The Theoretical Concept of Geopolitics in International Relations and Global Politics
In essence, behind the theoretical concept of geopolitics was the wish to promote the study of human geography as a kind of statecraft’s assistance with a belief that geopolitics can offer a way in which geographers could inform the practices of IR [...]
Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island;
Who controls the World Island commands the World”
(Sir Halford John Mackinder, 1919)
The term geopolitics was first used by the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén (1864−1922) in 1899, but the term did not become popular in academic circles until it became used in the early 20th century by British geographer and strategist Halford Mackinder.
Nevertheless, the concept of geopolitics as a theoretical approach to global politics and international relations (IR) was soon used firstly in Germany and later in the USA. The concept itself was stressing a set of constraints of different nature but focuses on foreign policy by both geographical location and geographical environment in general.
The term itself is derived from two words coming from the ancient Greek language: land and politics. In other words, the simple essence of the concept of geopolitics derived from the linguistic viewpoint is how the nature (feature) of the land (geography) can influence the politics of international relations on different levels from the local, to global. Or to say in short: geopolitics is the geography of international relations.
Nevertheless, in a broader concept of meaning, geopolitics can be understood as an approach to foreign policy analysis that understands the actions, relationships, and significance of states in terms of geographical factors, such as location, climate, natural resources, physical terrain, and population.
The forefather of the field of geopolitics was most probably Alfred Mahan (1840−1914). He argued that the state which is in control of the seas (having naval power) is going to control global politics (in fact, the UK at that time). However, Halford John Mackinder was in a different opinion: the control of the land mass between Germany and Siberia is the key to controlling international relations (IR) and world politics.
It can be said that the establishers of the concept and academic discipline of geopolitics in IR and global politics are the German, Karl Ernst Haushofer (1869−1946), the British Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861−1947), and two Americans: Nicholas John Spykman (1893−1943) and Saul Bernard Cohen (1925−2021). For all of them that was a common focal idea that control of the Eurasian landmass or in other words – the Heartland, is a prerequisite for global hegemony by any power pretending to be a super or hyperpower in IR and global politics. In fact, the crucial portion of the Heartland was controlled by the USSR and today by the Russian Federation.
The US administration became preoccupied with the geopolitics of Heartland during the Cold War 1.0 (1949−1989) understanding that the destruction of both the USSR and Russia is the only way to establish American control and dominance over the Heartland and therefore over the rest of the world. During the Cold War 1.0, Washington, and its Western satellites (collective West today) have been mainly preoccupied with fighting against Communist expansion into the Rimlands of South-East Asia, East, and South-East Europe, and the Middle East (land masses surrounding the Heartland).
The focal features among many others concerning geopolitics can be described as:
Resource security – Security that is commonly understood in terms of access to energy and other resources sufficient in order to meet a state’s economic and military needs.
Resource war – A war that is fought to gain or retain control of natural resources which are important to economic development and consequently political power in both inner and external policies of the state.
Resources curse – The tendency of states with an abundance of significant natural resources to experience low growth, blocked development, and in some cases, civil conflicts (wars).
All theoreticians of geopolitics will argue that a nation’s most important territorial assets include its geographical features: size, location, climate, and physical components. It is very easy to understand such arguing if we use a simple glance at the globe that is clearly showing how geography, in fact, benefits, for instance, both the US and Russia:
The US is separated from both Europe and Asia by oceans. This fact is providing convenient trade routes but at the same time is making any military invasion to be very difficult.
Russia’s vast land mass is straddling Europe and Asia and gives it a strong strategic position in both.
Historically, the territorial expansion of both the US and Russia gives them control over huge natural resources – an advantage shared by other large nations like Canada, Brazil, China, India, and Australia.
In IR, states have been and still are focal actors for the very reason that they have power – the ability not only to influence others but at the same time to control outcomes to produce results that would not have occurred naturally. States have power in relations with other states as well as with respect to those actors within their own state. However, power itself is multidimensional as there are different kinds of power. One of them is the relationship of geography and power. In other words, geographic size, position, and natural resources can decisively influence the level of the state’s power in IR. For instance, a large geographic expanse gives a state automatic power (Russia, USA, China, Brazil, India, Canada). But on the other hand, long state borders, however, may be at the same time a weakness as they must be defended which is both an expensive and technically problematic task.
In essence, behind the theoretical concept of geopolitics was the wish to promote the study of human geography as a kind of statecraft’s assistance with a belief that geopolitics can offer a way in which geographers could inform the practices of IR. Henceforth, the academic discipline of geopolitics is focusing on the ways in which different geographical factors can shape the character of international politics including a balance of power between the states too. The main geographical factors are including 1) the spatial layout of continental masses; and 2) the distribution of natural and human resources. Therefore, taking geography into consideration, for instance, 1) some territories can be seen as either easier or harder to defend; 2) physical distance has effects on politics; and 3) some topographical characteristics of the land can promote security or lead to vulnerability.
