Robert Kaplan follows up his pre-Patraeus report analysis by widening his bottom-up tribalism theory to include Pakistan, Baluchistan and Afghanistan in his latest article in The Atlantic It’s the Tribes, Stupid!:

Where democratic governance does not exist, we must work with the material at hand. ... Throughout the Arab world, old monarchial and authoritarian orders are now weakening. Keeping societies stable will depend largely on tribes, and the deals they are able to cut with one another. In the Middle East, an age of pathetic, fledgling democracies is also an age of tribes.

via Soob who also links to Adrian’s article How to attack an national identity as well as a pretty map.


COMMENTS / 5 COMMENTS

[...] One of my favorite writers, Robert Kaplan has new piece out about tribal politics.  -  A true friend of America will be missed.-  It is a hard time for terrorists in northern [...]

ROK Drop Weekly Linklets - 25NOV07 at ROK Drop added these pithy words on Nov 24 07 at 9:57 pm

thanks for the nod. commenter (and new fellow blog chum) cannoneer no. 4 passes on related reading of interest.

subadei added these pithy words on 24 Nov 07 at 8:32 pm

bad link. the address: http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pressfield_tribes.htm

subadei added these pithy words on 24 Nov 07 at 8:33 pm

Ah, Pressfield. Interesting guy.

Related: John Robb says Kaplan supports open source warfare,

Younghusband added these pithy words on 25 Nov 07 at 5:23 pm

Thanks for the link!

Adrian added these pithy words on 26 Nov 07 at 2:07 am

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Posted on 24 Nov 07 by Younghusband. Subscribe to follow comments on this post. 5 comments. Add your thoughts or trackback from your own site.

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