Speeches

My lectures are tightly structured, high-concept briefings crammed with ideas and information - reflecting my 23 bestselling books on geopolitics and over three decades as a foreign correspondent for The Atlantic and other publications. These lectures are future oriented: throughout the decades I have often gotten to places and raised ideas months and years before they reached the front pages. For example, I wrote specifically about a cold war with China in The Atlantic and Foreign Policy years before anyone else. I wrote about Darfur in the mid-1980s for The Atlantic, about the Kurds in the late-1980s. I raised the possibility of violent conflict in the Balkans before the Berlin Wall even fell. I wrote an Atlantic essay about Syria’s artificiality and sectarian divisions in 1993; about Mexico's criminal instability a decade before open warfare erupted between the cartels; about coming conflict on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier a year before 9/11; about China’s navy in 2005, years before the media reported it as a threat. I wrote about drones and special operations forces long before President Obama adopted them as weapons of choice; about Narendra Modi a half-decade before he became India’s prime minister, and so forth.

Most famously, I wrote a cover story in February 1994 in The Atlantic predicting "the coming anarchy" of the early 21st century: in which terrorism, the dramatic rise of young males in the third world population, resource scarcity, disease pandemics, and sectarian and ethnic divides would erode the political fabric of the planet.

Because I continue to travel for research, I am always updating my lectures. My motto is, if you stop learning, you can no longer teach. And learning also means never forgetting your own mistakes: the things you failed to predict or got wrong. You learn the most from that.

Presently, I lecture on the following topics, typically in 45-minute presentations, plus Q&A. These lectures can be combined or adjusted for specific audiences. They all examine the economic consequences of geopolitical instability and change. Though I have been a war correspondent, I do not tell war stories. My entire emphasis is analytical.

GEOPOLITICAL FRACTURES IN AN AGE OF GLOBAL DEMONS

THE FUTURE OF THE U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP IN THE SECOND PHASE OF GLOBALIZATION

THE ROOT CAUSES OF GLOBAL ANARCHY (AN UPDATE AND ADAPTATION OF MY 1994 "ATLANTIC" COVER STORY, "THE COMING ANARCHY")

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE AND CLEAN ENERGY WILL CHANGE GEOPOLITICS

THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE INDO-PACIFIC

THE FIGHT FOR EUROPE - CHINA, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.

THE REVENGE OF GEOGRAPHY

THE POST-IMPERIAL MIDDLE EAST

THE TRAGIC MIND: FEAR, FATE, AND THE BURDEN OF POWER.

Samples of Speeches

on Iran
World Economic Forum 2022

Return of Empire and Great Power Competition
US Army Heritage and Educational Center - 2022

Dealing with Russia
De Balie - 2022

Humanitarianism and US Foreign Policy
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs - 2021

China, Iran, and One Belt, One Road
Carnegie Council - 2018

New and Old Empires
Davos World Economic Forum - 2018

Revenge of Geography
Washington and Lee University - 2014

For further information contact Elizabeth M. Lockyer at robertdkaplan52@gmail.com