geopolitics - from european supremacy to western hegemony - peters - balduk

5/28/2018 Geopolitics - From European Supremacy to Western Hegemony - PETERS - BALDUK - slid...

http:///reader/full/geopolitics-from-european-supremacy-to-western-hegemony-pe

Geopolitics

From European supremacy to Western hegemony?

January 2006

Marieke Peters, 0108251Jasper Balduk, 9911952



Table of contents

Introduction 31. From practice to formalized geopolitics 41.1 Dominant Europe-centered world view before formalized geopolitics 41.2 Ratzel and Organic State Theory 41.3 Mackinder and the Heartland 51.4 Haushofer and the German Geopolitik 62. American dominance 72.1 The United States part in world politics before the Second World War 72.2 Geopolitics after the Second World War: containing communism and

satellite states

7

3. A new geopolitical order? 93.1 Resources 93.2 The emergence of new insights in geography and globalization 93.3 Current policies, the rise of new great powers and new forms of government 103.4 Conclusion 10References 12

2



Introduction

geopolitics1. The study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics,

especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation.

2. a. A governmental policy employing geopolitics.b. A Nazi doctrine holding that the geographic, economic, and political needs of

Germany justified its invasion and seizure of other lands.3. A combination of geographic and political factors relating to or influencing a nation or region.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/geopolitics

We live in complicated times with everyday global practices and networks. Economicglobalization, global media flows and the Internet seem to make our conventional geopoliticalimagination of the world in terms of spatial blocks, territorial presence and fixed identities nolonger adequate. The deepening impacts of globalization and the de-territorializingconsequences of new information technologies seem to have driven a stake into the heart ofgeopolitics ( Thuathail & Dalby, 1998: 1).

As may be derived from the above quoted explanation of geopolitics, geopolitics isalways ideological. More specifically, it is not only a Western term, but it is also associatedwith particular Western policies and the Western, Westphalian system (Agnew, 2003: 72).But what isgeopolitics?

The term geopolitics came to prominence during the late nineteenth century andreferred to the way in which ideas relating to politics and space could be used within national

policy. Geopolitics is concerned with political relations between states, the external strategies

of states and the global balance of power (Jones, 2004: 173). It is about understanding thebasis of state power and the nature of states interactions with one another.In this paper we will focus on geopolitics through time, because the term contains a

practice as well as a theoretical understanding of the world. A practice that finds its roots incolonial Europe and which came to a theoretical understanding with the actual invention ofthe term. Since then, it was associated with policies of war because of its use in GermanGeopolitik, but it is just as much connected to contemporary policies. However, because ofgreat changes in the current world order and the decline of the modern state, one might askthe question: are there still modern state territorial geopolitics?

3



1. From practice to formalized geopolitics

1.1 Dominant Europe-centered world view before formalized geopolitics

The emergence of the modern Europe may be said to date from the second half of the fifteenthcentury. Western Europes monarchies began to represent something more than mereauthority; they became centers of an emerging national consciousness and pride. Emergingstates engaged in commercial competition, and mercantilism was viewed as the correcteconomic policy to serve the general interest. The notion developed that wealth was measured

by the accumulation of large quantities of gold en silver. The quest for such precious metalsled to a large number of ships, primarily from western European countries, which sailed tolands that laid open to discover (Glassner & Fahrer, 2004: 52, 53).

This search for wealth in the form of gold (or ivory or slaves) and the evolution ofEuropean mercantile competition are the origins of European expansion and is, what is called,the first phase of colonialism (Gregory, 2002: 93).

In the late nineteenth century a huge expansion and enlargement of the world economy

through the new imperialism came to light. By 1900 not only was the world formally boundinto the colonial empires of Europe (as in the case of India, South East Asia and Africa) orunder commercial domination by one or more of the European Great Powers (as in China orLatin America), but more and more of the resources were drawn into a geographicallyspecialized world economy. This was also a period of technological change, which creatednew modes of thinking about time and space. It is under these circumstances that more andmore systematic thought about states, human beings and society arose, which eventually ledto a formalized geopolitics, although it was hardly anything else but a theoretical frameworkfor a continuation of current policies.

