Geopolitics introduction and basic concepts

GEOPOLITICS
International relations from a
geographical perspective

State
 a state is an independent country (though the
term indicates a part of a country in common
speech)
 an independent country is afforded
sovereignty by international laws,
agreements, and precedents
 internationally recognized boundaries
 states supply public goods (like roads and
education), regulate economic relations, seek
legitimacy in the eyes of citizens and others,
and direct relations with other states

The power of the state
resides in state authorities
 "L'état, c'est moi!" (I am the State!)
 Louis XIV
 There is only one way to construct such a Common Power as
may be able to defend people from the invasion of foreigners
and interpersonal conflict—one way to ensure that
industriousness and resources are sufficient for a contented life.
That is to confer all their power and strength upon one Man or
Assembly of men that reduces many wills to one will; people
must appoint one man or an Assembly of men to bear their
Person. Every one must then acknowledge himself to be the
source of the acts of the chosen leader who acts in support of
the common peace and safety, and everyone must submit his or
her will to the will of the leader and his or her judgment to the
judgment of the leader.
 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan 1651 (paraphrase by P. Adams)

nation
 a nation is a group of people with a claim to a shared
past, common culture, and collective destiny
 some nations are virtually coextensive with states, forming
nation-states (e.g. Japan, Sweden, Mongolia)
 some nations are struggling for autonomy/sovereignty and
may lie entirely within a state (Quebec's situation in Canada)
or across state borders (Kurdistan's situation in Iraq, Iran,
Turkey, Syria region)
 Nationalism
 the passionate defense of national interests, either in a
nation-state framework (where it is also called patriotism) or
outside of such framework (where it is called by various
names such as treason and terrorism, and usually
suppressed violently)

Enclave
 a "hole" in a political territory created by a
sovereign or semi-sovereign entity (like a
state, tribal homeland, or Indian reservation)
or by a fragment of a foreign country (like the
U.S. enclave at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba)
 a district, province, region, town, etc. in a
state that aligns itself politically with a foreign
state, usually an adjacent one

Enclaves
Lesotho and The Gambia

Exclave
 a bit of a state that is separated from
the rest of the state, such as Alaska (a
U.S. exclave) and Kaliningrad (a Russian
exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland
on the Baltic Sea)

Exclaves
Kaliningrad
Exclave of Russia

Can you spot
any potential
problems here?
Hint:
discontinuities in
formal culture
regions often
cause political
problems

Enclave + Exclave = Trouble
 Two small countries in the Caucasus
 Mutually hostile despite 10 year ceasefire
 Armenia has an ethnically Armenian (Indo-
European) Christian population
 Azerbaijan has a Turkic Muslim population
 Nagorno-Karabagh region of Azerbaijan is an
enclave, populated by Armenians
 Currently held by Armenian military
 Turkey is imposing an economic blockade on
Armenia to try to force it to give up N-K
 A bit of history:
 1915-1923 Turkey committed genocide in
Armenia—killed 1.5 million Armenians, tried to
conquer Armenian territory
 Turkey denies any wrongdoing
 Problems between Armenia & Azerbaijan began
under Stalin when Nagorno-Karabagh was
included in the Baku Province (which essentially
had the borders of Azerbaijan)
 What general perspective can explain each
country’s position?

What’s bigger than a state?
 Empire
 Multi-state & multiethnic political entity
 Created & sustained by force
 Empires
 Roman Empire
 Holy Roman Empire
 Thirty Years War was a religious war in
Europe
 Both ended with the Peace of Westphalia
(1648)
 Westphalian system: state is the highest
entity (not religious affiliation); applied to
Europe after this point, and to world in
1960s, ’70s and ‘80s
 Ottoman Empire
 Outside Westphalian system until after WWI
 British Empire
 Colonized areas outside Europe then granted
independence to most of these between late
1700s and mid 20th c.
 Imperialism/colonialism
 European & American
dominance of poor countries
 Military & political control
 Economic exploitation
 Hegemonic Domain
 Cultural and economic
dominance without overt use
of force
 Current US-dominated world
system
 Cold-war marked US rise to
position of global power
 Supranational Organizations
and International Alliances
 EU
 NAFTA
 CIS
 Etc.

Supranational political organizations
 Organizations of states based on any form of
cooperation or coordination
 some are the vestiges of collapsed empires (CIS)
 Some are primarily military (NATO)
 Some are primarily economic (OPEC)
 Some are technological (European Space Agency)
 All imply some compromise of sovereignty,
except possibly for the U.S., which is able to
“participate” without giving up sovereignty

Regional Organizations
Worldwide
Source: Wikipedia

Supranational Entities in Eurasia

CONFIRMATION OF CORE-DOMAIN MODEL

Terms to enhance discussion
of geopolitical discourses
 Geopolitical codes
 Particular constructions of “us” and “them”
 E.g. Evil Empire, hyperpower, failed state, a people in exile, God’s chosen people,
members of a protectorate, etc.
 Particular constructions of space, place, and time
 E.g. manifest destiny, mission civilisatrice, “a land without people for a people
without land,” the march of progress, lebensraum, etc.
 Narrative appeals
 The moral of a geopolitical tale
 Tragic, comic, romantic or ironic in nature
 E.g. “once again we’ve been ripped off” (tragic), “once again we’ve been
obligated to save the world” (romantic), “once again our ties to [insert state
name] have benefited us,” etc.
 All such appeals are constructions rather than facts
 Omissions
 Very little can be said in a news article
 What facts or conditions were left out of the story and how might they have
interfered with the geopolitical codes and narrative appeals in the story?

