Zócalo Public Square

American maps of the modern world centrally and prominently locate the global powers of the 20th century, and the arenas of their wars: the U.S. and Western Europe, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But the 21st century has already begun to see a shift in geopolitical focus to an area generally relegated to the edges of our maps: the Indian Ocean. From the Horn of Africa to the Indonesian archipelago, the Indian Ocean region is home to a striving new middle class, young populations tempted by extremism, weak governments and infrastructures, not to mention nuclear weapons. The struggles for world power, democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom will be won or lost there. Atlantic national correspondent Robert Kaplan, author of Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, visited Zócalo to ask whether the U.S. is ready for the rising challenges of the next century.