Introduction to cotemporary geopolitics

Geopolitics is a word which sounds familiar to all of us and recently it has become a buzzword
for both political experts and specialists in many fields of science and practice. Geopolitics in its
simplified form seems to resemble international relations and foreign policy. However, there is a
world beyond this simplification. From an academic point of view, it is a much more
comprehensive branch of knowledge. What is so peculiar about geopolitics? Why is geopolitics
useful for policy-makers? How can it help businessmen? And why is it relevant to all of us?
This introductory course aims to answer these questions and to give basic understanding of
geopolitics. You will learn how to explain the world geopolitically and how geopolitical
knowledge shapes the world itself. Together, we will travel throughout the history of
geopolitics, engage with the essential theories and concepts and cover the key issues and cases of
contemporary geopolitics. In the end, we will discuss key studies and invite prominent scholars
to share their views and expertise. I hope you will enjoy it and welcome to the world of
geopolitics.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. From 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.

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.

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 lie in geography nor does any part of that policy lie 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.

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.