>This assumes the "West's" policies are designed to help, and that the
selection of policies which have the contrary effect is due only to
miscalculation.
True enough, however my real point here is Robert Kaplan's main thesis - that environmental degradation, resource scarcity, and ethnic differences are, in many parts of the world, leading to irreversible downward spirals, and that the resultant anarchy will have worldwide impact and will affect all of us.
The current issue of The Atlantic has an article by Jeffrey Taylor (an American living in Moscow, married to a Russian) titled "Russia is Finished. The unstoppable descent into social catastrophe and strategic irrelevance" which gives a good example of Kaplan's thesis.