I've recommended this book before, but in 1994, the author pretty well predicted what we're seeing today. More worringly, he included Pakistan (along with all the small Gulf States) as a state that will collapse into anarchy in his predictions. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone living or looking like being asked to fight in the area.
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War
(ISBN: 0375503544 )
Robert D. Kaplan
Editorial Reviews:
Synopsis:
When The Coming Anarchy was published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1994, it was hailed as among the most important and influential articulations of the future of our planet, along with Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations. More...
Review:
Robert Kaplan warns of a bifurcated world divided between societies like ours, producing goods and services that the rest of the world wants, and those mired in various forms of chaos. This is a familiar theme for previous Kaplan readers (Balkan Ghosts, The Ends of More...
Review: "[I]nformed by a rock-solid, unwavering realism and an utter absence of sentimentality....The book...conveys a tragic sense in recognizing humankind's tendency toward a kind of slipshod, gooey, utopian and ultimately dangerous optimism."
Richard Bernstein, New York Times, 02/23/2000