Robert D. Kaplan engages in prognostication based on current selective trends, to conclude that the "...ultimate strategic effect of the Iraq war has been to hasten the arrival of the Asian Century." His meters are economics and militarization, but he leaves out politics.

He also leaves out specifics.

Reading Kaplan (and I look forward to reading his latest book, as I've enjoyed the others) is as dangerous as tackling William James. Style defeats categorization. My Kaplan is not your Kaplan. Just check out Younghusband and Lexington Green on the same article.

For the record, I support Green's "offshore balancer" argument.

Furthermore, the very vitality of nation-states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans will take us back to an older world of traditional statecraft, in which we will need to tirelessly leverage allies and seek cooperation from competitors.

(...)

Because we remain the only major player in the Pacific and Indian Oceans without territorial ambitions or disputes with its neighbors, indispensability, rather than dominance, must be our goal.

Aside from that, I think it's imprudent to predict too far into the future. I'm not a fortune-teller, and I don't trust those who engage in the con.