This module explores the origins of the geopolitical tradition, introducing the key

traditional concepts and definitions and their relations to international relations

studies. The essential formulations and theories developed by the scholarship
working in these traditions will provide an overview of how different factors
combine to constitute the realm of international politics.

Key Concepts
Explain the origins of geopolitics
Memorize the key concepts and distinctions in classical geopolitical study
Evaluate how geopolitics may be distinguished from international relations

1. The origins of geopolitics

Despite the fact that geopolitical approach emerged not so long ago the influence of
geography on politics and international relations in the previous historical periods cannot be
denied. Even in the ancient times tribes and nations did their best to settle in the most secure
places, surrounded by mountains, rivers or some other natural barriers. And also near rivers or
on the seashores to have access to resources and to trade opportunities. Then, why did
geopolitics emerge in the end of the 19th century within academic community, not before? We
can find the answer to this question in the term geopolitics. Let's divide this term into its
components and look at them. Everything seems rather clear with the part politics. It tells us
about struggle for power and dominance over others for supremacy over the other countries.
When we are speaking about the term Geo, it usually includes two meanings. On the one hand,
geo means geographic factors that determine the struggle for power, the whole political
process. On the other hand, in latent geo means Earth, which clearly tells us the place where
the struggle for power and supremacy happens, which is the global arena. In this moment we
can see that emergence of geopolitics is connected with two important processes. The first was
the age of discoveries.
The voyages of Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan and many other Europeans
in the 15th 16th, and the 17th centuries broadened the worldview of many Europeans. Each
allowed the European great powers and their leaders to think globally and to go far beyond
their state borders in their foreign policy planning. Second was the rise of geography as
academic discipline. Discoveries of new lands predetermined request for geographical
knowledge about these lands, these territories, and people who live there. Geography could
provide such knowledge and thus it became an effective tool to tell the truth about the nature of
and social environment of the surrounding world. Now, let's look in detail at the term politics
in geopolitics. The age of discoveries was a turning point in the human history. It opened the
doors for colonization. The European countries that discovered new territories abroad decided
to colonize them to establish control over them. This is how the global quest for resources and
territory studied. Colonization also contributed strongly to division of the world into us and
them. In the previous centuries this division was driven mainly by ethnical and religious
diversity and controversies. Then the new racial dimension was added. As the European
countries that conquered new lands in the Americas and later in Africa and in Asia, did not
consider local societies and local types of governance as equals. This feeling of European
Supremacy caused a phenomena that was called social Darwinism. By the name of the theory
of Charles Darwin, according to which only the fittest species can survive. The Europeans
considered themselves such supreme species. They believed that they should conquer the
whole world, that they should govern the whole world, and that they should take care of the
Nations that were not so advanced. Later, famous writer and statement Rudyard Kipling
defined this phenomena as The White Man's Burden. Another contribution to political
competition between states at the global level was made by the Malthusian theory that was
formulated by Thomas Malthus in his essay on the principle of population. Malthus 1798
believed that technological innovations lead to growth of population and to grow in demand for
resources. According to his theory the growth of population is higher and faster than the
growth of produced resources. And this may lead to hunger, to diseases, and to death. Many
European scholars, scientists and statesmen believed that conquering of new territories abroad
can allow them to overcome this Malthusian trap and to gain new additional resources. Finally,
in the 19th century, in the Age of Industrialization, the process of colonization got one more
incentive. In many cases control over foreign territory also meant control over people who
lived in this territory and over its market. It was very important for the European countries,
who in the 19th century started to produce more and more products. Thus, colonialism has
moved to the next level that was called imperialism, which meant not only extraction of
resources but also creating favorable conditions in the colonies for the national companies of
the Metropole. Ultimately the emergence of geopolitics was predetermined by political practice
during the 16th, 19th centuries. On the one hand, it was the time of rising geopolitical
competition between the great powers of Europe, the time of their struggle for resources and
territories. On the other hand in this period the age of discoveries happened, and this age of
discoveries created a request for geographical knowledge. Thus, geographers became more
important and influential in any European Empire.

