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The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power by Robert Kaplan, (Yale University Press, 2023. Pp. 135).
This book by Robert D. Kaplan is essentially a concise essay and demonstrates a way of describing political theory through the lens of literary criticism. As a notable voice in modern geopolitical thought, Kaplan explores the complexities of human nature and the brutal realities of global politics and current affairs. Built upon his wide-ranging experiences as an international correspondent and his perspectives of past events, Kaplan advocates for a foreign policy grounded in what John Gray calls “tragic realism.” This viewpoint, in mucky muck circles, is formed only by understanding human nature along with its limitations, motivations, and the overall randomness of the world. In 1968, it was James P. Spear II who pointed out Hans Morgenthau’s most famous realization that “there can be no permanent peace without a world state.”
Kaplan’s book opens with a Preface that is a reflection on the notion of tragedy, drawing from both ancient and early modern history and literature, and argues that political leaders must adopt what John Ikenberry calls a “tragic sensibility” when navigating diplomacy and foreign affairs. According to Kaplan, this awareness is not cultivated out of cynicism, but rather from a clearheaded recognition that humanity’s flaws and inadequacies are basically unavoidable in a world governed by the principles of power, sovereignty, and legitimacy. Tragedy’s definition, as defined in the context of the book, is not just seen in excessive state failure or evil, but through the tragic conflict between virtuous choices that cannot be reconciled in the end. In this portion, he regrettably refers to America’s invasion of Iraq as a “mistake,” instead of calling it what it was, illegal and fundamentally immoral.
In the early chapters, Kaplan blends philosophical inquiry with historical and literary analysis. He begins by depicting place (maps) and meaning (Shakespeare) as bookends for describing the nature of decision making as it relates to tragedy. Through illustrating the works of the ancient Greeks as well as moderns like Edith Hamilton and Friedrich Nietzsche, he argues “for thinking tragically in order to avoid tragedy.” In terms of the ancients, he refers to Euripides’ technique to see “war as a means to look inward and examine the polis.” Again, for Kaplan, the tragic mind is one that understands that not all choices are between good and evil, but often between two competing goods, both of which entail incredible potential for tragedy. This sensibility is captured in the idea that even the well-meaning statesperson can’t find the perfect formula for a “hard, predictive science of global politics.” As a result, he formed a reconstructed realism from his time in Iraq and looks for literature to reveal the essence of humanity to inform the reader of the consequences of fear in driving world affairs. 
Kaplan is obviously well read and offers profound insights to the literature. He effectively intertwines history, fiction, philosophy, and personal journalistic experience, yet it all, in some ways, explains his misjudgments and miscalculations over the Iraq War as it relates to the illusive concept of “terror.” He is self-aware but still relies on the doctrinal framework of the West (including laudatory analyses of Winston Churchill) at the same time. His analyses of Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, are interesting, but if they both serve to only indefinitely rule out truth and reconciliation, and peacemaking and peacekeeping, why separate the tensions found in between order and tyranny at all?
I am not sure why, he continues throughout the book, the sustained tendency to cite the West as some well-intentioned, overly optimistic legion of nobility to deliver the rule of law. Iraq was about access to oil and not democracy enhancement and plenty of people stated this before, during, and after the war. Kaplan need not challenge the belief that every global issue can be “fixed” in the post-modern world through force or democratic reform, especially when stated purposes and rogue operations have been provided in the U.S. diplomatic record countering these claims.
He states that, “literature becomes a substitute for collective memory,” which seems to discount the work of history in the first place. As James Banner has indicated, “all history is revisionist history.” Here is where a lot of the Kaplan thesis goes off the rails in my view. As he did in discussing his work with the late great Lewis H. Lapham, Kaplan readily articulated the problems that influential elites have in recognizing everyday lived experiences and how the gap between academic thinkers and policy analysts must narrow to limit the possibility of tragedy. However, in an effort to create these clear thought processes dividing the ancient past, early modern, and modern periods while breaking down history, literature and statecraft, Kaplan’s work unfortunately contradicts itself internally. His themes become conflated and unorganized, as he uses literature to avoid calling U.S. interests what they often are: criminal.
