Center stage for the twenty-first century.

• Author: Sempa, Francis P.

There are very few articles on international politics that deserve to be called "seminal." In 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan's "The United States Looking Outward" envisioned and promoted the notion of a global role for America in the twentieth century. In 1904, the British geographer Halford Mackinder, in "The Geographical Pivot of History," foresaw the fundamental geopolitical factors that influenced the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War. In 1947, George F. Kennan's "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" brilliantly examined the goals of Soviet policy and explained the need for a policy of containment. In 1979, Jeane Kirkpatrick's "Dictatorships and Double Standards" criticized the flawed human rights policies of the Carter administration, demonstrated the important distinctions between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, and laid the basis for the "Reagan Doctrine" of the 1980s. In 1993, the eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington predicted a momentous struggle between Islam and the West in "The Clash of Civilizations."

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Robert D. Kaplan may have joined their ranks with "Center Stage for the Twenty-first Century," which explores the pivotal nature of the greater Indian Ocean region to the geopolitics of the current century.

Kaplan explains that even in this era of globalization, "politics is still at the mercy of geography." A map of the region accompanying the article shows why the greater Indian Ocean will likely define global geopolitics for the foreseeable future. The rising military and economic powers of China and India are vying there for influence and power. The region also hosts the heart of the Islamic world as well as the energy resources of the Middle East-Persian Gulf area. Equally important are the waterways and strategic...