Courses 1-13 Merged

INTRODUCTION TO GEOPOLITICS
PURPOSE OF THE COURSE

OUTLINE OF MAIN THEMES AND BRIEF SUMMARY
FURTHER READING
PURPOSE
• Geopolitics is a long-established area of geographical enquiry which considers space to be
important in understanding the constitution of international relations.
• Geopolitics aims at analyzing the global, social, economic, political, military trends and providing
some key principles of the modern geopolitical imagination.
• The goal of geopolitics is to allow people to see the political-economic reality of the world. The
link between geography and politics is obvious: geopolitics is the study of the geographical
representations and practices that underpin world politics.
• In the abstract, geopolitics traditionally indicates the links and causal relationships between
political power and the geographic space; in concrete termes it is often seen as a body of thought
assaying specific strategic prescriptions based on the relative importance of land power and sea
power in world history.
• The geopolitical tradition had some consistent concerns, like the geopolitical correlates of power
in world politics, the identification of international core areas, and the relationships between
naval and terrestrial capabilities.
OUTLINE OF THE COURSE
• Geography, political geography and geopolitics – The main concepts of spatial analysis (location, distribution, diffusion, networks)
reveal the geographical, economic and political underpinnings of international relations. The geopolitical perspective upon the
world enacts foreign policies and determine the dynamics and nature within the inter-state system.
• The economic development of the world: trends and patterns – Major international economic cleavages not only reflect
differences in prosperity but also reflect different forms of economic organization, different kinds of resource bases, different
demographic characteristics, different political systems, and different roles in the system of international specialization and trade.
• Population as a geopolitical factor – demographic processes and their spatial patterns hold a fundamental significance for the
social and economic inequalities across the world. Demographic processes and structures are strongly correlated with
international relations
• Major cities and international relations - the geographical distribution of major cities and their contribution to the global
economy are central issues that define the 21 st century. The comparison of the cities of the world in terms of their economic
power, political influence and quality of life enable a better understanding of the contemporary world.
• Natural resources - Natural resources are critical to the development of the world economy. The natural resources are classified
according to different criteria. Among them, strategic resources have significant relevance for international trade flows and inter-
state relations. Pay attention to the distribution patterns of natural resources worldwide and the emerging dependencies between
major producers and major consumers at international level.
• Geopolitics of Energy Resources - Energy resources (coal, crude oil, natural gas) bear a tantamount importance for the global
economy and international relations. As non-renewable resources with limited known reserves, the fuels distribution patterns are
strongly concentrated across the global space. The increasing competition for these limited resources adds complexity and
instability at geopolitical level. Moreover, the competition is enhanced by the infrastructure (pipelines) that connects the
producers and consumers.
OUTLINE OF THE COURSE
• Geopolitics of the Great Powers: Britain - All along the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century Britain has been
the hegemon of the world. The lecture makes you familiar with the best known British geopolitical vision upon the world
(the Heartland Theory by Sir Halford MacKinder, 1904) and the strategic role of the Heartland today.
• Geopolitics of the Great Powers: France - France is one of the leading powers at European level. Please, pay attention to
the main contribution of the French geopolitics to the foundation and evolution of the European Union.
• Geopolitics of the Great Powers: Germany - Please, pay attention to the main concepts specific to the German
geopolitics, mainly to the articulations between history, geography and international relations.
• Geopolitics of the Great Powers: Russia - The lecture reviews the geopolitical thinking of the Tzarist Russia from the time
of Peter the Great to Soviet Union and the Breshnev Doctrine and up to the present Russia of Vladimir Putin. Pay attention
to the decline of the global power during the Cold War Era to the regional power of today's Russia and the prospects to
become a global power again during the multipolar world.
• Geopolitics of the Great Powers: United States of America - The aim of this lecture is to familiarize you with the main
concepts, doctrines and representatives of the American geopolitics. The focus is on the USA as a global power and its
foreign policy actions during the 20th and 21st centuries within the bipolar and multipolar geopolitical context.
• The Geopolitical World Orders - The lecture helps you understand the concept of the geopolitical order from the
theoretical standpoint in connection with the economic and hegemonic cycles. The world orders of the 20th century are
discussed with the focus on the Cold War Era and the current search for a new world order.
FURTHER READING
• Bergman, E.F., Renwick, W.H. 2005 Introduction to Geography, People, Places and Environment, Pearson
Prentice Hall, 3rd ed.
• Dicken, P. 2003 Global Shift Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st century, Sage Publications, 4th
ed.
• Fellmann, J.D., Getis, A., Getis, J. 2003 Human Geography Landscapes of Human Activities, McGrow Hill, 7th
ed.
• Knox, P., Agnew J. 1998 The Geography of the World, Arnold New York, 3rd ed.
• O’Tuathail, G., Dalby, S., Routledge, P. (eds.) 1998 The Geopolitics Reader, Routledge London
Politics, geography and political geography
General remarks on contemporary geopolitical context

•contrasting trends and growing inequalities
•social conflicts and movements of resistance
•the environmental change as political subject
•new forms of governance and democracy
•resurgence of ethical-political concerns in relation to human rights
•place of indigenous people vs. new comers
•global significance of gender and race
“geopolitics evolved from political geography, which is a branch of geography”
• Geography is the systematic study of location and place. Professional geographers address
questions concerning where and why various phenomena are located and distributed. In
addition, they examine and compare the unique characteristics of places while considering
the relationships between individual places and the global economy
– Absolute and relative location
– Distance and direction
– Distribution
– Diffusion
– Attributes of individual places and regions
• Physical geography examines the location and distribution of various components of the natural
environment: climate, vegetation, soil cover, geomorphology, ecology
• Human geography focuses on the relationships between human societies and cultures and the space on
which they live
– Political geography is the analysis of geographical features of political phenomena, such as the size
and the shape of different nation-states, the location of their capital city, the tracing of the borders,
as well as election issues and territorial planning problems (Yves Lacoste, 1993)
• Geopolitics is a long-established area of geographical enquiry which considers space to be

important in understanding the constitution of international relations (Johnston et al., 1994)
• Geopolitics is a subset of political geography that deals directly with international relations,
international conflict and foreign policies (Braden and Shelley, 2000)
• Geopolitics is the study of geopolitical realities (Chauprade and Thual, 2003)
• Geopolitics is a sub-field of political geography concerned with political relations between
states, the external strategies of states and the global balance of power (Jones et al., 2004)
• Geopolitics
– geographic dimension of foreign policy
– applied political geography
– interpretation of the games of the great powers
• Geopolitics – a 20th century concept, coined by the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen in 1899: “the
theory of the state as a geographic organism or phenomenon in space, i.e. the state as land, territory,
domain or most suggestively as realm”.
THE RISE, THE FALL, THE RISE AND THE POSSIBLE FALL
OF GEOPOLITICS
The notion of geopolitics has helped to shape the nature of political geography over time. The term came to
prominence during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and referred to the way in which
ideas relating to politics and space could be used within national policy. The growing importance of the
term during this period was not an historical accident. In the period subsequent to the ‘scramble for
Africa’, there were few opportunities for additional European territorial expansion and, in such
circumstances, international politics became increasingly focused on ‘the struggle for relative efficiency,
strategic position, and military power’ (O’Tuathail 1996: 25). It was in this world that political geographers
could aid state leaders in their efforts to increase the political influence exercised by individual states on
the global stage. This period of geopolitical involvement in statecraft reached its apogee in Germany
during the 1930s and 1940s, where ideas concerning the need for German territorial expansion were
easily incorporated into Nazi ideology (Parker 1998: 1). Of necessity, perhaps, the period subsequent to
the fall of that regime witnessed a waning of the star of geopolitics, both within the subject of political
geography and, to a lesser extent, within policy circles. The re-emergence of geopolitics as a legitimate
frame of enquiry took place during the 1970s, particularly in the United States and France (Parker 1998:
1). Its use during this period was very much based on the all-pervading, yet largely unconsummated,
conflict between ‘East’ and ‘West’ that characterised the Cold War. Here again, it was the need for
international political alliances, and the political geographies of influence that underpinned them, that
acted as the much needed ‘shot in the arm’ for geopolitical debates. Geographers were to contribute to
these. Since the mid-1980s, however, classical geopolitics has, once again, come under fire, in academic
circles at least. Rather than supporting international and national political structures of domination,
political geographers, affiliated to the subject area of critical geopolitics, are beginning to question and
undermine these structures and the discourses and ideologies that surround them (see O’Tuathail 1996).
Depending on one’s perspective, therefore, this has either signalled another downturn in the fortunes of
the notion of geopolitics within geography or has re-energised it in exciting and radical new ways.
(Jones, M., Jones R., Woods, M. (2004), An Introduction to Political Geography Space, Place and Politics, Routledge, p. 45)
• Old and new factors of geopolitics
– From location, size and shape, climate, population and labor, natural resources and
industry, social and political organizations (Russel P. Fifield – Geopolitics in Practice and
Principle, 1944; Nicholas Spykman – The Geography of Peace, 1944)
– To knowledge, technology, money (Alvin Toffler – Powershift, 1991)