2. Geographers "invent" geopolitics

Since geopolitics is about global world view and involves global political planning, its
theoretical foundations were grounded by scholars who lived in the world's most powerful
states. Historically, it took place in Germany. On the one hand, by the end of the 19th century,
Germany had become one of the most powerful European states. On the other hand, to
compare with Great Britain and France, Germany lacked colonies so important for its further
development. Before the term geopolitics was widely used in academic and political spheres of
the European Empires, another term was introduced by the German geographer Friedrich
Ratzel in 1897. It was politische geographie or political geography, the main difference
between political geography and geopolitics is the following. Political geography deals mainly
with domestic processes in a state, deals with how geographic factors influence political
development over certain political entity. Geopolitics, as we discussed previously, involves
global planning, global worldview. It looks more outside the state, it discusses international
competition, global competition and what's these should do, how state should act within this
competition. So it was logical that geographers first look at factors that determined political
development of a certain state. For Friedrich Ratzel, there were two such factors or variables
that mattered.
First, raum or space or the area occupied by state, and second lage or position of a
country. He combined these two factors to constituent the fundamental law according to which,
as Friedrich Ratzel believed, all states act, the search for Lebensraum or the search for living
space. As we see, Friedrich Ratzel, who is considered to be a founding father of political
geography, also made a big contribution to geopolitics. From all his laws we can conclude that
it is not enough for the state to use only its domestic resources. If state wants to grow, if it
wants to be successful in the international arena, it should inevitably look outside in search for
better conditions. The main influence from all Ratzel's laws was that the territory of a state is
no definite area fixed for all times. Ratzel believed that state was a living organism that always
changed. And when the growth of the population occurred, the state could outgrow its own
boundaries and therefore require more territory and more resources. That could cause
competition and conflicts for resources and territories with the other countries. Though
Friederich Ratzel came extremely close to the invention of the term geopolitics, it was first
used by a Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen in 1899. Rudolf Kjellen considered
geopolitics or how he called it, geopolitik, one of the five dimensions of political science.
According to Kjellen, geopolitics was the objective universal law of a spatial nature that
determined the states foreign policy and security. To compare with Ratzel, Kjellen's natural
laws were with less emphasis upon the organic features of territorial expansion and
colonization and more upon the position or location of the state. To sum up, geopolitics as an
academic approach to study international relations emerged in the end of the 19th century
together with political geography. And the two scientists that contributed to the emergence
were Friedrich Ratzel and Rudolf Kjellen. On the one hand, geopolitics tried to explain the
disparity in natural conditions among states and to tell which of these conditions can contribute
to the state's strength. On the other hand, due to high value of geopolitical studies, the whole
field of geopolitics was becoming more and more essential for foreign policy decision-making.
To prove that, let's remember the famous phrase of Lord Palmerston that nations have no
permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. Geopolitics was ready to help
statesmen to determine their country's national interests and to become a complex scientific
background for global political planning.

3.Geopolitics and national interests

In the United States, the geo-political attitude to the surrounding world came before the
term geopolitics did. It started in the beginning of the 19th century with the Monroe Doctrine.
According to this Doctrine the United States declared, or manifested, the so-called strategy of
isolationism. They tried to prevent any interference of the European countries into relations
between the American states. In other words, they tried to make the Americas a safe place for
the United States. On the other hand, it should be mentioned that this strategy wasn't aimed at
putting the United States into isolation from the rest of the world. To some extent, it was rather
anti-European while the United States continued to develop their relations and cooperation
with the countries outside Europe and outside the Americas. We can give the examples of
activity of, let's say, the United States in, let's say, China, and trade agreements with China.
And also, the activity of Commodore Perry, who made Japan to open its trade for the United
States. In the second half of the 20th century, many politicians and scientists started to rethink
the American foreign policy strategy. They believed that United States should be more active.
And Alfred Mahan, in his book The Influence of Sea Power on History, proposed such a sea
power as an instrument to strengthen the United States and to spread its influence. He believed
that sea power was superior to the land power, which actually distincted him from many
geopoliticians in the Continental Europe. He agreed that Russia, which was by that time the
main Eurasian continental power, had certain advantages. But according to Mahan, it was a
