ABSTRACT
The world is not quite so conveniently simple as Robert Kaplan's popularization of environmental degradation as the key national security issue for the future suggests. The affluent world of the Atlantic advertisements with their high-technology consumer items is implicitly threatened by the spreading of 'anarchy'. The focus on the environment as the key factor in triggering violent changes is not entirely consistent with the Kaplan's arguments elsewhere about the cohesive force of Islam, identified ironically in a few places, that given the usual orientalizations in practice when discussing Islam, as a Western religion. The construction of the threat as 'nature unchecked' simply adds to the specification of danger as beyond the possibilities of the simple interventions and the amelioration, hence a long-lasting security threat that is particularly intractable. A form of geographical determinism is once again linked to the threats of geopolitical violence.
