Robert D. Kaplan’s Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis presents itself as a sober analysis of global instability, but it is, at its core, an ideological defence of empire and capitalist hegemony. His argument rests on two flawed premises: first, that instability is a natural and permanent condition of the world rather than the direct outcome of capitalism’s contradictions; and second, that Western imperial power is the only force capable of maintaining order. In this way, Kaplan turns crisis into an abstract inevitability while obscuring the system responsible for it. What he mourns is not instability itself, but the weakening grip of the dominant class.
Kaplan is not entirely wrong to highlight the interconnectedness of modern crises, nor is his recognition of global instability completely baseless. Where a Marxist analysis would trace these crises to the contradictions of capitalism, overproduction, financial speculation, imperialist expansion, Kaplan treats them as symptoms of a world adrift without strong leadership. His failure lies not in identifying instability but in his refusal to confront its economic roots.
The Nonsense of Horseshoe Theory
Kaplan’s treatment of Marxism/Communism is predictable: a crude Cold War caricature that collapses all revolutionary movements into the same category as fascism. He leans on the nonsensical horseshoe theory, the idea that the far left and far right are functionally identical because they both challenge liberal capitalism. This is an ideological sleight of hand designed to delegitimise socialist movements by equating them with their reactionary counterparts. It ignores the fundamental difference between fascism, which seeks to violently preserve capitalist hierarchy, and communism, which seeks to overthrow it. The idea that radical movements form a “horseshoe,” converging at their extremes, is a lazy liberal fantasy that deliberately erases the role of capital and class struggle. It is an argument designed to justify repression of the left while excusing the conditions that create the right.
Imperial Nostalgia
At the heart of Kaplan’s argument is nostalgia, not just for the Cold War order but for empire itself. He describes the 1990s as a golden age of globalisation, cut short by terrorism, economic shocks, and rising authoritarianism. But this period of “optimism” was, in reality, the consolidation of neoliberal plunder: mass privatisations, financial deregulation, and the destruction of social protections, all of which led directly to the 2008 crash. What Kaplan calls “permanent crisis” is simply capitalism in its late-stage form, unable to resolve its contradictions, staggering from one disaster to the next.
His longing for imperial order is barely concealed. He argues that “each great power, again in its own way, is an imperial one,” lamenting the decline of American dominance as if empire were a benevolent force rather than a system of violent extraction. This is the standard justification for endless war: the idea that without Western military hegemony, chaos will reign. But imperialism is not about order; it is about profit. The US military-industrial complex, backed by the corporate-funded think tanks Kaplan namechecks, does not wage war for democracy or stability but for capital. The world order he mourns is one where the working class, whether in the bombed-out ruins of Baghdad or the debt-ridden precarity of the American heartland, pays the price for capitalist expansion.
Misreading Capitalism’s Contradictions
Kaplan’s idealisation of order exposes the core of his reactionary worldview. His romanticisation of the Habsburgs, the Romanovs, and monarchy in general suggests a belief that political hierarchy is inherently stabilising, rather than a mechanism for preserving dominant-class power. This aligns him not just with Cold War reactionaries but with the broader trend of intellectuals attempting to rehabilitate empire as a solution to modern instability. He never considers that the “order” he longs for was itself built on conquest, subjugation, and class domination. Nor does he recognise that the collapse of these regimes was not the cause of instability, but its inevitable outcome, capitalism’s inability to sustain social structures beyond their usefulness to capital.
Comparisons between Weimar Germany and today’s world misunderstand the nature of capitalist crisis. He suggests that today’s “permanent crisis” is due to globalisation’s incomplete nature, when in fact it is the direct result of its success: finance capital dominates, production is outsourced, wages are driven down, and states serve corporate interests at the expense of their own people. Where Kaplan sees a system in need of firmer leadership, a Marxist analysis sees capitalism operating exactly as it was designed to, prioritising profit over stability, even if that means bringing about its own crises.
Ideology of Control
Kaplan doesn’t just reject Marxism; he rejects any attempt to fundamentally alter the global order. His warnings about “disorder” and “extremism” are not about preventing suffering but about maintaining elite control. His framing of Weimar Germany as a cautionary tale suggests he fears not just the rise of fascism, but also the possibility of socialist revolution. By collapsing all radical movements into the same category, he erases the material differences between leftist struggle and right-wing reaction. In doing so, he absolves liberal capitalism of its role in creating the very conditions that fuel both.
Kaplan presents himself as a detached analyst, but his conclusions consistently reinforce dominant-class interests. His lament for the decline of US dominance is a lament for the unchallenged power of Western capital. His hostility to socialism aligns him with corporate elites who fear even the mildest redistribution of wealth. His warnings about instability serve as justification for increased military budgets, surveillance, and the repression of dissent.
Kaplan is not necessarily a cynical apologist for capital, he is simply unable to think beyond its ideological limits. Waste Land is not a diagnosis of instability; it is an apology for the very system that creates it
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