1.2 Ratzel and Organic State TheoryAs may be understood from the introduction of this paper and from the term itself, geopoliticsis concerned with politics regarding power and resources in combination with the spatial orterritorial dimensions of states. This also means that spatial differences between certainterritories are evaluated for their uses in different policy objectives. In the above, we haveoutlined the circumstances of the (European) practices before the invention of the actual term.A new phase in the practice and ideas about geopolitics began in the late nineteenth century inGermany with Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904).

Ratzel was interested by the space or area occupied by the state, and its position on theworld map. Ratzel was greatly influenced by social-Darwinism. In his 1897 PolitischeGeographie (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 70), he applies the idea of social-Darwinism

to states. Ratzel used metaphors from biology in his analysis of political science andgeography, comparing the state with an organism. States, like plants and people, need livingspace (Lebensraum) and resources, and they constantly compete for them. States are organicand growing, with borders representing only a temporary stop in their movement. States canonly thrive if they expand into other territories to express their vitality. The competition forLebensraum, either in Europe or overseas, leads to natural selection in which the species thatare best accustomed to their surroundings will survive. The expanse of a states borders is areflection of the health of the nation. Ratzels writings coincided with the growth of Germanindustrialism after the Franco-Prussian war and the subsequent search for markets that

brought it into competition with England. Much of Ratzels work was driven by a desire tojustify intellectually the territorial expansion of Germany (Jones, 2004: 4, 5). His writingsserved as a welcome justification for imperial expansion.

4



The Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjelln was Ratzels student who would furtherelaborate on organic state theory and who coined the term geopolitics in 1899 (Agnew, 2001:30; 2003: 5). Kjelln was describing that part of politics that is essentially concerned withthe external relations, strategy and politics of the state, and which seeks to employ suchknowledge to political ends (Jones, 2004: 5). He focused on the territorial dimension of

politics. In these ideas, a given space is granted certain absolute qualities, depending on thelocation of resources and physical characteristics. It is fair to say that from that moment, amore critical vision arose in systematic thinking linking geographical scale and politics. Theearlier practical strategies of European territorial states, although just as much geopoliticalin nature, came to be described in terms of a more theoretical framework. No need to say thatthe world-view from which these theories emerged was a particularly Europe-centered one, inwhich global space was visualized as an ordered, structured whole, containing a hierarchy of

places, from known (Europe) to unknown (the rest of the world) and from friendly (again,Europe) to unfriendly (again, the rest of the world) (Agnew, 2003: 5-16). Accordingly, thetheories known as geopolitics described the development of states as it was conceived of inrelation to European territorial states, including their overseas colonies.

1.3 Mackinder and the Heartland

While Ratzel and Kjelln were thinking about the dynamics of state power and territory,another stream of thought emerged in Britain, Geostrategy, by person of Sir Halford JohnMackinder (1861-1947). Mackinder was primarily concerned with issues of global strategy,the balance of power between states. He tried to find patterns in state development and

behavior (Jones, 2004: 6).Mackinder ordered the world map into three political regions: an outer crescent

across the Americas, Africa and the oceans; an inner crescent across Europe and southernAsia; and the pivot area located at the heart of the Eurasian land mass. Whoever controlledthe pivot area, or Heartland, Mackinder argued, would be a major world power (Jones, 2004:6). The key to the Heartland was East Europe. The state that controlled East Europe wouldhave made the first step to world domination, according to Mackinder. He summarized hisvision in three statements (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 82):

Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;Who rules the World-Island commands the World.

The World-Island can be identified as Eurasia. Mackinder expressed his fear that after four

centuries of maritime superpowers, the hegemony in world politics would change in favor ofcontinental powers like Russia, China and Germany.Perhaps it is worth mentioning that these statements indicate the Europe-centered

world view that dominated political thought in the early twentieth century. Moreover, like theGerman Geopolitik, which will be discussed later, they tend to speak of dominance andcompetition rather than cooperation and diversity.