As he carefully discusses the disconnected nature of powerful agents working thoughtlessly within the government and how the more objective working classes are often not preoccupied with weighty decisions concerning war and peace, Kaplan identifies people with less power as those more capable of being emotionally sophisticated, thus adding to the tragedy framework. Elites do not notice the bricks the working poor are throwing until they are hit in the face, argues Kaplan. Also, in Chapter 3, “Order: The Ultimate Necessity” he states:
That is because order, like the air we breathe, is so completely taken for granted since in our middle-class world and the whole world of fellow elites elsewhere, relatively few have experienced any form of existence beyond their predictable regulated lives which became even more regulated for a time because of a pandemic. Except for war, veterans, foreign correspondents, migrants, and immigrants — disorder [and permanent crisis] is something most people know only through the imagination. But order remains the fundamental question behind the politics of many countries.
Further, Kaplan points out how the ability to think tragically can help to guide the decision-making process in the present. He scrutinizes the role of great power rivalries and the consequences of conflicts and disputes (Ukraine and Russia and U.S. and China respectively) and the importances of using rationality and empathy regarding “the fog of war.” Tragedy awareness, according to Kaplan, requires the realization that conflicts ultimately cannot be fixed. At times, the ideal course of action is to limit the damage rather than attempt to engineer an ideal solution. A similar “stopping the worst” concept, in a slightly different context, has been articulated and advanced from a left realist perspective, by the distinguished researcher and analyst Comfort Ero.
Reviewers of The Tragic Mind have largely praised Kaplan for his honest and thoughtful analysis. Francis P. Sempa commended the book for its synthesis of historical lessons and literary understanding, noting that it serves as a guide for policymakers to approach global challenges with greater humility and forethought. Similarly, John Gray highlights Kaplan’s ability to connect the tragic sensibility to contemporary geopolitics, noting that the book’s insights are essential for understanding the complexities of modern power struggles. This book is a dynamic read for anyone interested in the connection of geopolitics, history, literature, and the human condition. Billy Budd, and similar stories like Antigone offer timeless lessons about the wisdom of knowing one’s limitations (and the unforgiving nature of power) in an increasingly unstable world.
In a now famous interview of Noam Chomsky by Evan Solomon, Chomsky once critiqued Kaplan’s realist approach to American foreign policy in 2002, long before The Tragic Mind was written. Chomsky argued that after the September 11th attacks, America and the West failed to reflect on their own imperial behavior to recognize complicity in global terror. He urged the U.S. to examine its own crimes before condemning others and contended that interventions, by design, are not motivated by any moral objectives, but rather ways of demonstrating power in the context of time and place.
Kaplan, to Chomsky’s frustration, argues that powerful nations like the U.S. must sometimes use force to maintain order and “protect democracy.” For Kaplan, nations like America must make hard decisions in the service of maintaining global stability, even if those decisions involve morally questionable actions. Chomsky refutes the Kaplan perspective, pointing out that Kaplan justifies U.S. support for brutal regimes, like Ceaușescu’s Romania, based on geopolitical interests. Chomsky also pointed out that Sadam Hussein was supported by the U.S. all throughout the worst of his atrocities and created mass graves, but it failed to matter when he was our guy. Here is some of the Solomon/Chomsky exchange regarding Kaplan:
Solomon: Robert Kaplan writes about foreign policy. I spoke to him recently about his book Warrior Politics, and I put some of your points to him and he said, about the distinction between the terrorist states that you call Israel, America, and the terrorist states that America calls the Taliban, “I wish Noam Chomsky had been with me in Romania in the 70s or the 80s, just one of the seven or eight Warsaw States, with just one of the 7 or 8 prison systems with 700,000 political prisoners. Adult choice of foreign policy is made on distinctions.”
Chomsky: Let’s take his example, Romania under Ceausescu. Hideous regime, which he forgot to tell you the United States supported. Supported right until the end, as did Britain. When Ceausescu came to London he was feted by Margaret Thatcher. When George Bush the First came into office, I think the first person he invited to Washington was Ceausescu. Yes, Romania was a miserable, brutal regime supported by the United States right to the end, as Robert Kaplan knows very well, so the example he gave is a perfect example.
Suharto was one of the worst killers and torturers of the late twentieth century. The United States and Britain supported him throughout. He’s “our kind of guy,” as the Clinton administration said in 1995. Horrible atrocities, in fact, when he came into office in 1965 with a coup, the CIA compared it to Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
Solomon: Kaplan says there is a distinction …that everyone’s got some blood on their hands, but he says — we have significantly less blood because we are soft imperialists, not state terrorists.
