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.
On Saturday, May 14, in Stockholm’s Globe Arena an event called the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest final will take place.According to the Eurovision Official Rules 2016 posted on eurovision.tv:1.2) Criteria of eligibility1.2.1) Songs“The lyrics and/or performance of the songs shall not bring the Shows, the ESC as such or the EBU into disrepute. No lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political or similar nature shall be permitted during the ESC. No swearing or other unacceptable language shall be allowed in the lyrics or in the performances of the songs. No messages promoting any organization, institution, political cause or other, company, brand, ...
In just one week the United States government will commemorate its 16th anniversary in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan.This war did not really begin in 2001 resulting from the attacks on September 11 where planes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon headquartered right outside of Washington, D.C.U.S. involvement in the destabilization of Afghanistan goes back to the late 1970s when the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDP) led a socialist-oriented administration which advanced the cause of working people and farmers as well as providing fundamental civil rights to women. ...
Truth on the war in Euromaidan Ukraine in photos.The people of Donetsk sent a farewell message to ex-President of the US (POTUS) Barack Obama with proper photo evidence of the result of his policy in the region.See the truth not presented on any global Western corporate mass-media!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 ...
As the Duran reported, it was only a matter of time before the ‘Putin Did It’ (see The Duran Lexicon for more) line crept back into the news in light of a re-opened FBI investigation, following the discovery more incriminating Hillary Clinton emails. Sure enough, Howard Dean, the man who ended his own presidential campaign by acting like a crazed hooligan on stage, has said that now the FBI and Putin are on the same side.This comes days after Putin reassured the world that he really doesn’t want, need or care to meddle in the US election. Of course the usual suspects in the western ...
The United States, Germany, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom launched "Operation Jericho"Once again, the Obama administration has tried to force the change of a political regime that resists it. On February 12, an Academi (formerly Blackwater) plane disguised as an aircraft of the Venezuelan army was supposed to bomb the presidential palace and kill President Nicolas Maduro. The plotters had planned to place former MP María Corina Machado in power and have her immediately acclaimed by former Latin American presidents. President Obama had given a warning. In his new doctrine of Defence (National Security Strategy), he wrote: "We ...
This weekend 75 years ago, the German city of Dresden was razed to the ground by British and American aerial bombardment. At least 25,000 mainly civilians were destroyed in raid after raid by over 1,200 heavy bombers, indiscriminately dropping high explosives and incendiaries. It took seven years just to clear the rubble.The destruction of Dresden, a world-famous cultural center of Baroque majesty, has been long dogged by controversy. Official British and American military accounts claim it was necessary to hasten the collapse of the Third Reich; with a reasoning that resonates with US claims for dropping the atomic bombs on ...
Russian professor, Doctor of History Sergey Perevezentsev has touched upon a hidden historical and political motive of the scandal caused by the speech of the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow at the celebration of Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman oppressors.It would seem that Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said everything correctly in his speech - he called to keep memory of the warriors of many nations killed on the fields of those old battles: Russians, Romanians, Finns, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Polacks, Lithuanians, Serbians and Montenegrins. "Historical tolerance" is preserved, and principle of "multiplicity of truths" is not broken.However, as the historian explained, in 1874 ...
Several years ago two very distinguished American scholars wrote a book, The Israel Lobby.The book made a very understated case that the Israel Lobby has far more power over the US government and media than is good for America or Israel, as it silences constructive critics who are Israel’s friends. The two scholars were demonized by the Israel Lobby as advocating the return of the Holocaust.The Israel Lobby presented itself as just a poor little weak thing unable to stand up to all the Nazis assailing Israel. Meanwhile the US Congress was unanimously passing outrageous resolutions handed to it by ...
The 13th report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Ukraine between 16 November 2015 and 15 February 2016, when the Minsk Agreements were in force, has come as a shock to Kiev.According to the UN, more than three million people live in the areas directly affected by the conflict. The exact number of people who have left Ukraine-controlled territory is still unknown, although rough estimates range from 800,000 to 1,000,000 people. The Ukrainian government has estimated that more than a million people have left southeast Ukraine for Russia, Belarus and Europe. This ...
Never has US intentions in Asia been so obvious. Attempts to portray America’s role in the region as constructive or necessary have been ongoing since the end of World War II, however, recently, with Asia able to begin determining its own destiny for itself, the tone from Washington has become increasingly curt and direct.US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s remarks during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore were all but a proclamation of US hegemony over Asia – a region of the planet quite literally an ocean away from Washington.In Reuters’ article, “U.S. flexes muscles as Asia worries about South China ...