Mackinders ideas had a strong influence on the Versailles peace conference in 1919,in the creation of buffer states in Eastern Europe, separating Germany and Russia.Mackinders influence was not only visible in Europe, it also played a role in the US strategyin the Cold War (Jones, 2004: 6). Most ironically is the interest in Mackinders thesis fromthe country who suffered the most from its practical application at Versailles, Germany. After

the First World War Germanys territory had been reduced. The geopolitical ideas of Ratzel

5



and Mackinder offered a strategy for revival. Most prominent in this movement was KarlHaushofer and his Geopolitik.

1.4 Haushofer and the German Geopolitik

While the two other streams of thought in geopolitics were developing, a new school ofgeopoliticians was forming in Germany, Geopolitik. Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) was animportant theorist within the Geopolitik. He was particularly concerned with geographicalfactors that shaped military and political world history. The objective of his studies was toderive from the location of oceans, seas, mountains, resources and the distribution of differentcultures and states based upon those characteristics of the geographical environment, what theforeign policies of states should be or, more precisely, the foreign policies of Germany (DePater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 82).

Based upon the geopolitical theory of the British geographer Mackinder, GermanGeopolitik also adds older German ideas. Haushofer used the theory of an organic conceptionof the state and the need for self-sufficiency through the top-down organization of society

from Ratzel and his Swedish student Kjelln. Haushofer justified Lebensraum, even at thecost of other nations existence because conquest was a biological necessity for a statesgrowth. Combined with the idea of states as organisms that need space to develop, hisrecommendations of German foreign policies can beyond doubt be described as plainlyaggressive: the German unification dated from 1871, and it follows that this young state wascompletely justified in its search for Lebensraum (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 82).Clearly, because of their ideological aspects, these ideas were presumed to be eagerly adopted

by the national-socialists in their Nazi propaganda most notably before, but also for a shorttime during World War II.

Before the end of the war, the high-days of the Geopolitik were passed and, partlybecause of its consequences, the physical-deterministic view in geography was abandoned inthe years following the Second World War.

What was a frightening image to Mackinder was in fact a utopian dream to Haushoferand the Geopolitiker, namely that Germany would get in control of East Europe. Even afterthe Second World War, the idea of a key-territory like the Heartland maintained to dominategeopolitics (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 83), which will be discussed in the nextchapter.

6



2. American dominance

As weve seen, it wasnt until the beginning of the twentieth century that geopolitics as aformalized theory emerged. Underlying this theory and its practice was the dominant Europe-centered world view, striving for western hegemony. However, it is obvious that in todaysworld, the United States play a major role in world politics. In this chapter the geopolitical

practices of the United States of America will be discussed, beginning with a short outline ofAmerican geopolitics before the second half of the twentieth century.

2.1 The United States part in world politics before the Second World War

In the run to World War I, the pursuit of global primacy took place largely on the Europeancontinent, where the great colonial powers tried to outrun one another. These early examplesof arms races were to be found between, at first, France and Britain, and later, Britain andGermany (Agnew, 2003: 68). In this period, as weve also seen with Mackinder, emphasiswas laid on the strengths of a navy. The United States, as an offset of Europe, came to followthis conclusion in the person of Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914). He put forward the idea

that the United States had to have a large, globe-spanning fleet in order to avert the risk of apolitical eclipse or even invasion at the hands of those countries that had stronger navies. Hisview was that the world hegemony of sea powers could be maintained by control of a series of

bases around the Eurasian continent (Agnew, 2003; Chaliand & Rageau, 1986). So to speak,the first objective of early American geopolitics was to maintain the balance of power

between the European Great Powers (Agnew, 2003: 1), or a matter of self-defense. Theimportance of the Eurasian continent that is central to Mahans ideas, can also be retraced toMackinders views, although both came up to different conclusions and solutions regardingthis area.

After the First World War, Americas geopolitics could be described as creatingcollective security (Agnew, 2003). Still, the Eurasian continent continued to play an

important role in geopolitical views, as in the German Geopolitik. In the 1930s, therefore, theAmerican Spykman followed Mackinders views and adapted his concepts to thecircumstances of that time. He argued that the only thing preventing Germany fromcontrolling the Eurasian land mass, and thus achieving world domination, would be analliance between an Anglo-American sea-power and a Russian land power. However, he sawmore importance in the ring surrounding the Heartland (the Rimland), which included roughlyspoken the whole of West-Europe, the Arabian peninsula, India, China and the coastal regionsof South-East Asia (Chaliand & Rageau, 1986).

