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Yes, Dan I do remember the impact of the Kaplan article. I was working as a foreign service officer at the time and the policy “poets” were seized with dark thoughts of The Coming Anarchy and especially Kaplan’s thinking on the break up of North America along longitudinal lines (“Cascadia”) while also using the article to push for a foreign policy review.

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Great article. The question, though, is whether we were worrying too much and those threats to our world weren't really that bad, as they didn't come to pass, or if instead those threats were as bad as they seemed then, but by calling them out and generating actions to counter them, we dodged the ball.

And then, maybe worrying today about current threats is the safe thing to do?

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