CNAS 2017: The Return of Marco Polo’s World and the U.S. Military Response

As Europe disappears, Eurasia coheres. The supercontinent is becoming one fluid, comprehensible unit of trade and conflict as the Westphalian system of states weakens and older, imperial legacies – Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Turkish – become paramount. Every crisis from Central Europe to the ethnic-Han Chinese heartland is now interlinked. There is one singular battlespace. CNAS Senior Fellow Robert D. Kaplan provides a historical and geographical guide to it.