Finally, when the United States got involved in World War II, the first objective wasto free Europe from absolute dictatorship (McKay, Hill & Buckler, 1999: 983). Theunderlying view of a relative safe world, thus, had moved from an image of a balance of

power to one that was more of a democratic character.

2.2 Geopolitics after the Second World War: containing communism and satellite states

To prevent a repetition of the Second World War and to keep the world (that is, Europe andthe United States) safe for democracy, Spykman repeated his recommendations to givespecial attention to the Rimland surrounding the Heartland. His advice was taken quiteseriously as the communist and totalitarian Soviet-Union had deployed itself as a new GreatPower (Chaliand & Rageau, 1986; De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 85-86), the more sinceit was tightening its grip on the liberated nations of eastern Europe (McKay, Hill & Buckler,1999: 993-1027).

In the course of the new arms races that followed between the two new superpowers,the United States and the Soviet-Union, the insights of Spykman and Mackinder were

7



estimated quite valuable. During the Cold War, NATO strategies were especially directed tocontainment of communism (Agnew, 2003; Chaliand & Rageau, 1986; De Pater & Van derWusten, 2002: 85-86), which meant that the Rimland was provided with a strong chain ofmaritime bases.

Also, since the end of the Second World War, two other geographically identifiable

rings of states emerged, apart from the Heartland, the Rimland and the actual sea power(the United States and Canada, West-Europe and Japan). These were a broad ring ofunderdevelopment, roughly containing South-America, Africa and overlapping with theAsian part of the Rimland, and a developed southern ring, last named existing of Argentina,South-Africa and Australia, which was linked to the sea power (Chaliand & Rageau, 1986).

The ring of underdevelopment existed mostly of former colonies of the EuropeanGreat Powers. Their, often violent, struggles for independence were euphemistically called a

process of de-colonization. During the Cold War, a heated competition for influence betweenEast and West arose in these newly independent states, in the case of Soviet-influence alsodenunciated satellite-states (McKay, Hill & Buckler, 1999: 993-1027). This gave way to anew perception of the world being divided as if it contained three different worlds: a normal,

natural First World which was capitalist, democratic and free, challenged by an unnatural,state-dominated Second World. Both West and East were vying with the other to produce

political-economic disciples in a Third World of traditional yet developing countries thatbecame the typical representation of the enduring geopolitical division between East andWest (Agnew, 2003: 30). It is redundant yet worth mentioning, again, that this geopoliticaldivision still had a Europe-centered character, which continues to dominate geopoliticalthought: the First World is situated West of Europe, the Second World situated East ofEurope.

Despite the dominant view that the West had won, as Slater (2004: 247) roughlysummarizes Francis Fukuyamas well-known end of history (1992), there remained a lot ofdifferent points of attention in ideas concerning (Western) geopolitics. After the fall of theBerlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet-Union in the years that followed,geopolitical views were to be strongly revisited (Agnew, 2002: 133). Or, as Agnew (2002:133) follows Tuathail in his statement that threats from global warming, increasedworldwide economic inequality, and global terrorism are all symptomatic of the geopoliticalorder after the Cold War. What this new geopolitical order looks like, will be discussed inthe next and final chapter.

8



3. A new geopolitical order?

Thusfar, we have discussed how geopolitics as the spatiality of existing political systems andthe territorial extension of their policies has developed. After the Cold War, the dominantworld view has become one in which hegemony can be described in terms of democracy,capitalism and Western values. The new world order is dominated by only one superpower,the United States. This doesnt mean that geopolitics would not matter anymore. Physicalqualities of a certain territory continues to play an important role in states international

politics as well as business strategies. A short and far from complete overview ofcontemporary geopolitical thoughts about global problems, conflicts and developments will

be presented here.