The driving question
 Q. What is geography good for?
 A. Defense and conquest.
 This, at least, is the oldest and most common answer to the
question!
 geography was important to the Roman Empire, the Chinese
Dynasties, the British Empire, & the expanding U.S. (19th c.)
 “Realist” approach to foreign policy
 based on assumption that world is governed by force rather
than cooperation
 Appropriate foreign policies either subdue other countries or
contain them
 Alternative, “Kantian” approach is based on assumption that
power politics do not provide lasting solutions and states
must cooperate

Uses of geographical info.
 settlement (planting colonists and
resisting "the natives")
 contesting claims of other potential
colonizers
 waging war (against "natives" and other
colonizers)
 justifying the struggle for regional or
global domination

H. Mackinder’s "heartland"
theory (1904)

Consider these questions:
 What is the capital of Tanzania?
 What is the major export of Sri Lanka?
 On what battlefield did the British win
control of Canada?
 Q. What do these questions have in
common?
 A. They are questions that lend
themselves to geography-as-statecraft

Consider these questions:
 Which of the following is produced by
asking questions like these?
 understanding of foreign places
 understanding of foreign people and
cultures
 understanding of how historical changes
affect people
 understanding of globalization
 none of the above

 Geographers still find employment working
for various branches of the military
 However, now many are struggling to
redefine geopolitics through specializations
such as:
 critical geopolitics
 political ecology
 cultural ecology
 conflict and peace studies

Why don’t “they” like us?

Why don’t they like us?
1. US Power
2. US Influence
3. Different values
4. Personal experiences
5. History
6. Pollution
7. Unilateralism

US Power
 The U.S. is the richest, most powerful
country in the world
 when people are unhappy they point the
finger at us first
 this is particularly easy when:
 The U.S. backs oppressive governments
 Someone steps on a landmine left by U.S. forces
or is accidentally killed by Americans
 Someone loses a factory job because of U.S.
trade policies

US Influence
 Not everyone wants to live the
American dream
 The U.S. influences life in other
countries in ways that are disruptive
of local values and traditional ways of
life
 Should we expect people to appreciate
their losses as well as their gains?

History
 The U.S. is the only country in the world that has used nuclear
weapons to kill people
 Hiroshima & Nagasaki, 1945, 100,000 fatalities
 The US has used weapons of mass destruction on civilian
populations
 Other casualties since WWII
 400,000 children died in Iraq as a result of the first Gulf War (UN
estimate)
 about 3,767 civilians in Afghanistan (769 more than the final Sept.
11 body count, and proportionately a much higher segment of the
population)
 Millions of civilians killed or deprived of their rights in developing
countries with US knowledge and consent
 1,000,000 died in a brutal war in Angola in which we supported Jonas
Savimbi
 200,000 civilians were killed in East Timor (Indonesia) after Ford &
Kissinger gave Suharto the OK
 Tens of thousands of civilians killed in Guatemalan civil war, most by the
US-backed Rios Montt government

History
 The U.S. has supported various dictatorial regimes in other countries
since WWII (collectively responsible for suppressing political dissent,
killing millions of civilians, and running corrupt regimes)
 "Baby Doc" Duvalier
 Marcos
 Somoza
 Pinochet
 Suharto
 Hussein
 Musharaf
 US continued to maintain friendly relations with Argentina during its
"dirty war" although the Argentine government was using torture
and "disappearances" to suppress political dissent
 Abu Graib abuses
 Unfortunately there is plenty of evidence to string together a solid
anti-American case if one is so inclined!

US Unilateralism
 The U.S. (Republican Congress and Bush administration) currently
opposes virtually all global agreements and treaties:
 treaty on small arms trade (UN estimates there have been about 4,000,000
small arms casualties since 1990) [allies: Latin American and African countries]
[domestic pressure from NRA, $10 billion arms export industry]
 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women [domestic pressure Population Research Institute (pro-life)] [debate
blocked by Sen. Jesse Helms] [already ratified by 168 countries]
 Kyoto protocol on global warming [70 countries have ratified, including all EU
countries] [domestic pressure from Competitive Enterprise Institute and other pro-
business lobbies]
 Anti-ballistic missile treaty
 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [allies: the Vatican, Iran, Iraq, other
Islamic countries] [domestic pressure Sen. Jesse Helms, Christian Coalition, Family
Research Council, Focus on the Family, the John Birch Society, and others]
 Treaty to ban landmines
 Rome Treaty creating International Criminal Court US finally gave in but
displayed strong discomfort, then worked behind the scenes to win exemptions
country by country
 U.S. policy of a "preemptive strike" (the privilege to prevent a country from
attacking by attacking it first) is clearly not meant as a policy for any other country
to follow; it is a special right reserved only for the U.S.

Summary
 Nations and states are different things, and often coexist
uneasily
 Political tension is common around an enclave or exclave,
particularly if the population is culturally similar to the majority
in a neighboring state
 Geopolitics is the study of power relations between states for
nationalistic (patriotic) or scholarly purposes (the latter being
critical of the former)
 Geopolitics now involves the effort to understand diverse
elements of other cultures as these shape and interact with
political elements at the nation and state level
 Transnational political entities are growing in number and
importance
 The reasons “they” don’t like us are varied and complex, not
simply a matter of “them” being evil!

Geopolitics introduction and basic concepts

More Related Content

Similar to Geopolitics introduction and basic concepts (14)

More from francois5689 (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Geopolitics introduction and basic concepts