In the years prior to World War I, the great American historian Henry Adams wrote that Russia would always remain the principal challenge for Europe. A quick romp through history demonstrating why that has proved accurate. As for the Ukraine war, it has culminated the second phase of globalization, what I call Globalization 2.0 and will be juxtaposed with Globalization 1.0. Moving to China, the new Cold War between China and the United States will be a permanent feature of the international landscape for reasons that involve geography, military affairs, cyber wars, ideology and trade, all of which I will explain in detail. At the end of my talk, I will have a few words to say about two of my books: Balkan Ghosts and Adriatic.

Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of twenty books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including Adriatic, The Good American, The Revenge of Geography, Asia’s Cauldron, Monsoon, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He was a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and the U.S. Navy's Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.”

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