3.1 Resources

Already since the 1950s a notion had emerged that, in order to create a safe world, the poorerstates of the South needed to develop and to modernize, whether it was from a humane

point of view, for maintaining hegemony, for the economic interests of Western society, or inthe run for allies against communism (Slater, 2004: 57-79; Arts, 1994). In the post-Cold Warperiod, the problem of North-South relations became one of the main subjects in geopoliticalthought.

Central to the North-South problem is the unequal access to resources, as well as newforms of Western dominance, for example regarding economic reformations, which led todifferent theories about dependency and neo-colonialism (Slater, 2004: 128). Some activitiesof the United States in regions like the Persian Gulf are directly related to this newgeopolitical order, in which policies are directed to securing resources for Western oil-driveneconomies (Slater, 2004: 191; Agnew, 2002: 158).

A current example of a conflict about resources has been the situation with the Russian

gascompany Gazprom. Gazprom reduced the gassupplies to Ukrain and Europe for one day(NRC Handelsblad, 2006-01-07) in the negotiations concerning the renewal of supply-contracts. Not accidentially, this happened on a moment Ukrain was trying to get into closerrelationships with the European Union. It might be seen as a wake up call for the Westernworld, as the prominent view had been that politics, power and energy werent interwoventhat strong anymore. The world seemed to become a global free market; however, thisexample shows that relations between politics and resources should be held into account.

One of the most persistent conflicts that has major consequences around the globe, theMiddle-East conflict, is for a large part about resources as well, namely drinking watershortages (Agnew, 2002: 158). Geopolitical conflicts concerning Gaza and the West Bankshould be seen also in this light, apart from more obvious water wars in Bolivia (Slater,

2004: 218) and the almost yearly returning drought catastrophes in Central-Africa.Another notion that emerged in geopolitical thinking which is related to the problems

of global inequality is that of sustainable development. Globe-spanning environmentalproblems, mostly initiated by developed countries but often having severe consequences forthe underdeveloped countries of the South, have led to the view that a safe world is not onlyabout a balance of power or a redistribution of wealth and access to resources, but also aboutfair chances for future generations regarding resources, including an environment that is freefrom pollution (Arts, 1994).

3.2 The emergence of new insights in geography and globalization

As already mentioned above, new theories about dependency and neo-colonialism emergedwithin social sciences as well as within geography and geopolitics. For one part, these

9



theories critically investigate the distribution of resources, but moreover, in a broader sense,the distribution of culture as they emerged within more post-structuralist perspectives. To putit more generally, new perspectives on culture, power and the construction of reality haveopened up new ways of thought that may have to be incorporated within geopolitical views.

It is often stated that a decline of the state has to do with the rise of supranational

organizations and companies (De Pater, Groote & Terlouw, 2002: 168). A well-knownexample of new power relationships is for instance the banana republic, in which businesscompanies are of great importance in national policies. Also, authors like Tuathail point, forinstance, to worldwide flows of people, products, money and especially information, to arguethat the role of state-policies has actually diminished in favor of a more network-like society(De Pater, Groote & Terlouw, 2002: 168).

More feminist perspectives that have been introduced to economic and politicalgeography should perhaps also be taken into account, as they are particularly concerned withthe one telling the story; that is, they strive to reveal or unmask dominant perspectives byexplicitly taking position on the side of a specific minority (De Pater, Groote & Terlouw,2002: 209-223).

3.3 Current policies, the rise of new great powers and new forms of government

The above mentioned new perspectives can be related to relatively new phenomena andcurrent policies that are of geopolitical interest. To begin with, Americas War on Terrorismand military intervention in Iraq may be seen as a characteristic of the world order since theCold War, with the US government claiming the right to intervene militarily wherever andwhenever it wants (Agnew, 2003: 1) to secure the homeland, but other points of view should

be reckoned with. Of course, the presence of resources is most obvious, but what to think ofthe continuing conflict between Israel and Palestine or the increasing opposition in worldviews with, on the one hand, a democratic and safe society, and on the other, an Islamic worldthat is liberated from Western influences (Agnew, 2002: 134-135)? One really notable featureof todays geopolitical notion, then, is that of a stateless terrorist network (or is it liberationfront?).