landlocked country, and lacked access to the sea, which made the United States, the location of
the United States, its position, much more favorable. While the European theorists paid too
much attention to certain points on land, Mahan, who proposed sea power as the main power,
put the United States in the center of the world, and showed the importance, not of control over
certain land points, but of control over the main trade routes which could guarantee economic
benefits to the United States. Mahan named several advantages of the United States. First of
all, in contrast to many Eurasian land powers, it was an insular state, which meant that it could
trade and have relations with different parts of the world. Second, its geographic position. In
the previous map, we have seen that it was right in the center of the world, being able to treat
with both Asia and Continental Europe. Third, it had an ability to control certain bodies of
water, which was important for economic and military reasons, and that made the United States
to build a strong fleet in order not to control but also to maintain their superiority in the see.
The political result of the American geopolitical thinking in the early 20th century was the so-
called Roosevelt Corollary. On the one hand, we can say that it was a continuation of the
Monroe Doctrine, meaning that it was still aimed at preventing any interference of the
European powers into relations of the American countries. On the other hand, the Roosevelt
Corollary was a continuation of Alfred Mahan's geopolitical thinking. Despite the fact it was
ideologically oriented on preventing return of European imperialism to the American
continents, strategically, it was the instruction of how to use the sea power, the American naval
fleet, in order to guarantee the American superiority, meaning superiority of the United States
in the whole American region. Japan was another good example of geopolitical attitude to the
outside world concentrated on sea power dominance. Like in the United States, a geopolitical
worldview emerged here before the term geopolitics came to this country. In 1853, when Japan
opened itself to the world after several centuries of self-imposed isolation, it found itself a little
bit vulnerable, meaning that it was an insular state. However, it lacked resources and it needed
these resources and to take these resources from the other countries from the other parts of the
world, and to control the surrounding territories in order to guarantee its security.
The second argument here is that many Japanese generals and politicians had a chance to
read the Mahan's book, and they were also inspired by many of his thoughts and by the sea
power geopolitics, or sea power foreign policy strategy that he proposed to the United States.
In addition, Japan was very inspired by the experience of the European powers and also tried to
build the so-called Japanese empire. And it believed that to repeat the European experience, it
should possess colonies, it should control the surrounding territories in the region. As a result
of such a geopolitical attitude to the surrounding world, in early 20th century, the so-called
doctrine of kantai kessen appeared in Japan. It was about the naval fleet decisive battle, and
proposed the building of strong fleet in order to make Japan a strong regional player. On this
map, we can see the history of Japanese expansion in late '90s and first half of the 20th century
when Japanese government controlled huge territories in East and Southeast Asia with the help
of this naval fleet. Now, let's go further and speak about the Russian Empire. To compare with
Japan and the United States, the Russian Empire had a very distinct sort of geopolitical
thinking. In the 15th and in the 19th centuries, this country was under permanent risk of
foreign invasion from both West and East. As a result, it tried to move its boarders further in
order to make its capital and main cities more secure. We can see in the map the experience of
the Russian foreign policy and the strong expansion of its territory when it started to cover the
whole north of the Eurasian continent. So on the one hand, the geopolitical side of its foreign
policy was about making the core of the country a more secure and safe place. On the other
hand, the Russian geopolitical thinking did not have well-developed concepts. For example,
like it was and it's natural geopolitics, or like it was in Mahan's sea power in the United States.
Instead, the roots of contemporary Russian geopolitical thinking and geopolitical approaches
can be found in the second half of the 19th century in the ideas of anti-Westernism and
civilizational uniqueness proposed by one of the prominent figures in Russian philosophy,
Nikolai Danilevsky. And later, developed in the ideas of Eurasianism. Ultimately, with all
these ideas, including the civilizational approach, the security issues, and search for new
resources, Russia could be called clearly land power, that considered land power as the main
force and the main instrument to spread its influence. After we have discussed several
approaches to the foreign policy in different parts of the world, we can agree that geopolitics
was one of the oldest approaches to international relations. It emerged in different countries of
the world even before the very term geopolitics appeared, and it was from the very beginning
very linked with foreign policy of the country and country's national interest. And one more
distinctive feature of geopolitics was that in different countries of the world, it was
concentrated either on land power superiority or the sea power superiority which contributed to
different geopolitical strategies of different countries in different parts of the world.