• Is geopolitics over?
– Chronopolitics – “space is no longer in geography, it is in electronics… There is a

movement from geo to chronopolitics as the distribution of territories becomes the
distribution of time” (Virilio, 1998)
– Geo-economics - “the new world will be dominated by borderless capitalism which marks
the “end of the nation state” (Luttwak, 1998)
– Eco-politics – “to deal with the deterioration of the global environment, humanity does
not need a Strategic Defense Initiative but a Strategic Environmental Initiative” (Gore,
2000)
– Geo-governance – “the world is moving rapidly from geopolitics towards a more
integrated economic, cultural and political reality” (Falk, 1995)
Geopolitical Images after the Terrorist Attacks of 11
September 2001 on NEW YORK
One of the clearest recent examples of the significance of cultural messages for global patterns of geopolitics
came in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States that took place in September 2001.
President George W. Bush, for instance, was keen to use images and rhetoric appropriated from the
culture of the American west, referring to the need to ‘smoke out’ terrorists ‘holed up’ in the caves of
Afghanistan. Famously, there was much disagreement about how to conceptualise the terrorist threat to
the United States. By describing the United States as a civilised country of freedom and democracy,
commentators in the United States were seen by many to be describing the states or peoples supporting
terrorism as uncivilised. That the terrorists themselves can be considered uncivilised is not especially
controversial but there was a too common assertion that all Islamic states should be viewed as uncivilised
when compared with a civilised West. The most extreme example of statements like this came from Silvio
Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, who asserted that ‘the West is bound to occidentalise and conquer
new people’, thus presumably leading to the dissolution of all Islamic states. Berlusconi’s viewpoint was
seen to be unhelpful for the formation of a coalition of states united against the threat of international
terrorism, especially since the coalition would be strengthened immeasurably by the inclusion of
moderate Islamic states. As a result, the United States was keen to portray Al-Qaeda as an organisation
supported by one ‘rogue’ state, Afghanistan. Berlusconi, however, was not the only person to use
unhelpful images and phrases during this period. ‘Operation Ultimate Justice’, the original title used to
describe the US-led attack on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, was objected to by Islamic clerics
on the grounds that ultimate justice can be dispensed only by Allah. This, once again, had the potential to
antagonise Islamic members of the coalition against terrorism and, as a result, the offensive was renamed
‘Operation Enduring Freedom’. These various examples demonstrate the key significance of cultural
messages and images for forging geopolitical visions of the world.
Key readings: Harvey (2003) and Mann (2003).
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY –
TRENDS AND PATTERNS
WHAT DEVELOPMENT MEANS?
• Major international economic cleavages not only reflect differences in prosperity but also reflect
different forms of economic organization, different kinds of resource bases, different
demographic characteristics, different political systems, and different roles in the system of
international specialization and trade.
• Gross Domestic Product is an estimate of the total value of all materials, foodstuffs, goods and
services that are produced by a country in a particular year. GDP per capita is a proxy of relative
levels of economic development.
• Development must be conceived in broad terms of social well-being, therefore recognizing the
limitations of measures of national income, the UNDP has established a Human Development
Index which combines three basic components of development at country level:
• Physical well-being, as measured by life expectancy;
• Education, as measured of adult literacy rates and mean years of schooling, and
• Standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita, adjusted to PPP (purchasing power parity)
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy,
education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring
well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a
developed, a developing or an under-developed country, and also to measure the impact of
economic policies on quality of life.
DEVELOPMENT - THE BRANDT LINE
THE ECONOMIC WORLD DIVIDED
• The core-periphery structure of the world economy (core country – dominant, active role in
world trade, rich market-type economy, large exporter and importer, international capital
investor; peripheral country – secondary or passive role in world trade, market-type or
subsistence-type economy, external dependence on the centre as the source of a large proportion
of imports, as the destination for a large proportion of exports, and as a lender of capital);
• The “North” and the “South” (the Brandt Report – Independent Commission on International
Development Issues, 1980):
“It is not just the North is so much richer than the South. Over 90% of the world’s manufacturing
industry is in the North. Most patents and new technology are the property of multinational
corporations of the North, which conduct a large share of world investment and trade in raw
materials and manufactures. Because of this economic power Northern countries dominate the
international economic system – its rules and regulations, and its international institutions of trade,
money and finance”.
“The South has over three quarters of the world’s population living on one fifth of the world’s
income”.
THE THREE WORLDS OF ECONOMICS AND GEOPOLITICS
THE CHALLENGE OF THE 1970s
THE BRICs or THE BIG FOUR (2001)
Brazil, Russia, India and China have

changed their political systems to
embrace global capitalism. Goldman
Sachs predicts that China and India,
respectively, will become the dominant
global suppliers of manufactured goods
and services, while Brazil and Russia
will become similarly dominant as
suppliers of raw materials. Of the four
countries, Brazil remains the only polity
that has the capacity to continue all
elements, meaning manufacturing,
services and resource supplying
simultaneously. Cooperation is thus
hypothesized to be a logical next step
among the BRICs because Brazil and
Russia together form the logical
commodity suppliers.
THE BRICS (2006)
The economies of the five BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) account for almost
30% of global GDP.
BRICS presents an aggregate GDP exceeding $32 trillion. This marks a 60% growth since the formation of
the grouping.
BRICS countries produce:
•33% of the world’s industrial products
•50% of all agricultural goods.
BRICS also attracted almost 21% of total global direct investment in 2014, which is an increase of 3.5%
over 5 years. Trade between BRICS countries has increased 70% over the past 6 years.
INTERNATIONAL PATTERNS OF RESOURCES
• The distribution of natural resources has a very important influence on patterns of international
economic activity and development. Not only are key resources – energy, minerals, cultivable land
– unevenly distributed, but the combination of different resources in particular countries and
regions makes for a complex context of opportunities and constraints. The lack of resources may
be accommodated through international trade, but for most countries the resource base is an
important determinant of development.
• As technologies change, so resource requirements change: the switch from coal to oil, gas and
electricity or from natural to synthetic fibres for mass-produced textiles;
• The price of natural resources on the international market is volatile;
• Countries that are heavily dependent on one particular resource are open to the consequences of
technological change and international trade, therefore their capacity to design long term
strategies of development is limited.
1864: The very first oil shock
In 1859, in the run up to the American Civil War, the first commercially viable oil well was drilled
CRUDE OIL PRICES SINCE 1861 in Pennsylvania. After an initial enthusiasm and a price hike, oil become cheaper as drilling
activities spread throughout the state. Extraction pioneers, however, were not able to keep
constantly high output and could not stop the wells from being flooded. This led to a drop in
production rates. Coupled with the growing demand for crude, prices sky-rocketed in 1863-
1864. New oil deposits were gradually discovered and extraction picked up again. The peak in
production in Pennsylvania in the early 1890s corresponds with the lowest oil prices in the 19th
century.
1973-1974: OPEC oil embargo

As oil production in the United States peaked in the early 1970s, the role of the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) grew increasingly important. In October 1973, the Arab
members of the cartel declared an embargo on oil exports to a number of countries (mostly
Western) that supported Israel which, at that moment, was in conflict with Syria and Egypt. By
November, the crisis caused a decline of 7.5% of global oil production. In January 1974, crude
oil from the Persian Gulf was double in price.
1979-1990: More turmoil in the Middle East

The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war marked another steep
price hike on the oil market. The revolution and the events in its aftermath reduced global oil
supply by 9%, according to IEA estimates. After supply surplus and price stabilization in the
1980s, there was another price increase. In August and September 1990, President Saddam
Hussein, the leader of Iraq, set on fire petroleum fields in neighboring Kuwait, also major oil
producer. As part of Iraq’s geopolitical aspirations, Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait which
marked the beginning of the first Persian Gulf War.
2007-2008: Boom before the bust

In the years ahead of the Great Recession, the global GDP growth (at 4.7% in 2004 and 2005
and 5% in 2006 and 2007) fostered greater demand for petroleum. Producers could not catch
up with it and after 2005 oil output did not grow. Some major oil fields in Saudi Arabia and the
Gulf of Mexico reached a mature phase and their output began to decline. Gradually, demand
pressures pushed the oil price higher and higher. At its peak in July 2008, the Brent benchmark
crossed the 145 US dollars per barrel mark. In contrast to other recent price hikes, this one was
not the result of a specific geopolitical standoff. Rather than the main reason, confrontation in
the Middle East and Africa was a contributing factor to the complex supply and demand
interplay.
INTERNATIONAL DEMOGRAPHIC PATTERNS
• The geography of population and the dynamics of population change are closely interrelated with
patterns of economic development.
• Population density, fertility, mortality and migration are often a direct reflection of economic,
social and political conditions. At the same time, they can be important determinants of
economic change and social well-being.
• Human resources are vital to economic development in terms of both production and
consumption; but in certain circumstances they can be more a liability than an asset.
• Core-periphery contrasts are the product of differences in fertility and mortality rates that are, in
turn, related to differentials in the demographic transition that is associated with the broad
sweep of economic development and social change.
• The demographic transition is conventionally involving 3 stages:
• High birth rates, fluctuating death rates, net growth rates of around 1%;
• Sharply falling death rates, decrease in birth rates, explosive increase in population;
• Death rates even off at low level, birth rates are low but fluctuating, net growth rates at around 1%.
COVID-19 has doubled the amount of people living in poverty – here’s how we close the divide!?!
• The global economy is seen shrinking 3.5% last year,

according to the latest estimates by the
International Monetary Fund, and numerous
studies have shown how the global health crisis
has exacerbated economic inequalities.
• As a result of the pandemic, the number of people
living in poverty has doubled to more than 500
million, according to a report issued last month by
the charity Oxfam.
• Meanwhile, the collective wealth of the world's
billionaires rose $3.9 trillion between March and
December 2020 to reach $11.95 trillion, the report
said.
• People have become more concerned about the
gap between rich and poor during the coronavirus
pandemic. Young people are particularly concerned
about income disparities and job opportunities.
INTERNATIONAL PATTERNS OF INDUSTRY
• China (mainland China) displaced the United States as
the world’s largest manufacturing nation in 2010 and
widened its lead in 2018, according to recently
published data from the United Nations. Manufacturing
value-added in China totaled 28.4% in 2018 compared
with 16.6% for the United States. These statistics are
estimated by the United Nations based on the
international classification of manufacturing (ISIC
D). China’s contribution to global manufacturing output
was steadily on the rise: 18.9% in 2010 and 22.4% in
2012. On the contrary, the U.S. share of world
manufacturing value-added declined from 18.1% in
2010 to 17.4% in 2012.
• China’s ascent in manufacturing importance has been in
the making for decades. Table 1 shows the top 10
manufacturing countries based on the dollar value of
manufacturing value-added in 2018. China was the 7th
largest manufacturing economy in 1992, 3rd in 2002,
and 1st in 2012. Several other emerging economies rose
in the ranks, including Brazil’s jump from 12th in 2002
to 8th in 2012. From 1992 to 2012, Korea rose from
13th to 5th, India climbed from 18th to 9th, and
Indonesia rose from 22nd to 12th.
China Is the World's Manufacturing Superpower
• While the economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak will undoubtedly be most severe in China, the negative effects of
the pandemic won’t be confined by the Great Wall. After all, China is the world’s manufacturing hub and the ripple effect
of shutdowns across the country is already leading to supply constraints in various industries all around the globe.
• According to data published by the United Nations Statistics Division, China accounted for 28 percent of global
manufacturing output in 2018. That puts the country more than 10 percentage points ahead of the United States, which
used to have the world’s largest manufacturing sector until China overtook it in 2010.
• With total value added by the Chinese manufacturing sector amounting to almost $4 trillion in 2018, manufacturing
accounted for nearly 30 percent of the country’s total economic output. The U.S. economy is much less reliant on
manufacturing these days: in 2018, the manufacturing sector accounted for just 11 percent of GDP in the world’s largest
economy.
• Shutdowns in China, as a result of the coronavirus, could have knock-on effects around the world (see the shortages of
micro-electronic devices on the global market with far reaching consequences on various industrial sectors).
PATTERNS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE
• The world is increasingly dividing into
trade blocs.
• The world's two most powerful
economies, the United States, and the
European Union, have each sought to
forge links to neighboring countries and
deny access to rivals. Other major
trading countries, like the fast growing
exporters on the Pacific Rim and the big
agricultural exporting nations, have also
sought to create looser trade groupings
to foster their interests.
• The formation of free trade zones and
trade blocs is one of the major issues
facing the world trading system -
whether it will lead to increased
protectionism, or whether the trade
blocs will promote trade liberalisation.
THE WORLD POPULATION AS A GEOPOLITICAL
FACTOR
STRUCTURES, DISTRIBUTIONS AND MIGRATION