It has to be stressed that the issue of security is, in fact, crucial to the study of geopolitics and the practice of the politics of geography. In other words, this is the question of maintenance of the state in the face of threats but usually from other states or some other external powers. Geopolitics as a discipline can help national security by explaining the effects of a state’s geographical characteristics, and, therefore, of potential aggressors, on future power-political relations. Geopoliticians have to be able to predict which territory could strengthen a state, helping it to rise to prominence, and which areas might leave the state to be vulnerable to a certain degree. They claim (like Nicholas Spykman, for instance) that geography is a focal factor in IR and global politics as it is the most permanent.
Finally, for geopoliticians, the world is one close and interdependent system. In practice, the emergence of geopolitics as a discipline happened, actually, at the same time when global space became totally explored by Western colonists and imperialists and therefore became all available for state territorial and economic expansion. That was the time when, in fact, West European colonial expansionism had reached its height. Practically, geopolitics offered an academic way West European imperialistic states could protect their territorial acquisitions around the world. For instance, British geopolitician Halford Mackinder believed that controlling the territory of the Heartland provided an almost impenetrable position in global politics and, therefore, leads to global domination. His suggestion was that British policy would need to be wary of powers occupying the Heartland, and should create a “buffer zone” around the Eurasian Heartland in order to prevent the further accumulation of power that might challenge the hegemony of the global British Empire. The same policy of the creation of a “buffer zone” around Russia is on agenda by the collective West led by the USA since the end of the Cold War 1.0 up today.
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Ex-University Professor
Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies
Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution.
Originally published on 2023-05-17
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/LegalStatement!
DonatetoSupportUs
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
It is a historical law that each state in the world changes with time. However, only a few states experienced dramatic change during the short period of time as Russia did over the last 33 years. Russia has changed as a state, nation, and military power followed by her fluctuating position in global politics and international relations. Since 1991 up today Russia transformed peacefully its entire political and economic system which is relatively rare in history. When the USSR dissolved in 1991, Russia left to be one of its 15 constituent republics which proclaimed independence forced to overwhelmingly redefine her role in ...
The 2015 dataOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
PrefaceA geopolitical issue of South-East Europe became of very importance for the scholars, policymakers, and researchers with the question of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire as one of the most crucial features of the beginning of the 20th century in European history. A graduate collapsing of the one-time great empire was accelerated and followed by competition and struggling by both, the European Great Powers and the Balkan national states, upon the territorial inheritance of it. While the European Great Powers have the aim to obtain the new spheres of political-economic influence in South-East Europe, followed by the task to ...
Due to the international media’s continued claims about the «annexation of Crimea», it’s been difficult for the citizens of the US and Europe to make sense of the details of the peninsula’s recent history. Exactly three years ago, on March 16, 2014, the Crimeans were offered a choice: to rejoin Russia or to return to the constitution of 1992 that proclaimed Crimea a legal, democratic, secular state whose relationship with Ukraine was based on bilateral agreements. That constitution was unilaterally abolished by Kiev on March 17, 1995, and here’s what’s surprising: no one at that time in the West demanded that the Ukrainian ...
On March 11, 2006, President Slobodan Milosevic died in a NATO prison. No one has been held accountable for his death. In the 12 years since the end of his lonely struggle to defend himself and his country against the false charges invented by the NATO powers, the only country to demand a public inquiry into the circumstances of his death came from Russia when Foreign Minister, Serge Lavrov, stated that Russia did not accept the Hague tribunal’s denial of responsibility and demanded that an impartial and international investigation be conducted. Instead, The NATO tribunal made its own investigation, known ...
USAID is spending $300,000 to fight traditional Christian morality in the Republic of Macedonia.A reader passes along a government document putting out bids for a contract. Here’s the top of the document:Apparently the (former Yugoslav) Republic of Macedonia, a small Balkan nation that emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia, is insufficiently progressive on LGBT issues. So the American government is spending $300,000 to undermine the traditional Orthodox Christian culture of the country. Excerpts from the document (emphases mine):Macedonia has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Human Rights Convention. Through ratification of these human rights treaties, Macedonia has ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
I am a Lithuanian, but I leave abroad and I am not going back. At least now, at least until the Government does not pay attention to its people. According to some authoritative research institutes, during 2017 Lithuania population is again projected to decrease (by 45 677 people!) and reach 2 758 290 in the beginning of 2018. (http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/lithuania-population/). As of 1 January 2017, the population of Lithuania was estimated to be 2 803 967 people. This is a decrease of 1.63 % (46 433 people) compared to population of 2 850 400 the year before. In other words, our ...
A now-notorious list of ostensibly “fake” news sites — created by a liberal professor, seemingly out of thin air — spread like wildfire online in the past two days and was eagerly reprinted by corporate media presstitutes hoping to vindicate their own failed reporting on the 2016 election.But branding perfectly legitimate outlets with the same scarlet letter as those devoid of integrity deemed the professor’s list a spurious attempt to defame alternative and independent media — anyone dissenting from the left’s mainstream narrative — as a whole.This is, in no uncertain terms, a hit list — or, at least, a laughable attempt — and ...