Louis XVI needed a revolution, Napoleon needed two historic military defeats, the Spanish Empire in the New World needed multiple revolutions, the Russian Czar needed a communist revolution, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires needed World War I, Nazi Germany needed World War II, Imperial Japan needed two atomic bombs, the Portuguese Empire in Africa needed a military coup at home, the Soviet Empire needed Mikhail Gorbachev … What will the American Empire need?I don’t believe anyone will consciously launch World War III. The situation now is more like the eve of World War I, when great powers were armed and ...
When most people think of Sweden, they think of IKEA furniture, depressing murder mysteries and a foreign policy of strict neutrality.Yet 400 years ago, Sweden was a major military power. Indeed, it was even an empire, a fact that must make today's Swedish leftists cringe.Under young King Gustavus Adolphus, a brilliant and innovative military commander, Sweden in the early 1600s became a sort of Nordic Israel (which must also make Swedish leftists cringe). Sweden was a poor, thinly populated nation that couldn't match the resources of larger rivals such as France and Russia.So, Gustavus Adolphus had to devise a more flexible, mobile ...
Andrew Bacevich has written a series of books on the topic of U.S. imperialism and U.S. military power. His latest work, America’s War for the Greater Middle East [the GME War] is the latest in this series and as with the previous works is clearly written and logically presented. It covers more narrowly than the previous works the military aspects of U.S. military endeavours in the Middle East (greater – as in including East Africa and Afghanistan et al). Generally he succeeds well and this work is a good ‘primer’ for anyone interested in a quick historical overview of U.S. ...
Turkish-US relations have faced many serious stress tests over the past 50 years. The catalyst in overcoming those crises was making strategic considerations, which always underlined the dependence of the two NATO allies on each other, regardless of their differences.These strategic considerations appear to be weakening now, as the regional priorities of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey and the United States no longer overlap, and in many cases conflict with each other.That is certainly the case in Syria, where the two countries are at odds over Washington’s alliance with Syrian Kurdish groups against the Islamic State (IS). Ankara insists these groups are ...
In an interview for the German news magazine Zuerst! (April 2015) Srdja Trifkovic considers the significance of Otto von Bismarck’s legacy, 200 years after his birth.Dr. Trifkovic, how would Bismarck react if he could see today’s map of Europe?Trifkovic: He would be initially shocked that the German eastern border now runs along the Oder and Neisse rivers. Otto von Bismarck was a true Prussian. In his view, cities such as Königsberg, Danzig or Breslau were more properly “German” than those in the Rhineland. His first impression therefore would be that Germany has “shifted” to the West, and that an important social and ...
IntroductionToday it is quite obvious that the Western-backed process of creation of a Greater Albania is not any propaganda myth but rather visible reality. South Serbia’s province of Kosovo-Metochia is already, de facto, part of “united” Albania from June 1999 and current political situation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is surely going to the direction of the separation of North-West Macedonia mainly populated by Albanians who succeeded with the crucial Western support to promulgate a new language law in Macedonia’s Parliament according to which, the Albanian language is going to be a second state language (i. e., together ...
What constitutes water can be scientifically proven beyond any doubt, now what constitutes a nation-state is a far more organic question than it would seem. Each of us is very used to seeing maps with the same countries and lines on it throughout the years and take their existence as a given. But depending on where a map comes from its borders may actually look very different. One of these countries to some and non-countries to others is Kosovo which gradually continues to lose the support of the states that recognized it into existence. Furthermore, this sheds light on how ...
In 2015 Bill Gates gave a talk titled “We’re Not Ready for the Next Epidemic” in which, in a remarkable exhibition of understated and uncannily accurate prescience, he reflected on the outbreak of Ebola virus and forecast worse to come. This amazing man told us that “As awful as this epidemic has been, the next one could be much worse. The world is simply not prepared to deal with a disease — an especially virulent flu, for example — that infects large numbers of people very quickly. Of all the things that could kill 10 million people or more, by ...
On Friday, October 5th, the U.S. Secretary of State – John Kerry calls for war crimes investigation of Russia’s and Assad governments for the destruction of the Syrian city of Aleppo. The western corporate mass media was a very quick, like, for instance, The New York Times, immediately and clearly to accuse the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of alleged war crimes in Syria – the same cliché used by the same propaganda machinery against the Serbs (Srebrenica case from 1995 or Kosovo War from 1999) during the bloody destruction of ex-Yugoslavia (by the U.S. ...
First of all, taking into consideration the particular region of the Balkans in the context of Russia's national interests, we should consult official documents reflecting the wishes and intentions of the government. It is therefore necessary to consider Russia’s foreign policy doctrine.Foreign policy strategyThe Russian Federation's previous foreign policy doctrine was made public on July 15th, 2008.Russian objectives were marked as the following:- Impacting global processes in order to establish a just and democratic world order based on collective principles in solving international problems and on the rule of international law, primarily the UN Charter provisions as well as equal ...