The Geopolitical Importance of Demographic Power
One factor that has always played a major role in determining a state’s overall level of power is its
demographic situation. In traditional geopolitics, it could be argued the size and composition of a
country’s population was the most important aspect of that country’s power, as in the days before
machinery and automation, the sheer number of people in a particular country played a dominant
role in determining that country’s level of power. As automation has progressed, demography’s
role in determining a country’s power has been reduced somewhat. Nevertheless, both the size
and the composition of a state’s population remains of vital importance, helping to raise some
countries to greater levels of power, while reducing the power of countries that have fallen behind
their rivals demographically.
As with economic power, demographic power is heavily influenced by the other aspects of a country’s
power. These other aspects of a country’s power that are influenced by demography include the following
categories of power:
• Economy: A country with an economy that can generate growth, wealth and jobs will be better able to
sustain a growing working-age and dependency-age population than a country with an economy that is
producing little or no economic growth, wealth or jobs. A young and expanding working-age population
can increase a country’s capacity for economic output and growth, whereas a shrinking and aging
population reduces a country’s ability to generate growth and places great strains on its public finances.
• Military: A country that has a strong military is better able to protect and support a growing population,
while often being able to help to promote the unity and cohesiveness of a country’s population. A country
that has a large and growing young adult population will be able to find the personnel to maintain a large
military (at least until automation takes over warfare in the future), while countries with declining young-
adult populations will find it difficult to maintain manpower levels within their armed forces.
• Political: Confidence in a country’s political power and stability is another factor that can help to boost
population growth and improve the demographic situation and the level of social stability within that
country. Demographic changes will have a major impact on the direction of a country’s political situation
and could lead to higher or lower levels of political stability in the future. For countries undergoing
profound demographic changes, their political power could be enhanced or weakened, depending upon
the nature of these changes.
• Environmental and Natural Resources: No other factor plays a greater role in influencing a country’s
demographic power than its environmental and natural resource situation. A country with abundant land,
water and other natural resources is in a much better position to sustain a large and growing population
than one without these environmental and resource advantages. Demographics will play a major role in
determining the direction of a country’s environmental and natural resources power, particularly with
regards to the impact of growing populations on a country’s environment and natural resources.
• Technological: Countries that possess more advanced technologies are often in a better position to
manage population growth and are able to improve the living standards for dependent segments of the
population, such as a country’s youth and elderly population segments. A country that develops young
and skilled workers will be in a better position to develop and benefit from technological changes that will
add their country’s level of technological power.
• Cultural: A country’s cultural norms, most notably religion, play a major role in the demographic
development of that country, sometimes for the good of that country, and sometimes to the detriment of
its demographic power. Demographic changes will continue to have a profound impact on a country’s
culture, as well as on a country’s relative level of cultural power and influence, particularly among younger
segments of the world’s population.
• Throughout history, we can see how demographic changes have had a major impact on a state’s overall
level of power. For example, the soaring population growth in China’s main river valleys in ancient times
allowed China to develop and sustain a population that was far larger than any of its rivals, and, when
China managed to be a unified state, this demographic power enabled China to dwarf any of its potential
rivals in Asia. In Europe, the Industrial Revolution and the dramatic increases in living standards that
eventually followed it allowed many states in that region to undergo population booms that helped
contribute to Europe achieving its peak power in the 19th century. Likewise, the vast amount of habitable
land in the United States allowed it to experience a surge in both birth rates and immigration that resulted
in the US overtaking its European rivals in the 20th century.
• In contrast, demographic decline often has doomed a great power to overall decline and collapse. For
example, plagues in the 2nd and 3rd centuries dramatically reduced Rome’s demographic power, something
that the Roman Empire was never able to overcome. Likewise, bubonic plague outbreaks devastated the
Byzantine and Persian empires in the 6th century, paving the way for the following century’s Arab
conquests. In modern times, declining birth rates have reduced the demographic power of many
countries. For example, countries such as Japan, Germany and Italy have seen their share of the global
population shrink dramatically as they have had some of the world’s lowest birth rates. Moreover, this has
shrunken those countries’ relative working-age populations, leaving a much larger share of their
populations (most notably the elderly) dependent upon the state for their well-being.
• Altogether, the idea that demography is destiny still holds true, although the development of automation
and artificial intelligence may one day render that idea obsolete. For now, demographic power remains
essential for any country aspiring to great power status.
PERSPECTIVES ON POPULATION GROWTH
BIRTH CONTROL POLICIES
CHILD BEARING IN MODERN SOCIETIES
TOTAL FERTILITY RATE
LIFE EXPECTANCY
POPULATION PYRAMIDS
POPULATION DENSITY
FACTORS INFLUENCING POPULATION DISTRIBUTION
Physical High Density Low Density

Landscape Low terrains High terrains
Resources Rich Poor or late discoveries
Climate Mild Extremes
Human High Density Low Density

Policies Stable Discontinuities
Social Security Individuality
Economic Opportunities Primary interaction
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION
• scales of migration
• push factors: unemployment, wages, poverty, shortage of land, famine, war,
political distress, environment degradation, social services, lifestyle
• pull factors: job and educational opportunities, wage differentiation, land

opportunities, mirage of “otherness”
PATTERNS OF MIGRATION
PATTERNS OF MIGRATION
Rwandan refugees near the border
of Rwanda and Tanzania. More
than 1 million Rwandans fled
into neighboring Zaire (now, the
Democratic Republic of Congo),
Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi
in 1994 to escape civil war in
their home country. At the end
of the 20th century, nearly 14
million Africans remained
uprooted (that is internally
displaced and refugees
combined). Fleeing war,
repression, and famine, millions
of people in developing nations
have become reluctant migrants
from their homelands.
• Serb refugees fleeing Bosnian occupation of their town during the 1990s exemplify
the involuntary migration of peoples throughout the world when caught in
domestic and international conflicts.
IMPACTS OF MIGRATION
• economic (alleviate unemployment, remittances, cheap labour, brain

drain)
• population structure (younger, working force)
• political (welfare aid, services adaptation)
• cultural change (diversity, enhancement of values)

THE BRAIN DRAIN
The Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University found that
since 1906, when the first Nobel Prize was given, “foreign born scientists and
engineers are over-represented among Nobel Laureates in the U.S.” Specifically,
32 percent of all U.S. Nobel laureates were immigrants. And the U.S. has produced
more science Nobel laureates than any other nation. Considering these
numbers, it is not surprising that immigrants also make up more than 40 percent
of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) students in American MA and
PhD programs. It is increasingly difficult for these STEM graduates to stay in the United
States due to difficulties obtaining a visa.
The Arab Spring and Demography
The Revolutionary Power of Youth
• Rapid population growth puts societies
under pressure
• Qualified young people cannot find jobs to
match their qualifications
• The key role of young women
• The existence of a "youth bulge", i.e. an
above-average proportion of young people
between 15 and 25 in a society, is one of
the main reasons for unrest, terrorism, war
and uprisings in countries throughout the
world. This development is particularly
evident in the Arab world, where many
young people are highly qualified. But Arab
societies are unable to offer these young
people any prospects for the future
• In the Muslim world, the demographic,
cultural and spiritual revolutions which are
currently underway, are the same as those
which once formed the basis for the
development of those regions that are now
seen as the most modern in the world
CITIES, GLOBAL CITIES, CITY-REGIONS
FACTORS THAT SHAPE THE WORLD ECONOMY AND

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
INTRODUCTION
• The world faces a sweeping population shift from the countryside to the city. The
global urban population is growing by 65 million annually, equivalent to adding
seven new Chicagos a year.
• And for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population is now
living in towns and cities. Underpinning this transformation are the economies of
scale that make concentrated urban centers more productive. This productivity
improvement from urbanization has already delivered substantial economic
growth and helped radically reduce poverty in countries such as China. The
expansion of cities has the potential for further growth and poverty reduction
across many emerging markets.
• Urbanization will be one of this century’s biggest drivers of global economic
growth.
THE 20th CENTURY – THE URBANIZING CENTURY
• Some 375 metropolitan areas each had in excess of 1 million people in 2000; in
1900 there were only 13.
• About 20 metropolises had population of more than 8 million people in 2000,

earning them the title of megacities. In 1900, none was of that size.
• The urban share of the total population has everywhere increased as urbanization
has spread to all parts of the globe (47% in 2000 and 62.5% in 2020).
• Urban population is increasing much more rapidly in developing countries than in

the more developed economies.
City 1995 2015
Tokyo, Japan 26.96 28.89 MEGACITIES
EXPECTED GROWTH IN CITIES WITH
Mexico City, Mexico 16.56 19.18
POPULATION OF 8 MILLION OR
Sao Paulo, Brazil 16.53 20.32 MORE,
New York, USA 16.33 17.60 1995 AND 2015 (Population millions)
Bombay, India* 15.14 26.22
Shanghai, China 13.58 17.97 Source: UN Population Division,
Los Angeles, USA 12.41 14.22 Urban Agglomerations 1995-2015
Calcutta, India 11.92 17.31 Note: * Cities expected to grow by more than
50% by 2015.
Buenos Aires, Argentina 11.80 13.86
Seoul, Korea Rep. 11.61 12.98
Beijing, China 11.30 15.57
Osaka, Japan 10.61 10.61
Lagos, Nigeria* 10.29 24.61
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 10.18 11.86
Delhi, India* 9.95 16.86
Karachi, Pakistan* 9.73 19.38
Cairo, Egypt 9.69 14.42
Paris, France 9.52 9.69
Tianjin, China 9.42 13.53
Metro Manila, Philippines* 9.29 14.66
Moscow, Russian Fed. 9.27 9.30
Jakarta, Indonesia* 8.62 13.92
Dhaka, Bangladesh* 8.55 19.49
World City Populations 2020 (World Urbanization Prospects)
Rank Name Country 2021 Population 2020 Population Change