The growing importance of China as a new superpower in both economic and militarycontext is also of concern. There is a careful approach in both East and West to one another inrecognition of each others economic advantages, but it goes hand in hand with suspicionregarding ideology and the negative economical consequences like the loss of employment.

One last phenomenon that is of concern in current geopolitical perspectives is theformation of the European Union, that is neither a simple common market, neither a meresuper-state. An organization that has for some part a common foreign policy but for another

part a huge diversity of interests regarding the different member states.

3.4 Conclusion

In this paper, we have tried to show how the dominant geopolitical imagination(emphasisadded) arose from European American experience but then was projected on to the rest ofthe world and into the future in the theory and practice of world politics (Agnew, 2003: 2).

Geopolitics is about power and about states, with a bias towards the national and theinternational. What has underpinned this bias is a dominant perception of the nature of power,in which power has been seen as having two attributes that never change (Agnew, 2001: 31):an ability to make others do the states will as this reflects the states advantages of location,

resources and populations; and an inherent characteristic of territorial states that attempt tomonopolize it in military competition with other states.

10



In the present time, however, military force is less significant than it has been.Economic power has become more an end in itself (more than a means to enhance militarycapability), technology, education and economic growth have become more important indetermining the relative success of states and more intangible aspects of power, such as thecapacity to shape preferences or impose ideas (maybe even ideologies) have become more

important (Agnew, 2001: 31).Besides the rise of new territorial superpowers like India and China, more and moreattention in geopolitics is directed to border-crossing resources and phenomena likeenvironmental problems, cultural dominance instead of literally occupied territory, the riseof new governing forms like the European Union and a stateless terrorist network. In relationto the development of modern geopolitics, which is framed in terms of an overarching globalcontext in which states vie for power outside their boundaries, gain control (formally andinformally) over less modern regions (and their resources) and overtake other major states in aworldwide pursuit of global primacy (Agnew, 2003: 1), this puts forward the question ifgeopolitics as a conceptual framework needs to be revisited. Future will tell.

11



References

Agnew, J. (2001). Reinventing politics: geographies of modern statehood. Hettner-lecture2000.Heidelberg: Geographisches Institut.

Agnew, J. (2002).Making political geography.New York: Oxford University Press.Agnew, J. (2003). Geopolitics. Revisioning world politics. London: Routledge.Arts, B. (1994).Duurzame ontwikkeling. Een conceptuele afbakening.Nijmegen: Katholieke

Universiteit Nijmegen.Brugh, M. aan de. (2006). Brandstof voor de macht: gaskraan dicht, westen schrikt wakker.

NRC Handelsblad, 2006-01-07.Chaliand, G. & Rageau, J. (1986). Strategic atlas. World geopolitics: a new and exciting

survey of the political realities of todays world.Harmondsworth: Penguin.Farlex. (2006). The free dictionary. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/geopolitics.Glassner, M. & Fahrer, C. (2004). Political Geography. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Gregory, D., Johnston, R.J., Pratt, G., & Watts, M. (2000). The dictionary of human

geography. Cornwall: Blackwell PublishingJones, M., Jones, R., Woods, M. (2004).An introduction to political geography. Space, placeand politics. London: Routledge.

McKay, J., Hill, B. & Buckler, J. (1999). A history of Western society. Sixth edition.Boston:Houghton Mifflin.

Thuathail, G. & Dalby, S. (1998). Rethinking geopolitics.London: Routledge. Quartely,Vol. 25, No 1, pp. 41-53.

Pater, B. de, Groote, P. & Terlouw, K. (2002). Denken over regios. Geografischeperspectieven.Bussum: Coutinho.

Pater, B. de & Wusten, H. van der. (2002). Het geografische huis. De opbouw van eenwetenschap. Bussum: Coutinho.

Slater, D. (2004). Geopolitics and the post-colonial. Rethinking north-south relations.Malden: Blackwell Publishing.

12

geopolitics - from european supremacy to western hegemony - peters - balduk

Documents