Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan on the Secretary of Defense’s Absence
Fred Kaplan
Keynote Speaker
Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist; National Security Columnist, Slate; Best-Selling Author and Historian
Dive into the mind of Fred Kaplan, the masterful narrator who weaves decades of global turmoil and diplomatic intricacies into riveting tales that not only captivate but enlighten. Kaplan transforms the complex dance of world affairs into narratives as engaging as they are informative, making complicated matters of international relations accessible and intriguing. Step into his world, where history and prophecy converge, and discover the unseen forces shaping our lives and future.
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Fred Kaplan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and renown columnist on foreign policy and world affairs, has covered the gamut of wars, crises, and peace talks over the past 40 years.
The author of six critically renown books, he laces his writings and speeches with a storyteller’s flair. The New York Times hailed his latest book, on presidents, generals, and nuclear war, as “surprisingly entertaining.” James Fallows likened his style to that of Robert Caro and David Halberstam. John le Carré, the preeminent spy novelist, praised his chronicle of cyber war as “a book that grips, informs, and alarms.” Kaplan also brings to his topics a sense of history, explaining how some current crisis came about and evolved — and, from there, how it might spin out into the future.
Featured Videos
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan on the History of Cyber War
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan on Foreign Policy and Elections
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan on the Policy of Nuclear War
Fred Kaplan
Fred Kaplan on the Secretary of Defense’s Absence
Fred Kaplan’s Speech Topics
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Elections, Presidents, and the World
With the U.S. engulfed in a perpetual election cycle and nerve-rattling partisan clashes, Fred Kaplan explores what impact particular presidents have had on the rise and fall of American power — and what roller-coaster rides lie ahead. Come along as Kaplan takes a deep dive into Washington’s relations with the rest of the world — allies, adversaries, and fence-straddlers in the various regions, hotspots, and the ominous rumblings in areas that once were calm — and to what degree the occupant of the White House shapes what happens.
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History Is Now
The great novelist William Faulkner once said, “The past isn’t dead; it’s not even past.” History courses through the streams of our daily life in all its aspects. The events of today and tomorrow wouldn’t be what they are, had some shockwave of yesterday taken a different path. Yet many journalists, pundits, and politicians misread the past, or draw false parallels with it, and, as a result, propose wrongheaded policies that often aggravate, rather than solve, our problems. Fred Kaplan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and acclaimed historian, lays out some rules on how (and how not) to apply the lessons of history to current events. The architects of the Vietnam War thought they were preventing another Munich (they’d grown up absorbing the wrong lessons of World War II). Many analysts today view our tensions with Russia and China as a second Cold War (they’d grown up during the real Cold War and don’t see that today’s disputes are more like the conflicts of centuries past than like the very different global rivalry of the mid-to-late 20th century). These misreadings of the past can propel us to a tragic future.
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Darker Territory: A.I. + Cyber Warfare
Much has been said about how A.I. will change the way we live, but little about how it will transform the way we fight. The Pentagon is beginning to integrate A.I. into its war plans. Imagine the disruptions of cyberattacks, carried out at light speed, machines recognizing and responding instantaneously to enemy counterattacks, without human intervention, like a game of chess where pieces on the board shift positions or switch identities, and the board itself changes shape and color. Fred Kaplan, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the seminal book on cyber war, Dark Territory, guides us through this new labyrinth. The technology is outpacing strategic thinking, but there is still a chance to haul it back to human control.
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The Baffling Turnaround in War, Peace, and Politics
For the past 50-plus years, Republicans have been the party of hawks, high defense budgets, and a keen concern for national security above all else, while Democrats were the party of doves, defense cuts, and opposition to intervention in foreign wars. Now their positions are very nearly reversed. Some of this is due to the rise of Donald Trump’s “America First” and “MAGA,” but the dynamics of this change are deeply rooted in social and economic changes over the past few decades. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Fred Kaplan, who has been writing about national security for more than 40 years, examines these changes — and outlines how they might affect the 2024 elections and, subsequently, the planet.
Works by Fred Kaplan
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Fred Kaplan
Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War
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