1 Tokyo Japan 37,339,804 37,393,128 -0.14%
2 Delhi India 31,181,376 30,290,936 2.94%
3 Shanghai China 27,795,702 27,058,480 2.72%
4 Sao Paulo Brazil 22,237,472 22,043,028 0.88%
5 Mexico City Mexico 21,918,936 21,782,378 0.63%
6 Dhaka Bangladesh 21,741,090 21,005,860 3.50%
7 Cairo Egypt 21,322,750 20,900,604 2.02%
8 Beijing China 20,896,820 20,462,610 2.12%
9 Mumbai India 20,667,656 20,411,274 1.26%
10 Osaka Japan 19,110,616 19,165,340 -0.29%
11 Karachi Pakistan 16,459,472 16,093,786 2.27%
12 Chongqing China 16,382,376 15,872,179 3.21%
13 Istanbul Turkey 15,415,197 15,190,336 1.48%
14 Buenos Aires Argentina 15,257,673 15,153,729 0.69%
15 Kolkata India 14,974,073 14,850,066 0.84%
16 Kinshasa Dr Congo 14,970,460 14,342,439 4.38%
17 Lagos Nigeria 14,862,111 14,368,332 3.44%
18 Manila Philippines 14,158,573 13,923,452 1.69%
19 Tianjin China 13,794,450 13,589,078 1.51%
20 Guangzhou China 13,635,397 13,301,532 2.51%
275 Bucharest Romania 1,794,248 1,803,247 -0.50%

DEFINITION
• built environment
• expression of human characteristics (collective or individual)
• web of social relationships and deposit of human energy
• concentration/accumulation of economies/wealth >> economic base (export)
• specialization of production, developing comparative advantages
• foundation of modern life: living systems vs. consumption systems

THE FUNCTIONS OF CITIES
• Function – what cities actually do within the larger society and economy that
established them. No city stands alone, each is linked to other towns and cities in
an interconnected city system; each provides services and products for its
surrounding tributary region – its hinterland or trade area. Those linkages reflect
complementary and the processes of spatial interaction (the basic sector).
• Some activities are necessary simply to support the city itself (service or non-basic
sector). Together, these two levels of activity make up the economic base of an
urban settlement.
• The total economic structure of an urban area equals the sum of its basic and non-
basic activities. Variations in basic activities characterize the specific functional role
played by individual cities. Most cities perform many export functions, and the
larger the urban unit, the more multifunctional it becomes.
• Even in cities with a diversified economic base, one or a very small number of
export activities tends to dominate the structure of the community and to identify
its operational purpose within a system of cities – urban functional specializations
(manufacturing cities, retail centers, finance, insurance and real estate centers,
public administration or transportation centers).
URBAN CONCENTRATIONS
• When separate major metropolitan complexes of whatever size expand along the
superior transportation facilities connecting them, they may eventually meet, bind
together at their outer margins, and create the extensive metropolitan regions or
conurbations;
• Megalopolis, firstly coined in the USA, is a nearly continuous urban string that
stretches across huge distances:
– Boston – New York – Philadelphia - Washington D.C. (Bos-Wash);
– San Francisco – Los Angeles – San Diego (San-San);
– The Great Lakes (Chicago, Detriot, Cleveland, Pittsburgh);
– Tokyo – Osaka – Kobe;
• The “Blue Banana”

• City-regions
The blue banana
MEGA-CITY REGIONS IN EUROPE
• A new 21st century urban phenomenon is
emerging: the networked polycentric mega-
city region. Developed around one or more
cities of global status, it is characterized by a
cluster of cities and towns, physically
separate but intensively networked in a
complex spatial division of labour.
• The Polycentric Metropolis introduces the
concept of a mega-city region, analyses its
characteristics, examines the issues
surrounding regional identities, and
discusses policy ramifications and outcomes
for infrastructure, transport systems and
regulation.
• Large polycentric city-regions pose
perplexing problems to social scientists and
policy-makers. Not only do they represent
complex socio-economic systems in their
own right, but they also increasingly function
as the main locational anchors of wider
globalization processes.
Postmetropolis and its contradictions*
• Post-fordist industrial metropolis - de/reindustrialization
• cities within globalization
• decentralized urbanism of edge cities (suburban US)
• mosaic of social inequality (fractal city)
• disciplinary, policed and gated spaces
• virtual communities
• splintered cities - spaces for elite and middle-class groups**
*Soja, E. (2000) Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions, Blackwell, Oxford.
**Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2001) Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures,
Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, Routledge, London.
GLOBAL CITIES
Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC), Loughborough University

CITIES AND CORPORATIONS
The modern corporation has had a huge influence on the contemporary

Western city. Corporate administrative buildings dominate skylines and take
up extensive land areas. The geography of Western cities has also been
affected by the repeated need of corporate enterprises to find ways to absorb
their surpluses by creating new markets and commodifying ever larger
spheres of social life. Since the late twentieth century, for example, large
corporations and the federal government have poured resources into urban
renewal projects in numerous central cities, reclaiming downtown space that
once suffered from the impacts of suburbanization and deindustrialization. In
short, the structure and form of the city are inseparable from the dynamics of
capitalism, including state policy, as the logic of commodity production and
consumption plays out unevenly in different urban areas. (Stutz and Warf,
2011: 272)
CITIES IN DEVELOPED ECONOMIES
• The economic base and the financial stability of central cities unable to expand
and absorb new growth areas have been damaged by the process of
suburbanization (redistribution of population from the central areas to the
outskirts) and deindustrialization (the shift of manufacturing activities from the
inner city to the suburbs and nearby towns).
• Gentrification – central city residential revival, the rehabilitation of housing in

oldest and deteriorated inner-city areas by middle- and high-income groups.
• Urban sprawl – the expansion of cities in the nearby rural space (increased
population, influx of new residents, larger market).
CITIES IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES
Millions of people of the developing world live in shantytown settlements on the fringes of large
cities, without benefit of running water, electricity, sewage systems, or other public services. The
hillside slum pictured here is one of the many favelas that are home for nearly half of Rio de
Janeiro’s more than 11 million residents.
Because they have no access to safe drinking water or sanitary waste disposal, impoverished populations of
developing country’s unserved rural districts and urban slums – like this one in Capetown, South Africa –
are subject to water-borne and sanitation-related diseases: 900 million annual cases of diarrhea including
2 milion childhood deaths, 900 million cases of roundworm, 200 million of schistosomiasis, and additional
millions of other similarly related infections and deaths.
“Searing social contrasts abound in India’s overcrowded cities. Even in Mumbai Bombay, India’s most
prosperous large city, hundreds of thousands of people live like this, in the shadow of modern apartment
buildings. Within seconds we were surrounded by a crowd of people asking for help of any kind, their ages
ranging from the very young to the very old. Somehow this scene was more troubling here in well-off Mumbai
than in Kolkata (Calcutta) or (Chennai (Madras), but it typified India’s urban problems everywhere”
URBANIZATION AND GEOPOLITICS
• Urbanization presents both opportunities and challenges. The current

pace and scale of change – over 60 million people are added to urban
population each year – often strain the capacity of local and national
governments to provide even the most basic services to urban residents.
An estimated 25 to 50 percent of urban inhabitants in developing
countries live in impoverished slums and squatter settlements, with little
or no access to adequate water, sanitation or refuse collection (World
Resources, 2003). In such situations, both environmental quality and
human health and well-being are at risk. Many countries are
implementing policies that try to address the new demands created by the
increasing concentration of people in cities while capitalizing on the
benefits of urbanization, such as economic growth and efficient delivery of
services.
ENERGY RESOURCES AND ELECTRICITY
GENERATION
ENERGY GLOBALIZATION
• ‘When a Brazilian brews her morning coffee today, she is

likely to use electricity from a power plant in Uruguay that
runs on natural gas from Argentina provided by a Chilean
company. She drives to work in a Ford fueled with
Venezuelan gasoline, and her Canadian-owned factory may
soon be powered by a 2,000 mile natural gas pipeline from
Bolivia”
Mack McLarty, former White House advisor