4.Sea power vs land power

Different countries concentrated on different instruments of geopolitical superiority.
Some countries believed that it was land power that could guarantee them their supremacy, the
others believed that the main source of power was the sea power. In the history of the second
half of the 19th century, we can find a very good example of struggle between such land power
and sea power. The land power was the Russian empire that spread its territory in Central Asia,
the sea power was the British empire that controlled India and tried to secure its control over
this territory. Both of these countries competed in the region of Central Asia. This fact
contributed significantly to the emergence of the Siri that combined the competition between
the land and the sea power. The theory proposed by the British scientist Halford Mackinder.
Halford Mackinder was a very prominent figure in the British science and politics. He wasn't
just a geographer, he also was a policy adviser, he consulted many politicians, he traveled a lot
across the globe. As a result, he believed that the ruling Citizens of Great Britain should be
able to visualize distant geographical condition in order to spread the influence of their own
country. To do this, he developed geopolitical theory to describe some loss of competition
between different states in the world. Despite the fact that Mackinder himself did not use the
term geopolitics, it is actually him who contributed maybe mostly to the further development
of the whole discipline. Mackinder's geopolitical theory was grounded on several assumptions
that described the development of human history. He divided the human history into three main
periods, pre-Colombian, Colombian, and post-Colombian. In the pre-Columbian period, the
main dominant drama was Asiatic invasions of Europe. Then it was European overseas
expansionist. Finally, Mackinder lived in the post-Colombian age, which he described as the
age of closed space and the struggle for relative efficiency. There was no more new territories
to be discovered, and thus states entered the competition for control over these territories,
resources, positions, location, and so on. Mackinder tried to find a link between the dominant
drama or the historical period and the dominant mobility of power, which also contributed to
development of international relations. In the pre-Columbian age, the dominant power was
horse and camel, which describe the superiority of the land power. The Colombian age was
dominated by sailing vessels and sea transportation which was much more about the sea power.
In the post Colombian age, Mackinder believed that the main dominant mobility of power was
to become railways. He believed that railways were more important for trade than the sea
vessels, because if you want to transport a product from point A to point B, if you use a sea
vessel, you'll first need to bring it to the sea then to put it on a ship then to travel by ship, then
to put it again on a train, and finally, to reach the destination. If you have railways, you can just
start your journey from point A to point B, and to save a lot of time. As Mackinder said, ''A
generation ago, steam and the Suez Canal appeared to have increased the mobility of sea power
relatively to land power. Railways acted chiefly as feeders to ocean-going commerce.'' He
believed that transcontinental railways were transmuting the conditions of land power, and
nowhere it was such effect as in the closed heartland of Euro-Asia. If we come back to the
story of agreed game or competition between the Russian Empire and the British Empire, we
can find that to certain extent, Halford Mackinder was afraid of not only railways as an abstract
phenomena but also building of railways in the Russian Empire which was the main competitor
of the British Empire. Halford Mackinder was afraid that development of railways could make
the Russian Empire stronger and a stronger competitor to Great Britain in the Euro-Asian
continent. Finally, Halford Mackinder pointed that in the pre-Columbian epoch, it was land
power that dominated the Asian steppers. The issue was the main concentration of international
politics. In the Colombian age, it was the sea power of the European colonial empires that
made them superior over the other political entities. Finally, in post-Colombian epoch,Halford
Mackinder believe the land power to be the strongest and superior over the sea power,
especially when he spoke about the part of Euro-Asia which he called the Heartland. Before we
describe Heartland, let's say a couple of words about the map of the world drawn in accordance
with the Mackinder's geopolitical theory. In the middle of this map, there is the so-called
World-Island, the massive piece of land that combined Europe, Asia, and Africa. It was right in
the center of the map, and they all surrounding territories of the islands, as Mackinder called
them, we're not of high interest to him. Why? Because the main concentration of people or
peoples of resources, of power was in the World-Island. In the middle of this World-Island was
the so-called Heartland, a piece of territory which included the central and northern Asia
isolated from any possibility of interference from the sea. If we look at the physical geographic
map, we can see numerous geographic objects that separate Heartland from the rest of the
World-Island and thus make this place a secure one. For example, mountains or deserts, it is on
the one hand. On the other hand, being located in the very center of the World-Island, it allows
the country that controls this territory to attack in any direction. So according to Halford
Mackinder, Heartland was located in a very secure position. It could allow to a state that
control this territory to build a powerful army or a powerful fleet with the help of resources
located in this territory, and in order to bring these resources to let's say the sea shore in order
to build a strong fleet, railways could contribute significantly. Railways could connect different
parts of this Heartland in order to make its power more mobile and even bigger. Heartland was
a territory right in the middle of the World-Island. Halford Mackinder believed that this
territory possessed a strategic and very secure location. On the one hand, it was separated from
the rest of the World-Island with deserts, or mountains, or in the Arctic region with the ice,
making this territory a safe place and preventing any possibility of invasion here from abroad,
especially from any sea power. On the other hand, there were certain resources in Heartland
itself, and Halford Mackinder believed that with the help of railways, with building new
railways, any country that controls Heartland could connect different parts of it in order to
build a strong army or even a strong fleet. Finally, being located in the very center of the
World-Island, and in a very safe place and having a big power, the state that controls Heartland
could attack any state in any direction. In 1919, Halford Mackinder made a little addendum to
his theory, and he called the Eastern Europe a key to Heartland. This region geographically
was the only that did not separate Heartland from the rest of the world. As a result, Halford
Mackinder created the following formula. Who rules Eastern Europe commands in the
Heartland, meaning that if any state can control Eastern Europe or the gates to Heartland, it can
control the whole Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands World-Island, meaning that
any country that controls Heartland could attack in any direction, could invade any state in the
World-Island, and finally would inevitably conquer the whole World-Island. Thus who rules
World-Island commands the world, because the World-Island was the main piece of land that
possess the main resources, the people resources, the natural resources, and any country that
controls the World-Island would inevitably become the most powerful in the whole world. The
legacy of Mackinder's theory and his personal contribution to the development of geopolitical
approach is widely recognized and is not questioned. Even though Mackinder himself did not
use the term geopolitics, and according to his many [inaudible] did not like it. Today we can
find some disadvantages or drawbacks of his theory. For example, he missed the revolutionary
implications of air power, or he underestimated the emergence of the United States as a global
power and perhaps overestimated the role of Heartland. But still his theory was very innovative
in the beginning of the 20th century, which made geopolitics very equal to the term
international relations. We can point three main contributions of Halford Mackinder to the
development of geopolitical approach, to the further development of geopolitical approach.
First, he considered geopolitics and geopolitical competition within the world system, within
the closed geopolitical space, which actually made geopolitics equal to international relations.
Secondly, he spoke about duality or dual nature of competition between states, meaning land
power versus the sea power. Finally, he said a lot about the changing role of technology, which
contributes to which sort of power is stronger or is dominating in contemporary geopolitical
conditions.