Chomsky: When we supported his example, Ceausescu in Romania, right to the end, that’s good? How about killing several million people in Vietnam. How about killing hundreds of thousands of people in Central America in the 80s, leaving four countries devastated beyond recovery?
Solomon: Does that disqualify the US from intervening in any other way?
Chomsky: No, it doesn’t, nor does it disqualify the Taliban, which is a terrorist state. What disqualifies them from doing that, is even if they were Mahatma Gandhi, they shouldn’t do it.
Kaplan can’t understand trivialities. The triviality here is that nobody except the ultra-right-wing jingoists like Kaplan are comparing atrocities by various countries. What honest people are saying seems to be incomprehensible: that we should keep to the elementary moral level of the gospels. We should pay attention to our own crimes and stop committing them.
Solomon: Kaplan says the world is nasty. If you leave people alone, they’ll kill each other and that’s why what you need is what he calls an organizing hegemon…
Chomsky: Which is always us. Because we have the power and we have a massively subservient intellectual class, of which he’s an illustration, which will support U.S. atrocities no matter how awful they are.
Solomon: If he says this is real politics, that Chomsky’s off in another land with his gospel.
Chomsky: I’m talking about the most elementary morality. If you don’t understand that you pay attention to your own crimes, you have no right to talk.
Solomon: He talks about Machiavellian virtue. He says that sometimes the end justifies the means, sometimes we do a bad thing to protect our democracy and our good institutions in a just society.
Chomsky: And how are we protecting our democratic institutions by supporting mass slaughter in southeastern Turkey in the last few years?
Solomon: Would Kaplan argue that the nation state has a right to use any means necessary to protect its sovereignty?
Chomsky: He’s saying Milosevic had the right to do anything he wanted to repress the Kosovars in Albania. Is that what he’s saying?
Solomon: I think he would not say that.
Chomsky: Why not?
Solomon: He would say that violates virtue…
Chomsky: When they do it, it violates virtue, but when we do it it’s virtuous?
In truth, Kaplan was probably more correct than Chomsky when it came to Kosovo and human rights and much less so when it came to places like East Timor in terms of discerning standards of the West. Somewhat relatedly, the two thinkers that have historically taken Chomsky to task were Michel Foucault (on matters of general philosophy) and George Monbiot (on matters of NATO and Srebrenica). At the same time, Chomsky is not sure why Kaplan advances the notion that western liberal democracies mean well in the world, especially when America’s founding, contemporary history, and current policies do not reflect any real semblance of a moral imperative. We do warfare like everyone else and the Vietnam War was the exclamation point to show the world that American militarism lacks virtuous exceptionality. Frank Costigliola’s recent biography Kennan: A Life Between Worlds reviewed in the NYRB, investigates the complex life of George Kennan, the architect of America’s Cold War strategy of containment.
Benjamin Nathans states the importance of revisionism to clearly understand how modern warfare shattered any “image left of Americans as innocents abroad.” Kennan’s extensive personal writings, including political analyses, memoirs, and a voluminous diary, revealed the contradictions in his life: a public figure of certainty and a private man of introspection and dissatisfaction, according to Nathans. This sounds much more like an inventory of tragedy to me, as it is related to geopolitical realism, because it relies on revised histories to unmask realism, not literature to mask it.
A tragic mind must force us to ask why realists insist that powerful nations presumably start with good intentions. A tragic mind would have the reader contextualize Churchill and Kissinger’s own well documented disdain for human rights and how that impacted their foreign policy worldviews. If “literature becomes a substitute for collective memory,” as Kaplan has stated, how do we ensure it does not end up creating a distance from the reality of what our nation does militarily? Is it true that “the worst regime is worse than no regime at all,” when the groundbreaking work by David Graber and David Wengrow has outlined the limitations of this binary?
Marxism, left-realism, feminism, and people of color also pronounce the features seen in Kaplan’s literary myopic on the one hand, and policy critique from 30,000 feet on the other. Why are they left out? This could be helpful to challenge the presuppositions of right realism. Kaplan rightly asserts that “legitimacy is only brought about through shock and awe,” but he does not allow the reader to uproot this alleged predestination with a simple test of The Golden Rule or by looking in the mirror. Despite these criticisms, Kaplan is definitely someone worth reading, especially as we enter what he calls, “the edge of anarchy.”
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Falcone.