THE FUTURE OF ENERGY
• By the year 2020, energy consumption by the

Developing World is expected to surpass that of the
Industrialized World. What forms of energy will these
countries be consuming – cheap, dirty coal or clean
natural gas – and where will the supplies come from?
Will this shift lead to competition – both economic and
political – for access to supplies? Can these countries
pay for the energy and supporting infrastructure, such
as power-generating plants, or will the Industrialized
World have to help out with funds and with technology
transfers? If not, the divide between North and South
becomes wider.
THE FUTURE OF ENERGY
• The coming years will see important shifts among the

kinds of fuel consumed. The relative share of oil
declines as do the shares of coal and nuclear. Natural
gas is the only form of primary energy to gain both in
absolute and relative terms, clearly reflecting its
reputation as a clean-burning fuel, especially in power
generation. The relative share of renewables holds its
own.
• What happens to all the energy consumed worldwide?
A surprising 38% is burned to generate electricity, 18%
goes to fuel transportation, as does more than half the
oil consumed.
• Electricity is the most rapidly growing form of energy
use during the years up to 2020 at least. This growth
will be concentrated in the developing countries,
where electricity use will more than double.
OIL GEOPOLITICS
• The West will demonstrably not contest dominance of the major oil
and gas fields of Iraq, Iran, Nigeria (and elsewhere in the Gulf of Guinea)
against competition from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, to
a lesser extent, India. This will force moves in the US toward natural gas
exploitation and — as Obama and the “green left” depart — possible
exploitation of US oilfields and new nuclear energy approaches. This would
in turn imply a renewed look at nuclear waste disposal. But none of this
Western search for alternatives will occur in 2010 (EconomyWatch.com,
February 2010, Ten Global Geopolitical Predictions).
• THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 19, 2010:The recession precipitated a

milestone for Saudi Arabia and the global energy market. While China’s
successful economic policies paved the way for a quick rebound there, the
recession caused a deeper slowdown in the United States, slashing oil
consumption by 10 percent from its 2005-7 peak. As a result, Saudi Arabia
exported more oil to China than to the United States last year. While exports
to the United States might rebound this year, in the long run the decline in
American demand and the growing importance of China represent a
fundamental shift in the geopolitics of oil.
MAJOR OIL AND GAS REGIONS – THE PERSIAN GULF
FOCUS ON SAUDI ARABIA
MAJOR OIL AND GAS REGIONS - RUSSIA
MAJOR OIL AND GAS REGIONS – NORTHERN AMERICA
TRANS ALASKA OIL PIPELINE
TRANS SIBERIAN OIL PIPELINE
FUTURE PROSPECTS - COAL
• The United States leads the world in coal reserves, but has given
way to China as the main producer and consumer of coal worldwide
• More than 55% of the coal consumed worldwide is for electricity
generation, and in the United States an even higher share – around
92%. Electricity generation will be the basis for future growth in coal
use, worldwide
• By 2020, energy consumption by the Developing World is expected
to surpass that of the Industrialized World, and this will raise the coal
use
• The future of coal use is hampered by the environmental
consequences of large-scale coal burning
FUTURE TRENDS - OIL
• European dependence on Gulf oil will remain significant.

• Asian dependence on Gulf oil will expand dramatically.
• U.S. will continue to seek security of supply through diversity of
supply.
• Caspian and Central Asia is not a substitute for Persian Gulf oil, but
rather it is the equivalent of the North Sea.
FUTURE TRENDS - GAS
 Natural gas is the fastest growing primary energy source.
 Its use is to double, worldwide, by 2020.
 But this growth requires major infrastructure investments.
 The U.S. will become more reliant on imported natural gas.
 Russia, today providing 26% of the natural gas that Europe

consumes, has its eye on expanding that share.
FUEL EXPORTERS:
EXPORT DEPENDENCY AND TERMS OF TRADE
Country Export Dependency*
Oil (Net Exports) Other Commodities
Nigeria 92
Libya 91
Oman 90
Angola 87
Yemen 87
Kuwait 85
Republic of Congo 84
Saudi Arabia 83
Islamic Republic of Iran 78
Gabon 73
Equatorial Guinea 72
Venezuela 70
Syrian Arab Republic 64 Cotton 4
Algeria 63 Natural gas 27
Qatar 63
United Arab Emirates 45 Natural gas 6
Brunei Darussalem 37 Natural gas 36
Cameroon 30 Coffee 9, Cocoa 9
Ecuador 28 Coffee 4, Cocoa 3
Bahrain 27
Norway 24 Natural gas 4
Russia 21 Natural gas 14, Nickel 2
*Export Dependency refers to net oil exports (averaged over 1995-1997) as a percentage of total exports of goods and services (averaged over 1995-97).
MAJOR OIL TRADE MOVEMENTS
MAJOR NATURAL GAS TRADE MOVEMENTS
OIL CONSUMERS AND THEIR DEPENDENCE
ON PERSIAN GULF OIL
USA Japan Germany France Italy United

Kingdom*
Total oil consumption (millions of barrels per 16.1 4.3 2.4 1.8 1.6 1.5
day)
Percentage of total oil consumption 37 100 100 94 100 0

imported
Percentage of total oil consumption 4 60 10 33 51 0
imported from the Persian Gulf by tanker or
pipeline
* Britain is a net exporter of oil
USA Japan Western Europe
Percentage of total oil consumption passing 4 60 11

through the Strait of Hormuz by tanker
CRUDE OIL PRICES SINCE 1861
NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE WORLD
• Natural resource - a physically occurring item that a

population perceives to be necessary and useful to its
maintenance and well-being.
• “Natural resources are not; they become”.
• A natural resource is defined by three characteristics of
society:
– Cultural values that make people decide which commodities
are desirable and acceptable to use;
– Level of technology should be high enough to use the
resources;
– Economic system affects whether a resource is affordable and
accessible.
• Nonrenewable resources – form so slowly that for practical

purposes they cannot be replaced when used. Examples
include coal, oil, gas, and ores of uranium, lead, copper and
iron;
– Depletion means the time it takes to consume a proportion of
a resource, typically 80% of it. It is not meaningful to speak
about completely running out of a resource, being uneconomic
to exploit marginal deposits because of either low quality or
inaccessibility.
– The substitutability of one substance for another is important
in stabilizing resource prices and limiting problems caused by
resource scarcity.
• Renewable resources – are replaced continually, at least
within a human lifespan. Examples include solar energy,
air, wind, water, wood;
– “the tragedy of the commons”
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS: SHARED AND OPEN TO ALL
(HARDIN, GARETT,1968)
... multiple individuals,

acting independently and
solely and rationally
consulting their own self-
interest, will ultimately
deplete a shared limited
resource even when it is
clear that it is not in
anyone’s long-term
interest for this to
happen.
EXAMPLES OF THE COMMONS
•Internet
•infrastructure
•institution
•fisheries
•environment
THE LIFE CYCLE OF NATURAL RESOURCES
CHARACTERISTICS OF MINERAL AND ENERGY RESOURCES
• spatial concentration of reserves
• high depletion curves
• unequal consumption level
• increasing level of dependency
• political and environment issues
• evolution of technology
NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMIES
• The staple theory of development - Staple production, consisting of exploitation
and initial processing of natural resources, or staples (fisheries, timber,
agricultural crops, minerals and oil)
• The Dutch Disease (inflation caused by a rapid increase in spending as a

response to the rapid increase in natural resource-based wealth;
movement of factors from other economic sectors as they chase the wealth
in natural resources; currency appreciation)
• The ‘resource curse’ that appears to affect countries that become overly
dependent upon their natural resource sectors. The curse is that natural
resource wealth hinders economic growth in many countries rather than
encourages it.
• The natural resource sector is marked by a technological treadmill

with a geographical expression
• Local economies are affected by a resource cycle
• Resource-dependent local economies are “addictive”, in the sense that they usually
fail to pursue efficient economic changes by retaining natural resource activities
STRATEGIC MINERALS
HUMAN IMPACT ON NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
MAJOR PRODUCERS OF MINERALS
Mineral Country* Percent of total Mineral Country* Percent of
world total world
production (%) production
(%)
Lead Australia 24.7 Copper Chile 33.2
China 22.4 United States 8.4
United States 15.5 Indonesia 8.2
Peru 10.2 Australia 6.3
All others 27.2 Peru 6.3
Total 100 Russia 5.1
All others 32.4
Total 100
Gold South Africa 15.6 Bauxite Australia 39.0
United States 11.9 And Guinea 11.3
Australia 11.1 Alumina Brazil 9.4
China 6.9 Jamaica 9.2
Indonesia 6.7 China 7.1
Russia 6.7 India 6.4
Canada 6.3 All others 17.6
Peru 5.5 Total 100
All others 44.9
Total 100
*Countries that produce at least 5% of world total production are listed.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey, 2007.
MAJOR PRODUCERS OF IRON ORE
Mineral Country* Percent of total world

production (%)
Iron ore China 20.9

Brazil 20.0
Australia 17.3
Russia 8.0
India 7.3
Ukraine 5.5
All others 21.1
Total 100
*Countries that produce at least 5% of world total production are listed.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey, 2007.
PROJECTED RESERVES OF SELECTED STRATEGIC
MINERALS
Resource Static Exponential US consumption as % % of US Sources of Major Resources
index* index* of world total consumption
imported
Aluminum 100 31 42 97 Guinea, Australia, Brazil, Jamaica
Chromium 420 95 19 73 South Africa, Zimbabwe, Finland
Cobalt 110 60 32 95 Zaire, Zambia, Canada
Copper 36 21 33 27 Chile, USA, Zambia, Canada
Gold 11 9 26 31 South Africa, Former Soviet Union,

USA
Iron 240 93 28 22 Former Soviet Union, Brazil,

Australia, India
Lead 26 21 25 16 USA, Australia, Canada
Manganese 97 46 14 100 Former Soviet Union, South Africa,

Australia
Mercury 13 13 24 57 Spain, Former Soviet Union, Algeria
Molybdenum 79 34 40 0 USA, Chile, Canada
Nickel 150 53 38 68 New Caledonia, Canada, Cuba
Platinum 130 47 31 92 South Africa, Former Soviet Union,

Zimbabwe
Silver 16 13 26 64 USA, Canada, Mexico
Tin 17 15 24 72 Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand,

China
Tungsten 40 28 22 68 China, Canada, USA, South Korea
Zinc 23 18 26 69 Canada, USA, Australia
* Static Index refers to the number of years reserves will last to 80% depletion with consumption growing at current rates.
** Exponential Index refers to the number of years reserves will last to 80% depletion with consumption growing at 2.5% per annum.
Mineral % Imported Source
Arsenic 100 Sweden, Canada, Mexico
Columbium 100 Brazil, Canada, Thailand, Nigeria
Graphite 100 Mexico, China, Brazil, Madagascar
Manganese 100 South Africa, France, Gabon, Brazil
Mica (sheet) 100 India, Belgium, Japan, France USA

Strontium 100 Mexico, Spain, China
Yttrium 100 Australia

IMPORT
Gem Stones 99 Benelux, Israel, India, South Africa RELIANCE
Bauxite
Tantalum
97
92
Australia, Guinea, Jamaica, Suriname
Thailand, Brazil, Australia, Canada

