Geopolitics and Main Regions: International Scenarios and Globalization

GEOPOLITICS

International Scenarios and Globalization ISTRUCTURE

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GEOPOLITICS: International Scenarios and Globalization

International Scenarios and Globalization I

WHAT IS GEOPOLITICS?

. Geopolitics focuses on political power linked to geographic space.

1. The study of power relationships past, present, and future.
2. The study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics, especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation.
3. A branch of political geography that considers the strategic value of land and sea area in the context of national economic and military power and ambitions.
4. The state's power to control space or territory and shape the foreign policy of individual states and international political relations.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

GEOPOLITICS: State Power and International Relations

1. The state's power to control space or territory and shape the foreign policy of individual states and international political relations.
2. Geopolitics is defined as a branch of geography that promises to explain the relationships between geographical realities and international affairs.
3. State's power to control territory, shape international policy and other states foreign policy.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

THE GREAT PARADIGMS

• Simplified representation of reality, distinguishing what is relevant.
• Validity depends on the validity of the base theoretical model and the relevance of the chosen factors.
• Restricted theories: the dominance of a element of nature as key to hegemony. Air power Sea power Land power

International Scenarios and Globalization I

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

Continental Power

• High potential of natural and human resources.
• Border based security.
• Strategic depth (good retreat space) - allows long and secure internal maneuvers and external actions in shorter and fast lines.
• Communication by land (horse/camel) was traditionally slow, bumpy and producing fragmented spaces.
• The railway would prove of great importance offering the possibility of creating a large economic space in Eurasia, inaccesible to sea power.

Maritime Power

• Less own resources are compensated with the development of maritime trade and colonization of other territories.
• Security based on the interposition at sea, but also need to secure borders on land (if you have neighbours).
• Expansion is done via maritime exterior lines - more versatile, but linger than the corresponding in continental powers.
• Based on ease of moverment (by sea) and outer and insular bases - inaccesible to the continental power - supporting the maritime power and trade.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

THE ORIGINS OF GEOPOLITICS

• Geopolitics studies relations and interactions of Spaces (Territories, States, Civilizations, Peoples, Economics).
• Main elements: State, culture, army, economy of space (territory) relations.
• The concept was coined by the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén in 1899
• Geopolitics was developed from Political Geography and Anthropogeography - Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904)

International Scenarios and Globalization I

THE BIRTH OF GEOPOLITICS

• British Imperial Strategy
• Great Game
• Control of the Ocean
• Control of trade routes
• Colonial Empire
• Necessity to conserve empire
• Geopolitics as theoretical reflection of Anglo-Saxon imperialism

International Scenarios and Globalization I

HEARTLAND THEORY - MACKINDER'S THEORY

"Who controls Eastern Europe controls the Heartland, who controls the Heartland rules the World."

PIVOT AREA OUTER SENT LANDS INNER CRE OUTER R DESERT CRESCENT OF OUTER INSULAR OR

International Scenarios and Globalization I

SIR HALFORD MACKINDER, 1861-1904 47 (BRITAIN)

• Created to justify the strategic value of colonialism and explain the dynamic processes and possibilities behind the new world map created by imperialism.
• Theory highlighted the importance of geography to world political and economic stability and conflict.
• Eurasia was the most likely base from which a successful campaign for world conquest could be launched.
• Considered Eurasia's closed heartland the 'geographical pivot', the location central to establishing world control.
• Maritime exploration was coming to a close, and land based transportation would reinstate land based powers as essential to political dominance.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

THEORETICAL GROUND OF MACKINDER'S GEOPOLITICS

• World power is based on the assumption that the land based state controlling the Eurasian heartland has the key to world domination.
• Advent of railroads released countries from dependence on navy to move to army.
• Warfare would move from the water to land.
• Railroads would make heartland easy to defend and hard to conquer.
• CRITICS: this theory has been criticized for oversimplifying the complexity of factors that shape

International Scenarios and Globalization I

SPYKMAN'S THEORY

• Nicholas Spykman (1893-1943), Dutch-American developed a theory that is an enlarged version of Mackinder's approach.
• Spykman offered a grandiose division of the world: the Old World consisting of the Eurasian continent, Africa, and Australia, and the New World of the Americas.
• The US dominated the latter sphere, while the Old World, traditionally fragmented between powers, could, if united, challenge the United States.
• Spykman proposed an active, non-isolationist US foreign policy to contruct and maintain a balance of power in the Old World in order to prevent a challenge to the US.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

RIMLAND THEORY

• Spykman puts the emphasis on the Rimland, as the key geopolitical arena.
• He says: "Whoever controls Rimland, controls Heartland. Whoever controls Heartland, rules the world."

