alerts his readers to the fundamental point that the United States, in spite of its marine prowess, cannot ultimately maintain dominance in a region that is now largely controlled by its most determined Asian rival. The author repeatedly emphasises that land warfare is in many ways much more straightforward than military skirmishes at sea. From this perspective, not only does China have a decided geographical advantage over the US, the US’s own strategies (no matter how solidly backed by aircraft carriers and submarines) are ultimately at the mercy of countries such as Taiwan and the Philippines, with whom it has to maintain uneasy and often fraught political affiliations. Regarding the subtly ominous dynamics of Asia’s Cauldron, one can conclude with the Bard of Avon’s famous saying from Macbeth, pertinent to Kaplan’s book: “Double double, toil and trouble / Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

The reviewer is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at the Institute of Business Administration.

Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific

(GEOPOLITICS)

By Robert D. Kaplan

Random House, US

ISBN 0812994329

225pp.