FOR KEY
Diamond 89 South Africa, UK, Ireland, Benelux MINERALS
Fluorspar 88 Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Italy, China
PT-Group Metals 88 South Africa, UK, Former Soviet Union
Cobalt 86 Zaire, Zambia, Canada, Norway
Tungsten 80 China, Canada, Bolivia, Portugal
Chromium 75 South Africa, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Yugoslavia
Nickel 74 Canada, Australia, Norway, Botswana
Tin 73 Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, Bolivia
Potash 72 Canada, Israel, Germany, Former Soviet Union
Zinc 69 Canada, Mexico, Peru, Australia
Cadmium 66 Canada, Australia, Mexico, Germany
Barite 63 China, Morocco, India
Silver 57 China, Mexico, UK, Peru
Asbestos 51 Canada, South Africa
Gypsum 37 Canada, Mexico, Spain
Silicon 33 Brazil, Canada, Norway, Venezuela
Iron Ore 28 Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, Liberia
Copper 25 Canada, Chile, Peru, Zaire, Zambia, Mexico
Aluminum 24 Canada, Japan, Venezuela, Brazil
Cement 20 Canada, Mexico, Spain

KEY POINTS
• need to reevaluate the understanding of nature and humans
• importance of energy
•resources and commodities are created through technology
•different perspective have to be considered in understanding Economy

GEOPOLITICS OF THE GREAT POWERS: BRITAIN
Key features of the world in 1900
European states dominate the global pattern of international relations

• 1 in 4 of the world’s population lives in Europe (approximately 400 million
of a 1600 million total);
• the European great powers (Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria-
Hungary, and Russia) have a concentration of military power, as well as
dominating world trade;
Colonial empires of European states (especially Britain and France, but also
Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal) cover much of the world
• approximately 500 million people live under European colonial rule;
• search for colonies continues; especially Germany in Africa and Russia in
Asia;
Several territorial empires in protracted state of collapse
• the Habsburg Empire (covering Austro-Hungary and much of central
Europe and the Balkans;
• the Ottoman Empire (centered on Turkey, and encompassing much of the
Middle East and the Balkans;
• Tsarist Russia;
• Imperial China;
Global capitalist economy
• In 1900 centered primarily on the UK, as the world’s largest imperial and
trading power, but increasingly under threat;
• Rapid industrial expansion in North America;
• Japan modernizing and industrializing.
British Geopolitics
• Britain became the dominant power within the world economy during the
18th century and it maintained this domination during the 19th. Its power
depended basically on the control of the seas.
• British maritime power was seen to balance the larger populations and
continental resources of Central Europe, especially Germany and Russia.
• Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) – “The Geographical Pivot of History”,

(1904):
– Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;

– Who rules the Heartland commands the World islands;
– Who commands the world islands commands the world.
THE HEARTLAND THEORY
British Geopolitics
• Mackinder regarded world history in terms of recurring conflict between

land-based and sea-based powers.
• Historically, the Russian Empire had been best situated to control the
Heartland. But, at the end of the 19th century, Mackinder recognized that
Germany is better placed rather than the weaker Czarist (Tsarist) state of
Russia, at the center of the Heartland.
• Mackinder argued that it was necessary for Britain to dominate the world’s
oceans as a check on possible German expansion.
• Mackinder stressed the importance of preventing a political or military

alliance between Germany and Russia.
British Geopolitics
• Anticipating another global struggle, Mackinder introduced a new

geopolitical concept: the Midland Ocean, defined as the North Atlantic
Basin and its four adjacent seas – Mediterranean, Baltic, Arctic and
Caribbean.
• Only if the nations surrounding that basin – Canada, the United States,
France, Britain – united could they resist the challenge coming from the
Soviet Heartland.
• One of the reasons NATO has been created was to ensure this unity.
THE HEARTLAND TODAY
TREATIES AND DEVELOPMENT STAGES OF EURASIAN ECONOMIC
UNION
Signed 1995 1996 1999 2000 2003 2007 2010 2011 2012 2015
Document Treaty on the Agreement on Treaty on the Treaty on the Treaty on Treaty on the Establishment Treaty on the Establishment Establishment
Customs Union Increased Customs Union establishment forming the Commission of of the Customs Eurasian of the Single of the Eurasian
between integration in and the Single the Eurasian Single the Customs Union Economic Economic Economic Union
Belarus and the Economic Economic Economic Economic Union Belarus, Commission Space
Russia and Space Community Space Belarus, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Belarus, The agreement
Humanitarian Belarus, (EurAsEC) Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, on the Eurasian
Treaty on the Fields Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia Russia Russia Economic Union
Customs Union Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine
between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Treaty on the The decision of Eurasian
Kazakhstan and Russia, Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan, Establishment the Supreme Economic
Russia Kyrgyzstan (Agreement to Tajikistan of the Eurasian Commission
complete the Integrated Economic started
formation of the Customs Council on the functioning
Customs Union Territory and entry of
and the Single Сreation of the international
Economic Customs Union agreements into
Space) Belarus, force forming
Kazakhstan, the legal base
Russia of the Customs
Union and
Single
Economic
Space
Belarus,
Kazakhstan,
Russia
Declaration on
Eurasian
Economic
Integration
Belarus,
Kazakhstan,
Russia
EURASIAN UNION OR HOW TO RESTORE THE SOVIET EMPIRE?
Geopolitics of France
• France is the only European power that can be considered part of both the
Heartland and the Rimland.
• For the most part, France supported the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles
that forces the Germans to abandon the colonies and the European territory to
the Allies.
• The French school of geopolitics was interested to establish the contrasts

between West and East.
• The first French geopolitical study is considered to be “La France de l’Est”

published in 1917 by Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845-1918).
• During the interwar period, the French geopolitical thinkers Jacques Ancel (Peoples and Nations of Balkans:
political geography, 1926) and Albert Démangeon (Le Déclin de l’Europe, 1920) are two of the most
outstanding representatives, were critical of the German doctrine, considering the science of geopolitics to
be “la science propagandiste allemande” which aimed to rationalize “une expansion infinie”.
• They countered l’espace vital (the French for Ratzel’s lebensraum) with the concepts of entente and
communauté européenne.
• For many years after the end of WWII, the subject of geopolitics was avoided, particularly because of its
associations with Nazi policies.
• It was only during the 1970s that the subject has been revisited by Yves Lacoste who advocated the leading
role of geographers in developing a better understanding of the geopolitical reality of the world.
• Another contribution of the French geopolitics lies in the replacement of the term geopolitics with “la
géographie politique du pouvoir”, (Claude Raffestin).
The French Geopolitical Project for the European Community or how to bind Germany
to Europe
• At the end of the WWII, the key was binding Germany to the rest of Europe militarily and economically. Put another way, the key
was to make certain that German and French interests coincided, since tension between France and Germany had been one of the
triggers of prior wars since 1871. Obviously, this also included other Western European countries, but it was Germany's
relationship with France that was most important. Militarily, German and French interests were tied together under the NATO
alliance even after France withdrew from the NATO Military Committee under Charles de Gaulle. Economically, Germany was
bound with Europe through the emergence of more sophisticated multilateral economic organizations that ultimately evolved into
the European Union.
• Against the backdrop of the iron curtain a complex new dynamic appeased Franco-German relations, firstly in the form of the
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC, 1951), then in the European Economic Community (EEC, 1957), of which France,
Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were the six founder nations.
• “Everything suggests that General de Gaulle hoped to tie up, or perhaps even tie down, Germany by building a Europe that he
envisioned as independent from the USA”, (Jean-Marc Boegner, collaborator of General de Gaulle). “As from the 1950s, France’s
European option was dictated by the obsession with Germany. Since the Schuman plan, the aim was to tie down Germany in a
supranational structure to prevent it from developing a new policy of power” (Jean-Paul Bled)
• General de Gaulle was, however, undermined when the Bundestag added a preamble referring to close cooperation between the
US and Europe, placing common defense within the compass of NATO. The preamble also opened the door to the EEC for the UK,
an option to which de Gaulle was opposed. In the following decades, Franco-German relations became a roller-coaster but happily
remained pacific, and often key for the advancement of European construction.
(Pierre Verluise, 2012 –The geopolitical consequences of the economic crisis for France, La Revue Géopolitique)
France rejoined NATO’s integrated military command
• A founder member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, General de
Gaulle’s France left NATO’s integrated military command structure in 1966.
Since then, Paris has developed a hopefully subtle posture, with one foot in
NATO and the other outside. This did not prevent NATO from surviving the
end of the Cold War (1990) and – worse still from a Paris perspective –
expanding several times. On January 1 2007, 21 of the European Union’s 27
member nations were also members of NATO. Could there be a relation of
cause and effect here? Nicolas Sarkozy was able to break the taboo and set in
motion the dynamic for France’s return to NATO’s integrated military
command structure, effective as from April 2009.
• It looked very much as though the aim of France’s return to NATO’s
integrated military command structure was to remove an obstacle to the
potential development of European defense by the European Union itself.
This is a project close to France’s heart but whose development seems, till
now, to have been hindered by the fact that other EU members have seen in
it a desire to compete with or even destroy NATO, perceived as the
unmovable cornerstone of European defense. By removing the stumbling
block, Paris has hoped to see the members of the European Union take more
responsibility on defense issues.
• The economic crisis is leading the EU member states to cut back defense
spending, prefer NATO and neglect European defense
• “The current trend is suicidal. For the coming decade this probably
means the end of any form of European defense.” (Etienne de
Durand, deputy director at the Institut français des relations
internationales)
(Pierre Verluise, 2012 –The geopolitical consequences of the economic
crisis for France, La Revue Géopolitique)
THERE IS A POLITICALLY MOTIVATED IMBALANCE OF FORCES IN EASTERN EUROPE
French-German relations after the economic crisis of 2008
• The economic crisis offers Germany the opportunity to appear on at
least an equal footing with France and indeed to enjoy a dominant
position with regard to Paris and all the other member nations.
Why ? Because Germany has succeeded in setting up the euro to
work in its favor, developing an export-oriented economy and
making the necessary reforms in good time.
• Germany has successfully institutionalized budgetary stringency in

the other member nations and has made the EU responsible for
overseeing this. In a word, the economic crisis enables Germany to
enjoy a form of leadership over the European Union, while having
no qualms about not following Paris and London into the military
operation in Libya in 2011.
• Lastly it is worth noting that the results of the first round of the
French presidential elections on April 22 2012 provide food for
thought in Germany as well as elsewhere in the world. That one in
three voters chose an anti-European protest party – the Front
national or the leftist Front de gauche – cannot fail to have
consequences for France’s image abroad. It is true that the other
candidates were, for the most part, relatively quiet on the subject
of the Union European, limiting themselves to questioning the
application of the Schengen Agreement or the Treaty on Stability,
Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary
Union, finalized at the summit on January 30 2012.
(Pierre Verluise, 2012 –The geopolitical consequences of the economic