5. Geopolitics and war

Despite the fact the geopolitics emerged as a scientific approach, from the very beginning
it was aimed at explaining the nature of international relations. At finding some laws of
international relations and laws of competition between states. And thus very connected with
military conflicts and war between states. As we mentioned previously, by the end of the 19th
century there was no more free space in the world to conquer. And thus international relations
and competition between countries had become some sort of zerosum game. Meaning that if
you want to add some territories to your own country, you should take them from another
country. The First World War had many reasons, and we're not going to find the geopolitical
ones.
However, the First World War had certain geopolitical consequences that contributed to
the further development of geopolitical approaches of some European countries. That's why
let's just briefly remind what happened to the European empires. First the two European and
two Asian empires collapsed, meaning the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the
Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. In the place where these empires were located, new
sovereign states appeared. There were several reasons of why the First World War started, and
we're not going to look for the geopolitical ones. However, the First World War had certain
very important geopolitical consequences that contributed a lot to further development of
geopolitical approaches in various European countries. If before the first world war geopolitics
was considered during the process of foreign policy decision-making. After the First World
War in certain countries geopolitics became much closer to foreign policy-making. And to
some extent started to consult the politicians or the politicians started to use its theories to
justify the aggressive actions. First, let's very briefly remind what happened to the European
countries. First, we should mention that the two European empires and the two Asian empires
collapsed. The German Empire, the Austro-hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, and the
Ottoman Empire cease to exist. In the region of Eastern Europe many new small states
appeared. However, many of these new European countries were unstable, and Halford
Mackinder was worried that Germany and the Soviet Russia could spread their influence in the
region. That is why he suggested to construct an effective security system for Eastern Europe
and to make a strategic buffer of independent states between Germany and Soviet Russia. And
thus to limit geographical access of both Germany and Soviet Russia to this region.
Geopolitically, it was aimed at limiting power of Germany and the Soviet Russia. However, the
triumphant states, Great Britain, France and the United States President Woodrow Wilson did
not consider all these geopolitical factors. Instead they proposed the so-called liberal approach
to international relations. They believed that the only way to avoid any further conflict is to get
rid of secret diplomacy and to establish the common security system for the whole European
region.
There was a romantic idea that these steps would allow the European countries to avoid
any future conflicts. The fact that this idea did not work is usually associated with the
personality of the German geopolitical thinker Karl Haushofer. Karl Haushofer, a geographer
and retired general, saw geopolitics as a solution to many of the Germans post-war difficulties.
In this map we can see that as a result of the First World War, the territory of German
shortened. It lost many of its territorial possessions, and different parts of the country were
even divided. Karl Haushofer was to some extent a follower of the ideas of Friedrich Ratzel,
meaning that he tried to continue his traditions of geopolitic. In his book Why Geopolitik?,
Haushofer claimed that the reason Germany lost World War I was because its leaders did not
study geopolitics. As he said, geopolitik is one of the most powerful weapons in the struggle
for a more just distribution of vital spaces of the earth. Thus Karl Haushofer tried to use
geopolitics based on traditions of Friedrich Ratzel and Halford Mackinder. And to give certain
suggestions to the German politicians of how to overcome the post First World War
difficulties. It is hard to find the certain moment when the transition from Househofer's
geopolitik to the Nazi geopolitics happened. Maybe we can start with friendship between Karl
Haushofer and Rudolf Hess who was Adolf Hitler's deputy. Via Hess, Karl Haushofer even
met Adolf Hitler in 1923 and had a chance to share some of his ideas. Including the idea of
Lebensraum, the concept which was first developed by Drew drechsel. Since nations were
competitive organic entities, according to the Ratzel's theory, that gain their power from the
soil, the German nation that lacked this territory and resources could begin pursuing
Lebensraum or else face decay and further decline. As long as nations were competitive
organic entities, according to the Ratzel's theory, that gain their power from the soil, there were
two ways for the Germany to continuous history. The first one to pursue its Lebensraum or else
to face decay and further decline. Despite the fact that Nazi geopolitics emerged from
Househofer's geopolitik, there were certain very important distinctions between these two
concepts. For example, Househofer's geopolitik advocated for economic collaboration between
Germany and the great open spaces of the Soviet Union. In contrast, Nazi geopolitic was
oriented on Eastern policy in the sense of acquiring the necessary soil for the German people.
Another distinction was that Househofer considered British Empire as the ultimate enemy of
Germany. For Adolf Hitler a crusade against the Soviet Union and the Jewish Bolshevism was
the main goal. For Karl Househofer, the Russo-German alliance of 1939 was aimed at enabling
Germany to be independent and self-sufficient. Fom the point of view of Adolf Hitler, this
could be achieved only through colonization of the east by the renewed German Empire. The
German race was to enslave the sub-human Slavs of the East, according to his book Mein
Kampf. It was also the opposite view on the ultimate determinant of national destiny.
For Househofer it was space, not race, while for Adolf Hitler race was in the first place.
Karl Househofer tried to defend the German geopolitics or geopolitik. He said that the
borderline was easily crossed between the pure science and practical science. And therefore it
happened that he occasionally overstepped those borders. He also said that all that was written
and printed after 1933 by himself was under pressure and should be judged accordingly.
 He also said that in the Third Reich in Germany in 1930s the party in power, the Nazi
party wrongly understood and wrongly used many of his geopolitical concepts. But in the end
it was this period in the history of development of geopolitical thought that it started to be
associated strongly with the aggressive policy, in this case of the Nazi Germany. And thus was
blamed by many other political scientists, thinkers, philosophers, and public in general. All the
know, there were three main attacks on geopolitics. First, it was blamed to be responsible for
war and aggression in the end of 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Second, it was
blamed for being not a pure science. Instead of proved causalities, geopolitics provided
justification of foreign policy, which was far from the real social sciences. Finally, there was a
very huge pressure on geopolitics from the other mainstream IR approaches. German
geopolitics was used to justify oppressive European colonial empires, ideas of white
supremacy. It was quite understandable that Karl Househofer, who was the author of many
German geopolitical theories is trying to defend something that he had created. However, the
things were done by the Nazi party and the Nazi geopolitics. And it was 1930s when
geopolitical thought started to be associated with war, with conflict, with aggressive behavior
of the German State. And that brought certain problems to the whole geopolitical approach.

