South China Sea will be the Battleground of the Future

From Robert D. Kaplan writing in Business Insider:

In this excerpt from “Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea And The End Of A Stable Pacific,” author Robert D. Kaplan, chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor and former member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, explains how the region’s unique geography fosters aggression.

The South China Sea functions as the throat of the Western Pacific and Indian oceans — the mass of connective economic tissue where global sea routes coalesce.

Here is the heart of Eurasia’s navigable rimland, punctuated by the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar straits.

Read the rest of the article here.