The Jungle Grows Back Quotes

“History had not led to the triumph of liberalism; it had led to Hitler and Stalin.”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

“The question is not what will bring down the liberal order but what can possibly hold it up? If the liberal order is like a garden, artificial and forever threatened by the forces of nature, preserving it requires a persistent, unending struggle against the vines and weeds that are constantly working to undermine”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

“[Authoritarianism] appeals to core elements of human nature that liberalism does not always satisfy—the desire for order, for strong leadership, and perhaps above all, the yearning for the security of family, tribe, and nation.”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

“That is why Russian penetration of the political systems of the United States and Europe has been so effective. It has exploited the truly dangerous fissures in Western society, which are not based on class, as the Marxists wanted to believe, but on tribe and culture.”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

“Many were surprised at the British vote to leave the European Union, but from a historical perspective there was nothing unusual about the English seeking distance from the continent.”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

“It was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when détente was abandoned and American policy grew more confrontational again, that Soviet leaders finally came to fear that that they might not be able to keep up the geopolitical competition, and not just with the United States but with the liberal order more generally.”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

“Democracy has spread and endured because it has been nurtured and supported: by the norms of the liberal order, by global pressures and inducements to conform to those norms, by the membership requirements of liberal institutions like the EU and NATO, by the fact that the liberal order has been the wealthiest part of the world, and by the security provided by the world’s strongest power, which happens to be a democracy.”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

“This story of human progress is a myth, however. If the last century has taught us anything, it is that scientific and technological progress and the expansion of knowledge, while capable of improving our lives materially, have brought no lasting improvement in human behavior.”
― Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World