6. The critics of geopolitics

In the first half of the 20th century, geopolitics had build under a strong critics that came
from several directions. First, as we have mentioned, geopolitics was accused for being very
close to foreign policy-making and for being very associated with war and conflict, like
responsible for war and aggression in the end of the 19th and in the first half of the 20th
century. Second, geopolitics was widely criticized by many scholars in the field of social
sciences for being not a pure science, instead of providing causalities geopolitics justified for
an impulse of certain stage which did not allowed to call it a pure science. Finally, there was a
very huge and growing pressure from the other mainstream IR approaches that emerged as IR
theories in the first half of the 20th century. So nearly in the same time when geopolitics
appeared under this critics. Those people who try to find connections between geopolitics, and
war, and aggression usually spoke about responsibility of geopolitics for oppressive European
colonial empires, like we gave examples of Japan previously, ideas of white supremacy, which
was also very connected with the European colonial expansion. Finally, with the Nazi
geopolitics. Even despite the fact that Haushofer did everything to defend his pure geopolitical
theories, many geopoliticians did not agree with his arguments. For example, the American
geopolitical Strausz-Hupe pointed that geopolitics is the master plan that tells what and why to
conquer. Guiding the military strategists alone the easiest path to conquest, and thus he
believed that the key to Hitler's global mind was German geopolitic. All in all, we can say that
geopolitics encouraged statesman to play guard with the world political map. Another critical
question was if geopolitics was a science or ideology. On the one hand, we can agree that there
were a lot of geopoliticians who produced very peculiar theoretical concepts in order to explain
this behavior. On the other hand, we have example of Karl Haushofer and German geopolitics,
meaning the Nazi geopolitics, which used many of Haushofer's theoretical assumptions to use
them in their foreign policy and to justify there aggressive foreign policy. So there were clear
examples of how geopolitics was used as a ideology in justification of foreign policy
aggression. Finally, a huge pressure came from the new international relations approaches that
appeared in the first half of the 20th century. As we remember by the end of the 19th century,
geopolitics as an IR approach concentrated on geographical factors. However, in the beginning
of the 20th century, international relations theories turned to social scientific approaches to
emphasize the power of human beings. The relationship between man and earth were called
inverted. It was man who had the power capable of molding the earth to his wishes or in other
words, as Isaac Bowman, a prominent geopolitician pointed, "The mind of man was still a
more important source of power than heartland or a dated theory about it." It was always man
that made his history. Ultimately, after all these critics, the very academic value of geopolitics
was compromised. By the middle of the 20th century, geopolitics could even disappear and
replaced by the new international relations theories. That is why geopoliticians and those who's
still believed in geopolitics had no other choice but to modernize this approach to prove that
geopolitics was still a science and a scientific instrument to explain the foreign policy rather
than to contribute to aggression of certain states or to ideology that justified this aggression
wars and conflict.

