Robert Merry is coming back for another interview on the State of American Politics, this time with author and one of the world’s “Top Global Thinkers”, Robert D. Kaplan.

Kaplan, the author of 22 books on foreign affairs and travel, is one of the country's leading experts on geopolitics. Foreign Policy magazine has twice named him one of the world's "Top Global Thinkers." He is a senior adviser at the Eurasia Group and has served in various prestigious positions, including visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a member of both the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and the U.S. Navy's Executive Panel, and frequent writer for The Atlantic. His book titles include: The Tragic Mind, The Coming Anarchy, Balkan Ghosts, Asia's Cauldron, Monsoon, and The Revenge of Geography. He first gained national attention with his book Balkan Ghosts (1993), which predicted the coming wars in that region with the breakup of Yugoslavia. 

Kaplan's February 4 appearance at WICA will correspond to publication of his latest book, The Tragic Mind, which will be made available for purchase at the event. He will talk about his background, extensive travels throughout more than a hundred countries of the world (including far-away and out-of-the-way places), and particularly about his views on the state of the world in a time of chaos, with attention to U.S. relations with Russia and China and the forces driving us away from the U.S. dominated global structure that has guided world events since 1945. Kaplan is a graduate of the University of Connecticut. He lives with his wife, Maria Cabral, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. 

February 4 | 7:30 PM