THE WORLD ISLAND HEARTLAND P N EM R D N M L A

International Scenarios and Globalization I

RIMLAND THEORY PREMISES

• Argues that the power of the heartland could be kept in check by the peripheral rimland.
• By forming alliances along the Rimland the members can contain the heartland.
• Coastal areas or the Rimland have advantage because of the population, resources and access to sea.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

20TH CENTURY: USA AS MAIN SEA POWER

Land Power Great Britain Sea Power Heartland Japan Europe 2 Central Asia Middle USA China ECHT Undie Mahan's vision Mackinder's vision

International Scenarios and Globalization I

SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

German School

• Key thinkers: Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) and Rudolf Kjellen (1864-1922).
• In practice, the ideas of Ratzel (Lebensraum) and Kjellen were aimed at increasing the size of German state eastwards to create a large state that the 'advanced' German culture.
• During the Nazi regime - "Journal of Geopolitics". It created a geopolitical vision that unified two competing political camps in inter-war Germany: the landed aristocrats, who wanted to expand the borders of Germany eastwards toward Russia and the owners of the new industries such as chemicals and engineering who desired the establishment of German colonies outside of Europe to gain access to raw materials and markets.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT: German School Continued

• This idea came together in his definition of pan-regions (large multi- latitude regions that were dominanted by a particular 'core' power).
• In this scenario, the US dominated the Americas and Germany dominated Eurasia while Germany controlled Africa. Haushofer's vision allowed for both territorial growth and colonial acquisition for Germany, without initiating conflict with the US.
• In fact there was significant difference between the views of Haushofer - with his emphasis on geographic or spatial relationships - and Hitler, whose racist view of the world shaped his geopolitical strategy.
• Post-World War II - vilification of geopolitics, seen as a Nazi enterprise, led to its virtual disappearance from the academic scene.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT: The American School

• Based on the work of Spykman, who emphasized the polar zones as the new zones of conflict, using maps with a polar projection to show the geographical proximity of the US and Soviet Union, and the importance of air-power.
• US geopolitics took the form of government policy statements that assumed the status of 'theories': - George Kennan's (1904-2005) call for containment - National Security Council call for a global conflict against communism.
• Thus, geopolitical theories were constructed within policy circles, based on a limited perspective.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

THE BIRTH OF NEO-EURASIANISM

• Russia becomes conscious of its geopolitical identity.
• The collapse of communist system on Russia disarmed Moscow ideologically.
• Foreign policy and military strategy of USST were based on the concept of confrontation between socialist camp (the East) and capitalist camp (the West).
• After 1991 the basic vision was lost: Russia's unilateral disarmament pretending to become as capitalist, democratic and liberal as the West.
• Continued expansion of NATO in the West, swalling Eastern Europe and threatening Russia: creation of cognitive dissonance.
• Rediscover of geopolitics in Russia, which became the parallel ideology of Russia or main frame of strategy for Russia Deep State.

International Scenarios and Globalization I

RUSSIAN GEOPOLITICS MAIN PRINCIPLES

• Acceptance of relevance of classical Anglo-Saxon geopolitics and the basic dualism of Mackinder.
• Affirmation of Heartland as subject.
• Identification of USA and NATO as antagonist force, but recognized as subject too. Chess as two players game.
• Taking into account German continental tradition.
• Discovery of first Russian Eurasianists based on dualism Russia-Eurasia against the West.
• Program

International Scenarios and Globalization I

BRZEZINZKI: THE GRAND CHESSBOARD (1997)

THE AMERICAN KING

• Central argument: while the US dominates most of the world and has significant influence on the three peripheries of Eurasia (Western Europe, South West Asia, and the Far East), it is from the heartland of Eurasia that a potential rival may emerge.
• Need to identify those states (by the US) that may have the potential to shift the international balance-of-power and once identified to formulate policies to counter or co-opt these state, so as to preserve American interests.
• Geostrategic players: Germany, France, Russia, China and to a lesser extent Japan - as potential rivals for Eurasian hegemony.
• Geopolitical pivots: countries critical for the rise of these potential hegemonic challengers. Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran as crucial for any revival of Russian dominance in Eurasia while South Korea is vital for either a Chinese or Japanese hegemonic challenge

International Scenarios and Globalization I