7. Geopolitics and international relations theories

Geopolitics from its very early years was aimed at explaining the nature of international
relations. Therefore, it wasn't a surprise that in 1920s and especially in 1930s, when geopolitics
was under big critics because of its political connections with the German fascism.
Alternative approaches from social sciences that explain the nature of international
relations started to criticize geopolitics. These two mainstream approaches that emerged within
social sciences were the well-known realism and liberalism. Their origins date back to the
years of Thomas Hobbes, which is considered to be the founder of the Realest School of
Thinking and John Locke, which is usually called as one of the founding fathers of the Liberal
School. However, in both these cases, these theories were focused on explaining domestic
politics. While only in the early 20th century, in 1920s, people started to use them to describe
and to explain the nature of international relations. There was a fundamental difference
between these two theories. Realism believed that international relations is a war of all against
all and that all states are egoistic entities, they think first of all, about their own interests. The
Liberal School had a little bit different understanding of international relations. According to
Liberals, international relations was a sphere for cooperation between states and cooperation as
behavior was much more rational than competition. Both these schools entered the academic
community in 1920s, pushed by certain political events. The liberal approach was inspired by
the 14 points of Woodrow Wilson, where the American president decided to create a new
system, a new type of international relations where all nations would live in peace. While the
realist approach began to be discussed more and more as long as many other scholars did not
believe in this liberal way of thinking and prefer to continue to describe the International Arena
as a of competition between the major nations. So in 1930s, late 1930s, early 1940s, geopolitics
should somehow transform itself in order to survive when it appeared on the grid critics. And
there were two paradigms, two alternative theories of international relations, liberalism, which
was much more about cooperation, collective security, international regimes. And realism,
which told about war of all against all, use such terms as power, security, self-help, to explain
the nature of international relations. Obviously, without saying geopolitics which was much
closer to the realist way of thinking and that's why in order to survive it or tried to stand even
closer to the Realist School or international relations. So how did realism influence geopolitics
after the second world war? The main change was about obviously explaining the nature of
international relations. According to traditional geopolitics, geography was a deterministic
factor in international relations. According to new geopolitics that emerged under the influence
of realism, geography became a condition and factor. According to one of the the most famous
and well-known geopolitician of the period after the second World War, Nicholas Spykman,
neither does the entire foreign policy of a country like in geography nor does any part of that
policy like entirely in geography. There were a lot of other factors that influence foreign policy
behavior of states apart from geographic, such as population density, the economic structure,
the ethnic composition of the people and many more. In other words, as Spykman underlined,
the geography of the country was rather the material for than the cause of its foreign policy.
Although Spykman represented a new generation of geopoliticians that were not so
deterministic about the geographic factors. He still believed that a good expert in international
relations should study geography and geopolitics. Because they're still were some factors that
contributed to foreign policy of states, like location, size, shape of the country, landscape
inside the country and in the region as a whole. So in other words, as he said, foreign policy
can modify some geographic facts, but it cannot ignore them, for geography does not argue, it
simply is. Nicholas Spykman studied different geographic factors that were supposed to
influence these foreign policy behavior. Location was one of them. Spykman believed that
there are two types of location that may influence these foreign policy. The world location,
with reference to land masses and oceans of the world as a whole. The world view that first
was introduced in geopolitics by Halford Mackinder. And regional location which refers to the
territory of other states. And both these factors influenced geopolitics of a particular country
from two different sites. And to continue to addition of the previous geopoliticians, Spykman
pointed that location is an internal factor that does not change, states continue to exist in the
place where they were once founded. But this significance of the world location, as of the
relative power, as well as location of their neighbors, the shape of the country, size of the
country, may change due to development of technologies of the ways communication that
contributes significantly to state's political geography and geopolitics. But definitely one of the
biggest contribution of Nicholas Spykman to geopolitics was the upgrade of Halford
Mackinder's theory. Let's very quickly remember this theory. According to health Halford
Mackinder, the whole world is divided into two parts. The World Island, which includes your
Eurasia, sometimes Africa, and the the outer space covered mainly by World Ocean. And the
main competition was between the continental power and the sea power. In the continent in the
World Island, the main area that attracted his attention was Heartland, located in Central
Eurasia and Northern Eurasia. According to Mackinder, it was potentially the strongest
territory, because on the one hand, it contained significant resources. On the other hand, it was
isolated from the rest of the world, and thus could be easily protected and secured by outer
threats. Spykman however, had a little bit different view on this issue. Spykman believed that
of course, Heartland was isolated from the rest of the world, it was true. But on the other hand,
it was the weak side of Heartland because it did not have access to international trade and
international communications as other states had, that were located across the coastline in
Europe, in the Middle East, in East and Southeast Asia. So Nicholas Spykman added one more
variable to this formula, a new region that he called Rimland. Rimland was the area that
surrounded Heartland, and according to Spykman, this area was even more significant, because
on the one hand, it was Rimland that contained the main resources. Not only material but also
human resources, labor resources. And finally, it was the area that determined the destiny of
Heartland, whether Heartland had access to the World Ocean and to international
communications or not. So Spykman tried to add to this theory of Heartland some ideas of
realism. That international relations were not only about competition between land power and
the sea power but much more about balance of powers between several states that could be
located in different parts of the world. In the Americas, in the Rimland, somewhere in Europe,
in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia and the Heartland, which he agreed was very significant
for international relations still. So finally, Spykman modified the main three rules of
Mackinder. According to Mackinder, who rules East Europe rules the Heartland because East
Europe with the region where Heartland could be penetrated and captured by the outer force.
Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island and who commands the World Islands
commands the whole world. According to Spykman, as long as Rimland was more important
than Heartland, who rules the Rimland rules Eurasia and who rules Eurasia controls the
destinies of the world. Only one additional thing should be mentioned here, is that besides the
fact that Rimland was something common and unified for Spykman, he did not try to say that it
could become a single country. There are different parts of Rimland and there could be
different combinations between great powers in the process of balancing each other. The first
years after the second World War was a period when not only realism influence geopolitics,
but also geopolitics influenced realism. Let's speak about one of the founding fathers of
political realism, Hans Morgenthau.
As representative of the Realist School of Thinking, he believe that international relations
are determined by power and balance of power. However, he still recognized significance of
geography and geographic factors in how powerful the state was and what was the distribution
of power in region or in the world. For example, in terms of nuclear power, he said that in
order to make a nuclear threat credible, a nation requires a territory large enough to disperse its
industrial and population centers as well as his nuclear installations. All in all, we can see the
geopolitics and realism became very close to each other after second World War. Both these
theories try to explain the same issues of international relations, but they focused on a little bit
different aspects of these issues. For both realism and geopolitics, competition between states
in international relations was inevitable. And both these theorists believe this, power was the
main instrument of this competition. However, while for realism, power which about amount
of power and how a particular state use this power against the other nations. For geopolitics
power, was about its geographic sources and about projection of power in particular places.
And finally, balance of power became a theory that unified both realism and geopolitics.