crisis for France, La Revue Géopolitique)
The rapprochement between France and the UK
• The relations between Paris and London have, through history, traversed alternating times of rivalry
and cooperation. General de Gaulle has twice vetoed the United Kingdom’s entry into the EEC because
he saw the UK as a Trojan Horse for the USA. His successor, Georges Pompidou raised the veto and, in
1973, the UK joined the EEC, at the same time as the Irish Republic. London demonstrated its
sometimes remarkable diplomatic knowhow and developed a lead of several lengths in lobbying
techniques to further the development of Europe as a “market” at the expense of Europe as a “power”.
The UK has been the supporter of a strong relationship between the EU and NATO, in opposition to the
French idea of a European defense. After the summit in Saint Malo (1998) Paris imagined that, with
backing from London, the obstacles preventing the pursuit of the European defense goal would be
removed. European defense, however, remained under the NATO umbrella. This was confirmed by the
Treaty of Lisbon (2007), which reinforced the links between the EU nations and NATO, now “the
foundation of their collective defense and the forum for its implementation” which means the end of a
European defense initiative or of any perspectives of independent action by the EU in this sphere.
(Pierre Verluise, 2012 –The geopolitical consequences of the economic crisis for France, La Revue
Géopolitique)
German geopolitics
German geopolitics
• Before 1871, when Germany was fragmented into a large number of small states, it did not pose a challenge
to Europe. Rather, it served as a buffer between France on one side and Russia and Austria on the other.
Napoleon and his campaign to dominate Europe first changed the status of Germany, both overcoming the
barrier and provoking the rise of Prussia, a powerful German entity. Prussia became instrumental in creating
a united Germany in 1871, and with that, the geopolitics of Europe changed.
• By 1900, Germany was the third leading industrial country in the world, behind Britain and the United
States.
• Located at the center of the great European Plain, northern Germany had always been at crossroads,
vulnerable to attack. Lacking any real strategic depth, Germany could not survive a simultaneous attack by
France and Russia. Therefore, Germany's core strategy was to prevent the emergence of an alliance between
France and Russia. However, in the event that there was no alliance between France and Russia, Germany
was always tempted to solve the problem in a more controlled and secure way, by defeating France and
ending the threat of an alliance. This is the strategy Germany has chosen for most of its existence.
• A strong, united Germany or Mitteleuropa including all of the German speaking people of Central Europe
would be the most effective means of preserving the integrity of German culture. The dynamism of
Germany did not create the effect that Germany wanted. Rather than split France and Russia, the threat of a
united Germany drew them together.
Friedrich Ratzel, 1896 – “The Laws of the Territorial Growth of States”
• “The space of states grows with Kultur” – as the population expands with the same cultural
pattern, new territories occupied by these people enlarge the state;
• “The growth of states follows other manifestations of the growth of peoples, which must
necessarily precede the growth of the state” – the idea of the flag following commercial
expansion and missionary activity is considered valid;
• “The growth of states proceeds, to the degree of amalgamation, by the addition of smaller units”
– the people and the soil must be welded together if the state is to be amalgamated;
• “The frontier is the peripheral organ of the state” – the frontier reflects not only the security of
the state but also the growth of the state;
• “In their growth states strive for the absorption of politically valuable sections” – these valuable
sections may be plains, rivers, coastal regions, or areas rich in mineral ores, oil, or food
production;
• “The first impetus for territorial growth comes to primitive states from without” – the great states
with Kultur bring their ideas to primitive peoples who through increasing population acquire the
need of expansion;
• “The general tendency toward territorial annexation and amalgamation transmits the trend from
state to state and increases its intensity” – the history of expansion indicate that appetite grows
through eating.
The “German Problem”
Germany before unification
• Until 1871”Germany” did not exist in anything like the shape we know it today;
• “Germany” was a collection of twenty-five states, ranging in size from small principalities to the economically and militarily
assertive Prussia with a population of some 30 million people (Bavaria, the second largest, contained 5.5 million persons);
• Some ethnic Germans lived under the sovereignty of other states; as in Alsace-Lorraine, which was part of France, and
Schleswig-Holstein, ruled by Denmark.
Unification
• The bringing together of these states, and the annexation of foreign lands containing Germans, was the work of the
Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck;
• Three wars were fought to secure German unification, and to ensure that Prussia predominated to Austria’s exclusion:
against Denmark (1864) over Schleswig-Holstein, Austria-Hungary (1866), and France (1870) over Alsace-Lorraine.
After unification
• For the first time in modern history, the centre of Europe was dominated by a single, vast state;
• Germany’s population of nearly 67 million, by 1913, was second in size only to the Russian Empire;
• Germany underwent rapid industrialization. Germany’s coal, iron and steel production (in the 1870s well below the UK’s)
outstripped Britain’s by 1914;
• From 1871 to 1914, the value of Germany’s agricultural output doubled; industrial production quadrupled and overseas
trade more than tripled;
• With such great reserves of territory, population, military and industrial strength, Germany had the capacity - and the
inclination, many believed – for outward expansion. The birth of a unified Germany thus constituted the birth of the
‘German problem’, as far as other European states were concerned, by fundamentally disrupting the balance of power in
Europe. Other states were accordingly disposed to enter into alliances in order to prevent Germany from using its central
geo-strategic location and economic resources to achieve further territorial enlargement.
German geopolitics
• After the defeat in the WWI, German geopolitical thought reemphasized the value of territorial
expansion in conjunction with the unification of German speaking peoples throughout Central
Europe.
• From the beginning of the 1920s, the German expression Drang nach Osten (Push to the East)
became the priority for the German political actions.
• Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) – states like organisms, obey laws of evolution, and the survival is the
most important principle underlying the competition between states. ; “lebensraum” – living
space;
• Karl Haushofer (1869-1946): autarcky - economic and political self-sufficiency ; pan-regions – a

large area of the world under the domination of one country.
PAN-REGIONS
The German Question today
• “Over the last decade, Germany has taken on its natural leadership role in the EU’s economic and monetary
affairs. This has brought the ‘German question’ – how the rest of Europe should deal with Germany’s power
– back to the centre of the European project. More recently, Berlin has also taken a greater role in foreign
and security policy, pushed by a series of crises to advocate for a joint European response to the conflict in
Ukraine, the latest eruption of the euro crisis in Greece, and the refugee crisis.”
• “Merkel has no appetite for unilateral leadership, and nor will her successors. Anything that appears to be
hegemony, even if qualified by the adjectives ‘reluctant’ or ‘benevolent’, repels the German political class.
More than other large actors, German leaders feel the need to act within a consensus. They want coalition
partners who share their preferences, burdens, and responsibilities.”
• “Germany has traditionally placed its faith in the ability of institutions to tame German power, both for its
own benefit and that of the EU as a whole – Berlin knows that its power arouses suspicion and resentment
from its neighbours. Ironically, the country has become one of the forces undermining the EU’s original
structures by increasingly using its weight to veto decisions, and at times acting unilaterally. The German
government remains committed to the EU as an umbrella under which European countries cooperate to
strengthen security and prosperity. But even in Germany this argument has been more difficult to make
lately.”
(Josef Janning & Almut Möller , 2016, Leading from the centre: Germany’s role in Europe).
Leading from the Centre
Can Germany Afford to Be Pacifist (Any Longer)?
• Uncertainty surrounding America’s commitment to Europe, tension with Russia and the
destabilisation in North Africa and the Middle East are now compelling the Bundesrepublik to
rethink its security strategy
• The strengthening of the military instrument is a decisive step in such a direction, while political
leaders have been openly debating whether or not Germany should have an atomic weapon
• To make such a change Berlin will have to overcome the prevalent pacifism among Germany’s
public opinion.
The NATO Umbrella Not Considered Credible Anymore
NORD STREAM 2 Russia - Germany
The entry point of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline
into the Baltic Sea will be the Ust-Luga area of the
Leningrad Region. Then the pipeline will stretch
across the Baltic Sea. Its exit point in Germany will
be in the Greifswald area close to the exit point
of Nord Stream. The route covers over 1,200
kilometers.
In October 2012, the Nord Stream
shareholders examined preliminary results of the
feasibility study for the third and fourth strings
of the gas pipeline and came to the conclusion that
their construction was economically and technically
feasible. Later on, the construction project for the
third and fourth strings came to be known as Nord
Stream 2.
In April 2017, Nord Stream 2 AG signed the
financing agreements for the Nord Stream 2 gas
Germany is the biggest buyer of Russian gas in the world, and German pipeline project with ENGIE, OMV, Royal Dutch
companies implement numerous projects jointly with the Gazprom Shell, Uniper, and Wintershall. These five European
Group along the entire value chain, from gas production in Russia energy companies will provide long-term financing
to gas deliveries to end consumers in Germany. Russia and Germany for 50 per cent of the total cost of the project.
are connected by extensive gas transmission routes: Yamal –
Europe and Nord Stream.
The US warned companies laying pipe in the Baltic Sea that they should stop work or
face sanctions (DW, March 18th 2021)
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called on companies involved in the construction of the
Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to "immediately abandon work" or potentially face harsh
sanctions.
• In a statement, the State Department said it is monitoring and assessing information about companies doing
work on the project.
• "Any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks US sanctions and should immediately abandon work
on the pipeline," the statement reads.
• Blinken also said the Biden administration is intent on upholding sanctions legislation passed by Congress in
2019 and expanded with broad bipartisan support in 2020. Some 20 companies — mainly insurers —
reportedly bailed out of the project in response to US sanction warnings.
• The statement gives context to the administration's decision, noting that, "multiple US administrations have
made clear, this pipeline is a Russian geopolitical project intended to divide Europe and weaken European
energy security."
• "a bad deal — for Germany, for Ukraine and for our Central and Eastern European allies and partners“ -
Russia will use the pipeline as leverage to expand influence in Europe.
• The US has also actively sought to get European allies to buy US natural gas instead of purchasing it from a
much more adversarial Russia.
The post-Merkel era? Will France take the lead of EU?
Russian/Soviet Geopolitics
• The size of European Russia has rendered it influential in international geopolitics for centuries, as
Mackinder had recognized the role of Russia in defining the heartland.
• Russian geopolitics is in large measure derived of Russia perception of itself as vulnerable,