Donald Franciszek Tusk, (born 22 April 1957) is a Polish politician and historian. He has been President of the European Council since 1 December 2014. Previously he was Prime Minister of Poland (2007–2014) and a co-founder and chairman of the Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) party.Tusk began his public career as an activist in his home town of Gdańsk, supporting Solidarity and organizing his fellow university students. With the exception of one four-year stretch, Tusk has served in the Third Republic Sejm (parliament) continuously since its first elections in 1991. He was Vice Marshal (deputy speaker) of the Senate from 1997 ...
Arrest and detention of three days for Joanikije, Bishop of Budimlye and Niksic, and eight priests of the Orthodox Cathedral of St. Basil of Ostrog in Nikšić has sparked tensions in Montenegro again. Namely, after the prayer procession that had been held in Nikšić on May 12th, on the feast-day of St. Basil of Ostrog, a 72-hour detention was ordered for Bishop Jonikije, Fr. Slobodan Jokic, Fr. Danilo Zirojevic, Fr. Zeljko Rojevic, Fr. Ostoja Knezevic, Fr. Mirko Vukotic, Fr. Vasilije Brboric, Fr. Dragan Krusic and Fr. Nikola Marojevic.Protests in support of those arrested have taken place in several cities across ...
As 2016 closes, we find ourselves a deeply unsettled nation. We’re unable to draw the lines of our national interest. Is it jobs and economy, is it national security, or is it now in our interest to ensure global security — in other words, act as the world’s policemen?As the “failing” (to quote Trump) New York Times degenerates into a Washington Post organization with its stagnant Cold War vision of a 1950s world where the Russians are to blame for most everything — Hillary’s loss, most of the aggression and disorder in the world, the desire to destabilize Europe, etc. — the Times has added the ...
Americans are outraged by allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an intelligence service to hack email accounts of the Democratic National Committee. How inexpressibly heinous that one country, Russia, would try to influence elections in another sovereign country, in this case the United States! How unprecedented! How diabolical! How uniquely Russian!In response, the Obama administration has expelled Russian diplomats, hinted at economic sanctions, and promised further retaliation using America’s “world-class arsenal of cyber weapons.” (NYT Dec. 16, 2016) Obama’s Republican opponents, for their part, have demanded “rocks” instead of Obama’s “pebbles.”But does the USA meddle in the presidential elections ...
This is definitely an unusual book, as heralded by its title and three subtitles, whose lengthy wording evokes that of several learned tomes of the 18th and early 19thcentury.Its author is a well-known personality in Switzerland. Guy Mettan is a prominent journalist, formerly editor-in-chief of Tribune de Genève; he once presided over the Great Council, the Geneva parliament, of which he is still a representative, elected on the Christian Democrat Party list; he heads the Swiss Press Club and has written several books on Switzerland and international Geneva.As he explains in his foreword, his interest for Russia came by happenstance: ...
NATO was always more about offense than defense, about America controlling the policies of Alliance members, increasing their numbers, pressuring them to stress militarism more than they’d chose otherwise – and selling them lots of US weapons.When founded in April 1949, Soviet Russia was a North Atlantic Alliance enemy in name only, ravaged by WW II – needing years after Stalin’s April 1953 death to regain pre-war normality, peace essential to restore it.Washington controls NATO, covering 75% of its budget, calling the shots, installing subservient Alliance officials to serve its agenda.At a time when no US enemies exist, they’re invented ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
Paris vs. DonbassOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking at a conference entitled the “The Spirit of Turkey’s New Security,” referring to the Treaty of Lausanne, said:“The Turkish Republic is the last state that we founded with whatever was left over from all the self-sacrifices we were able to make... We are heirs of a nation that saw its territory expand to 22 million kilometers. Shortly before the Republic was founded, we had 3 million kilometers which kept diminishing until all we had left was 780,000 kilometers. Some may be offended at my mention of Lausanne. But why does it bother ...
IntroductionThe goals of this article are: 1) to investigate the role of the revived Patriarchate of Peć in Serbian and Balkan history?; and 2) to explore and present the results of investigation of the problems with respect to: a) the role of the Serbian Church during the first decades of the Ottoman occupation of Serbian lands in the process of the creation of a Serbian national identity; b) Serbian-Turkish relations in the second half of the 16th century; and c) the reasons for Serbian disloyalty towards the Ottoman government at the turn of the 17th century.The article addresses the reasons ...
"Please don’t write about Ya’ir Golan!" a friend begged me, “Anything a leftist like you writes will only harm him!"So I abstained for some weeks. But I can’t keep quiet any longer.General Ya’ir Golan, the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. Wearing his uniform, he read a prepared, well-considered text that triggered an uproar which has not yet died down.Dozens of articles have been published in its wake, some condemning him, some lauding him. Seems that nobody could stay indifferent.The main sentence was: "If there is something that frightens me about ...
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