8. From traditional to classical geopolitics

The end of the Second World War, was a period of transition from traditional geopolitics
to the classical one. Before we move on and before we look deeper into classical geopolitics,
let's summarize and briefly describe everything that we already know about the traditional one.
Geopolitics is an approach to study international relations and foreign policy of the state,
traditional geopolitics was historically more focused on foreign policy behavior of particular
state and on geographic origins of this behavior. In general, there were two levels of analysis of
this behavior. The world level and the state level. The world level, refers to the idea that the
whole world is a closed space where all states leave and where they compete with each other
for geographic supremacy. The best theory to describe the world level of analysis is obviously,
Mackinder's theory of heartlands. In other theories, we can find signs of how distribution of
resources influence wealth of states of the world, how other such things as maritime passages,
trade routes, and access to them, contribute to power of the state of his foreign policy. Finally,
at the world level, according to Mackinder's theory dichotomy between the sea power and the
land power impute. The land power represented by states that were located in the world-Ireland
and especially the idea of heartland and the sea power as maritime powers main of which was
obviously, the United Kingdom, the country which so half of Mackinder himself represented.
The state level of geopolitical analysis, was aimed at studying foreign policy of states, meaning
factors that predetermined foreign policy of states, or some advices. What type of foreign
policy states should implement in order to achieve geopolitical results? It started in political
geography, which was much more about domestic politics of states and geopolitics became a
continuation of this domestic issues in terms of how states should behave towards its
neighbors, towards the other states, if a particular state wants to be more powerful, more
prosperous, more glorious, and so on. All these approaches in traditional geopolitics, were very
connected with the other approaches that predetermined the emergence of geopolitics, such as
materialism, imperialism. All these theories contributed to how geopolitics at the state level
looked like. It was the state level of analysis that was widely criticized in '1930s. That's why in
classical geopolitics, the state-level almost disappeared and scientists were much more oriented
on the word level of analysis on explaining why states compete with each other and what is the
contribution of geography in this competition. They decided to study conditions for this
competition and they made geopolitics rather a conditions for and one of many factors of
foreign policy of states, rather than effect that predetermined certain type of behavior. We can
see the evolution of geopolitics in this picture. It started with a Malthusian theory, with social
Darwinism, with imperialism, and in general with geographic determinism approach. This is
how the traditional geopolitics emerged in the very end of the 19th, early 20th century. Then
when traditional geopolitics appeared under critics of social science theories in international
relations as well as of broader critics of materialism in international relations, it turned into
classical geopolitics after the end of the Second World War. We have mentioned three persons
who contributed a lot to emergence of traditional geopolitics. They were Alfred Mahan,
Fredrick Ratzel, and Rudolph Kjellen. But obviously, without seeing the two most prominent
figures of traditional geopolitics were so half would Mackinder and Karl Haushofer. These
both men, made a big contribution not only to geopolitics as a science, but also as a foreign
policy practice in their home countries. Later, when traditional geopolitics started to transform
into classical geopolitics, the other geopoliticians or realists, the scientists who belongs to both
this approaches and wider to the realist family of international relations theorists, continued
this contribution. People like, first of all, Spykman, who revised the theory of Halford
Mackinder, theory of Heartland, and [inaudible] as new variable to this theory, Hans
Morgenthau, and many other scholars. Now, when we know that traditional geopolitics
transformed into the classical one, we can find its place among the other social science theories
in international relations. Classical geopolitics emerged from traditional geopolitics, which in
its turn emerged from political geography and classical geopolitics as theory of international
relations, appeared among the realist family of international relations theorists, together with
political realism later was structural realism, and other types of realistic way of thinking.
However, not all traditional geopoliticans viewed the new of classical age of geopolitics. For
example, Karl Haushofer, after being pressured for many years by the worldwide academic
community for all the events that happened during the Nazi rule in Germany, committed
suicide in 1946. Just one year later, Halford Mackinder died in England. However, in the very
same year, six days after Mackinder's death, the US President Truman, addressed a joint
session of congress and requested economic and military resources to fight against the
worldwide communist threat. Our next lecture, will be dedicated to the new era, to the new
stage of geopolitics. We call it classical geopolitics, it can also be called a Cold War
geopolitics and to the new factors that contributed to the continued geopolitical competition
between the great powers.