Note that submarines are moving, undersea intelligence-gathering factories. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore told me. “Submarines are the new bling, everybody wants them,” Bernard Loo Fook Weng of the S. Of particular note is the feverish acquisition of submarines, as surface warships become more vulnerable to offensive missiles. I try to keep up with world events, but have to agree with Kaplan that the arms race around the South China Sea has gone mostly unreported by general U.S. Most of the bordering nations have staked claims in the sea, and all are following China’s lead in building up their navies, making the potential for conflict quite high. In addition to being the world’s busiest intersection of commercial shipping (especially oil tankers), the sea is home to abundant stocks of fish and may have large stores of hydrocarbons beneath its seabed. It is also somewhat of a companion piece to an earlier work, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and The Future of American Power.Īs the title suggests, Asia’s Cauldron closely examines the nations ringing the South China Sea: China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore. Kaplan’s latest, Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, continues his tradition of focusing on areas of the world that are both lesser known to many and potential areas of conflict. Although I don’t always agree with him, I do enjoy reading his blend of travelogue, history and political science, and I always learn something new. Kaplan since reading Balkan Ghosts in the mid-90s.

Asia's Cauldron by Robert D. Kaplan