Geopolitics:Basic Concepts

Mohtar Mas’oed

Geopolitics

• To study “the multifaceted ways geography and human behavior have shaped and continue shaping historical, current, and emerging international political and security matters.”

Source: Leslie W. Hepple, “The Revival of Geopolitics,” Political Geography Quarterly, 5 (4, suppl.)(October 1986): S21–S36

Geopolitics• Defining the location of national or multinational

territory;• Describing all aspects of that territory’s physical

characteristics;• Distinguishing a state’s national territory from other

states territories;• Defining a polity’s cultural zone or civilization (e.g.,

British, French, Portuguese, or Spanish colonization in the Americas);

• Conditioning, shaping, and influencing a polity’s historical development.

Source: Colin S. Gray, “A Debate on Geopolitics: The Continued Primacy of Geography,” Orbis, 40 (2)(Summer 1996): 248.

Two Camps of Geopolitics:the “Classical”

vsthe “Critical”

Classical Geopolitics1. Geopolitics stresses conventional aspects of

national economic, political, and military strategy such as economic strength, the importance of freedom of the seas, the criticality of possessing national military strength with effective striking power, cooperating with allied nations to defend national interests and preventing transnational groups or powers from gaining a competitive strategic advantage that could jeopardize national security and prosperity, and the nation- state’s preeminence in international affairs.

Source: Mackubin Thomas Owens, “In Defense of Classical Geopolitics,” Naval War College Review, 52 (4)(Autumn 1999): 73.

Classical Geopolitics [2]

“. . . (G)eopolitics is not geographic determinism, but is based on the assumption that geography defines limits and opportunities in international

politics: states can realize their geopolitical opportunities or become the victims of their

geopolitical situation. One purpose of grand strategy is to exploit one’s own geographical attributes and an adversary’s

geographical vulnerabilities.”

Source: Mackubin Thomas Owens, “In Defense of Classical Geopolitics,” Naval War College Review, 52 (4)(Autumn 1999): 73.

Classical Geopolitics [3]

2. Geopolitics is dynamic, not static. It reflects international realities and the global constellation of power arising from the interaction of geography on one hand and technology and economic development on the other. – Technology and the infusion of capital can

modify, though not negate, the strategic importance of a particular geographic space.

Geopolitics [4]

3. Geopolitics clarifies the range of strategic choices, providing a guide for achieving strategic efficiency. –While it places particular stress on

geographic space as a critically important strategic factor and source of power, it recognizes that geography is only a part of the totality of global phenomena.

Classical Geopolitics Theorists

• Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922), the first to coin the German term “Geopolitik”.

• Karl Haushofer (1869–1946).• Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904).• Halford Mackinder (1861–1947).• Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914).

Critical Geopolitics

• Criticizes the Classical Geopolitics for being state-centric in its approach, ethno-centric, and deterministic;

• Dismisses the Classical’s emphasis on “traditional balance of power.

• Concerned with geographical aspects of US and other Western interventions in LDCs.

• Seeks to “deconstruct” the Classical Geopolitics literature

Critical Geopolitics [2]

• Challenges the strategic rationalizations used by the US and other Western countries to portray countries such as the former Soviet Union and China and transnational terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda as geopolitical threats;

• Concerned with Western dominance of international affairs

Source: Simon Dalby, “Critical Geopolitics,” in Dictionary of Geopolitics, ed. John O’Loughlin (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994): 56–58; Gerard Toal, Critical Geopolitics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996

Classical Geopolitics“Revived”:

The post-Cold War World

A Multipolar World?

• The recurrence of tribally based conflicts. • The emergence of transnational terrorist

groups.• Natural disasters (Indian Ocean tsunami, 2004).• Concern and controversy over climate change.• Rising energy prices due to increased demand.• Increasing nuclear proliferation.• The creation of new nation-states.

An Interconnected World?

• With a world increasingly connected by transportation and instantaneous communication systems such as the Internet

An Interlocked World ?

• With economic, environmental, and military-strategic interactions at the global level are interlocked.

In short, geography matters

Those transformations made it impossible for engaged citizens to

ignore geography as an increasingly critical factor in personal, national, and international economics and security.

Classical Geopolitics Reviewed

• Geography determines domestic and international events more than people and ideas;

• There are forces such as culture, tradition, history, and dark human passions that are beyond human control and constrain human actions;

• Permanent environmental forces such as poor soil and drought-afflicted climates can produce conflict;

Source: Robert D. Kaplan, “The Revenge of Geography,” Foreign Policy, 196 (May/June 2009): 96–105.

Classical Geopolitics Reviewed [2]

• Control of global maritime areas heavily influences international trade, national power, access to natural resources, and international security;

• Migration of peoples and contests between divergent religions may also drive conflict;

• Countries ranging in a geographic arc from Israel to North Korea are developing ballistic missiles;

Source: Robert D. Kaplan, “The Revenge of Geography,” Foreign Policy, 196 (May/June 2009): 96–105.

Classical Geopolitics Reviewed [3]

• Chinese and Indian naval forces are now able to project power beyond their immediate geographic regions;

• Failed states such as Somalia and “shatter zones” such as the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent can be sources of regional and global strategic conflict.

Source: Robert D. Kaplan, “The Revenge of Geography,” Foreign Policy, 196 (May/June 2009): 96–105.

Classical Geopolitics Reviewed [4]

• Humans will initiate but nature will control, that geography will determine the success of individualism and liberal universalism.

• Global wealth and political and social order will erode in many areas and leave natural frontiers as the arbiters of “who can coerce whom?”

Source: Robert D. Kaplan, “The Revenge of Geography,” Foreign Policy, 196 (May/June 2009): 105.