Conducted by David Wheelock

Robert Kaplan is a journalist who has written extensively on international and military affairs. His books include Balkan Ghosts, The Coming Anarchy, and Imperial Grunts. Currently an editor at the Atlantic Monthly, he is also a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, where he is conducting research for a book on the Navy.

You have observed American military campaigns from the ground level in both Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years. How do you evaluate our success in Iraq at the moment?

I think over the last nine months or so, we have made measurable, demonstrable progress in Iraq. The question is how significant it is, and we won’t find that out until we start withdrawing our troops. The cities seem to be stabilizing and modernizing, and in the northern half of the country there seems to be very little violence. It’s the areas in the southeast and the south that are really problematic. Keep in mind, we’re not going to withdraw from Iraq anytime soon; we’re just going to draw down our forces by about 30,000 or so, probably in 2008.

American forces in Iraq are forced to rely upon counter-insurgency tactics to a much greater degree than in the past. Does this style of warfare represent the future of U.S. military tactics for armed conflict?

I’m not sure that it’s the future. Remember, we don’t have one future; we have several futures. Certainly there will be other instances in which we will apply the doctrines of counter-insurgency and nation-building, but perhaps we’re also going to be fighting highly technical wars with our air force and navy.

Will we then see a transformation in American military strategy?

I don’t know if our strategy will be transformed, but our air force and navy will simply continue to hold their ability to hit targets in rogue states like Iran. I’m not predicting a war with Iran, but there may be certain campaigns that will just involve sending missiles onto shore from the sea and from the air. My point is this: Don’t assume that the next wars are going to be like this one. They could be very different, and differently fought.

As the 21st century unfolds, which branch of the U.S. military do you think will be most essential for maintaining the projection of American power?

Well, that kind of projection happens through all of our services. You can’t really distinguish among them. But what the navy brings to the table is the ability for forward deployment without a debate in Congress and without any kind of national debate at all. You can pull an aircraft carrier strike group in international waters close to Iran, and there’s no debate in Congress; but if you move tens of thousands of army troops on the ground, then you need a national debate. The navy is able to get closer to conflict zones.

You have suggested that the number of ships in the U.S. Navy will decline in the years to come. What implications might this decline have for the international order?

First off, the navy claims that the number isn’t going to be declining, but the Congressional Research Service and others show a slightly different story. The “glass-is-half-full” argument from the Navy is that our navy is still better than the rest of the world’s navies combined. The “glass-is-half-empty” argument is that we’ve gone down from about 600 ships to now about 274 ships. We need more ships, and it’s unclear that we’re going to get them. I think that certainly in your lifetime the presently unipolar system is going to move toward a more multipolar system. I can’t see the United States retaining its position of dominance to this degree in the future.

Who would be the challengers to that dominance?

I think there will be a multiplicity of challengers. It might be China, the European Union, India, along with some other Asian countries. But it clearly won’t be the United States all alone any longer.

Do you think that America’s ideological commitment to spreading democracy around the world will increasingly draw the U.S. into friction with more authoritarian-style regimes like China?

I’m not sure that we will necessarily be drawn into friction. If we’re smart, we will draw China in rather than gang up against it. China may not be a democracy right now, but it’s sort of a benign dictatorship, and it’s likely to become more democratic as the years go along.

Why will it become more democratic? Will economic liberalization guarantee political liberalization?

Yes, I think it is related. I think the more the Chinese economy develops, the harder it is for the current Chinese system of government to retain this level of authoritarianism.

Would you think, then, that the increasing economic interdependency between the U.S. and China might act to discourage any violent power struggles between the two nations?

I hope so, and I think there’s a good bet on that. It’s a fairly reasonable argument to pursue—that we’re so interlocked together that there will be this economic cushion against any really bad policy battles.

Does India have the potential to become a serious world power? How do you think the U.S. should approach its rising status in world affairs?

India’s navy is growing, and its economy is growing as well. What that means to me is that militarily, India will play a larger role in the twenty-first century, particularly in the Indian Ocean—everywhere from East Africa to Indonesia. Much of the importance of the Indian Ocean has to do with securing routes of trade. I think India’s interests are fairly legitimate. As are China’s, by the way. There’s no reason why we should come into conflict with these countries. If we’re smart, we’ll leverage them. We don’t have any ideological conflict with India. We have differences with China—their system is certainly not like ours—but it’s not as if we’re dealing with a rogue regime or anything.

What do you make of President Bush’s efforts to establish warmer diplomatic ties with India in recent years—such as his signing of a nuclear pact in 2006?

I think that’s part of Bush’s grand strategy, actually—to leverage India and Japan slightly against China.

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