Robert D. Kaplan

Robert Kaplan was born in 1952 in New York. A journalist and author, he is one of the most significant contemporary thinkers on geopolitics and international relations. He is among the most widely read authors who, after the Cold War, attempted to outline the murky landscape that emerged following the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the bipolar world. He has occasionally taught as a visiting professor at various universities and colleges, as well as at the highly demanding and prestigious military academies in the United States. From 2009 to 2011, he served as an advisor to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. For two consecutive years, in 2011 and 2012, Foreign Policy magazine included him in its list of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers." He lives with his wife and son in Western Massachusetts, USA.