isolated and peripheral.
• Peter the Great and his successors established the traditional cornerstones of Russian
international policy:
• secure borders,
• access to warm-water ports,
• elimination of economic dependency,
• expansion to the east.
• The overthrow of the Czars and the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union brought about
some fundamental changes in Russia’s approach to geopolitics.
• Stalin - “socialism within one country”, Trotsky – “international socialist revolution”.
• During the existence of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991, geopolitics was considered to be the
preserve of the „bourgeois democracies”.
• Brezhnev doctrine: „revolution without frontiers” USSR was supposed to intervene in Africa, Asia
and Latin America to disrupt the capitalist order in the 1970s; the Soviet control of Eastern
Europe was irreversible.
• Sinatra Doctrine – Genady Gerasimov, 1989 – Eastern European countries “could do it their way”.
Mr. Putin’s geographical literacy
CURRENT GEOPOLITICAL DIVERGENCE
WHY RUSSIA LOVES “FROZEN CONFLICTS”?
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union there have been multiple “frozen conflicts” in the region that
typically involve the breakaway of small areas of land with Russian military support. They are
defined as “a situation in which active armed conflict has been brought to an end, but no peace
treaty or other political framework resolves the conflict to the satisfaction of the combatants. The
term has been commonly used for the Post-Soviet conflicts in Central Asia, but the term has often
been applied to other perennial territorial disputes.”
1. Nagorno-Karabakh
2. South Ossetia and Abkhazia
3. Transdniestria
ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN
For Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, conflict resolution means self-determination of the
Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, but for Azerbaijan, it means the restoration of its jurisdiction
over the territory of the former autonomous region and seven adjacent districts that are now
controlled by Armenian forces.
On the political and legal level, this is a conflict between the right of nations to self-determination
and territorial integrity. During all the years of negotiations, the parties to the conflict were
offered many ways out of this impasse. However, neither Yerevan nor Baku has shown any
interest in anything more than a zero-sum game.
Meanwhile, the sharp increase in tensions in the summer of 2014 would have been much less
problematic, if not for the serious deterioration in relations between Russia and the West.
Unlike the situation in Georgia, for many years the Nagorno-Karabakh process had been
presented almost as a “success story.” Resolution of this conflict was never considered as an
arena for competition between Moscow and Washington.
Moreover, the three mediator countries (U.S., France, Russia) more than once came to a consensus
on what should be the basis for the settlement of the conflict. The presidents of these three
countries even expressed their willingness to support and promote the so-called “Madrid
Principles” as a basis for future agreements.
However, the West and Russia now find themselves on different sides of a great Eurasian
geopolitical game. The Ukrainian crisis has made them hostages of this geopolitical game, in
the sense that even those issues on which they had made significant progress are now being
set aside (including Afghanistan, the Middle East, and conflicts in the post-Soviet space).
Armenian forces gained control of Nagorno-Karabakh and areas adjacent to it before a Russian-
brokered ceasefire was declared in 1994.After that deal, Nagorno-Karabakh remained part of
Azerbaijan, but since then has mostly been governed by a separatist, self-declared republic, run
by ethnic Armenians and backed by the Armenian government.
The latest conflict broke out on 27 September 2020. Armenia said Azerbaijan fired the first shots.
Azerbaijan said it was launching a "counter-offensive" in response to Armenian aggression. Fighting
came to an end in November when both sides agreed to sign a Russian-brokered peace
deal. Under its terms, Azerbaijan holds on to several areas that it gained control of during the
conflict and Armenia will withdraw troops from them. Almost 2,000 Russian peacekeepers will
monitor the truce.
RUSSIA AND GEORGIA
Abkhazia – was a resort era on the Black Sea during Soviet
times. Ethnic tensions between Abkhaz and Georgians led to the region
declaring itself independent in December 1992. Russian military
intervened to protect Abkhazia and defeat the Georgian army. This war
resulted in 23,000 dead and 250,000 Georgian refugees who fled the
region. After the end of the war in 1993, Abkhazia continued to act as
an independent country although negotiations with Georgia continued
for years but never yielded any constructive results. The August 2008
Russian invasion of Georgia resulted in Abkhaz forces taking control of
the Kodori Gorge on the Georgia side of the border to expand their
territory and de facto, solidified Abkhazia’s status as separate entity
from Georgia. Russia maintains up to 3500 soldiers in the
region. Abkhazia’s population is between 180,000 and 240,000
(Abkhazia’s official count which is disputed). The Abkhaz make up the
largest part of the population now but with significant Armenian and
Russian populations. Prior to the 1992-93 war, the region was roughly
45% Abkhaz, 45% Georgian and 10% Armenian.
South Ossetia – is a small, landlocked region of Georgia on the Russia border. Inhabited by ethnic Ossetians, the region declared independence in November
1991. Georgia sent the army to quell the secession movement in 1991-1992 and it resulted in 1000 dead and 125,000 refugees. Almost 100,000 of those refugees fled
north through the Roki Tunnel (the main highway transit point between Russia and Georgia into the Republic province of North Ossetia. Following a Russian organized
cease fire, the region became de facto semi-autonomous within Georgia but peaceful until the summer of 2004. That year skirmishes began taking place as the new
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili pledged to bring the region fully back into Georgia. After weeks of mortars and gunfire, war broke out on August 8, 2008 initially
resulting in the Georgian army capturing Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. However they were forced to retreat by a Russian counterattack the next day. The conflict
left around 500 dead and approximately 45,000 refugees. Prior to the war, about 30% of the population was Georgian and located primarily in the rural areas. Now though,
South Ossetia’s population of 55,000 persons is more than 90% Ossetian with Russians as a small minority. Russia has a lease on a military base in South Ossetia and has
up to 3500 soldiers stationed there.
RUSSIA AND MOLDOVA
Transdniestria is a landlocked region between the

Dniester River on the Ukrainian side and
Moldova. During Soviet times, most of Moldova’s
heavy industry was located here and all Communist era
Presidents of Moldova came from this
region. Following independence from the Soviet Union
in 1991, tensions broke out and Transdniestria declared
its independence from Moldova. This resulted in a war
in 1992 that killed 800 persons. Since that time, the
Russian 14th Army has been stationed there with
around 1500 soldiers. The population is 509,000 and
broken down as follows: 32% Moldovan, 30% Russian,
29% Ukrainian, 3% Bulgarian, 6% other. It is often
referred to as “the world’s largest duty free zone” due to
the large amount of contraband that is smuggled in and
out of the region including cigarettes, alcohol, weapons,
drugs and human beings. The nearby Odessa port in
Ukraine acts as a conduit for much of the traffic.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO UKRAINE IN PUTIN’S GLOBAL HYBRID WAR
• The Kremlin views today’s hybrid war as an entirely rational and essentially
defensive response to the existential threat posed by the democratic world to
Russia’s authoritarian model. This perspective owes much to Moscow’s enduring
paranoia over the 1991 Soviet collapse, when a wave of grassroots democracy
uprisings across Soviet-occupied Central Europe led to the rapid disintegration of
the USSR. The Kremlin is prepared to go to almost any lengths in order to prevent
a repeat of this disaster, and is haunted by the idea of a so-called “color
revolution” taking place inside Russia itself. This led directly to Russia’s military
intervention in Ukraine following the country’s pro-democracy Euromaidan
Revolution in early 2014.
• Seven years on from those fateful events, Ukraine remains at the epicenter of the
confrontation between Russia and the West. Moscow continues to occupy Crimea
and parts of eastern Ukraine while showing no signs of any readiness to retreat.
On the contrary, Putin ended 2020 by vowing to escalate his attack on Ukraine.
Speaking during his annual press marathon in Moscow on December 17, the
Russian leader announced plans to ramp up Russian backing for the two self-
styled separatist republics in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. “Russia will keep
supporting the Donbas, as has been the case,” he declared. “We will even
increase our support.”
• In keeping with the plausible deniability that has defined Russia’s hybrid war in
Ukraine, Putin was characteristically careful to frame his latest statement in the
language of neighborly concern. However, amid seemingly innocuous talk of
greater Russian support for infrastructure and social issues, there was no
mistaking the menacing undertones of his promise to “remain proactively involved
[in eastern Ukraine] not only on the humanitarian front, but also through direct
cooperation.”
• Officially, Moscow recognizes the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine as
Ukrainian territory and is committed to their reintegration into Ukraine. In
practice, the Kremlin has taken considerable steps to render any future
reintegration efforts futile. Since spring 2014, the local population has faced a Hybrid threats combine military and non-military as well
relentless barrage of Russian propaganda praising the Kremlin and demonizing as covert and overt means, including disinformation,
Ukraine. Starting in spring 2019, Moscow has begun the fast-track distribution
of Russian passports to residents of the occupied regions. This weaponized cyber attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular
citizenship strategy is transforming Occupied East Ukraine into a passport armed groups and use of regular forces.
protectorate and paving the way for open-ended Russian intervention. Even if
Ukraine were able to regain nominal control over the region, the huge number of
Russian passport holders would provide Moscow with endless excuses to intervene
and deny Ukraine full sovereignty. Putin’s recent comments make clear that his
intention is to continue pursuing such policies during 2021.
Source: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/all-roads-lead-to-ukraine-in-putins-global-hybrid-war/
IS THE COLD WAR COMING BACK?
• WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States on Thursday (April 1) warned Russia against "intimidating" Ukraine,
which said that Moscow has been building up troops on its border.
• "We're absolutely concerned by recent escalations of Russian aggressive and provocative actions in eastern
Ukraine," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
• "What we would object to are aggressive actions that have an intent of intimidating, of threatening, our
partner Ukraine."
• Ukrainian and US officials have reported troop movements in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine,
as well as areas of the border Donbass region under control of Moscow-backed separatists.
• Both US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have called their Ukrainian
counterparts to stress support.
Putin signs law allowing him to serve 2 more terms as Russia's president (Or the show must go on!)
• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law on

Monday a change to the country's constitution that will
allow him to run for two more six-year terms, granting
himself the chance to remain in power until 2036. The
Russian leader, 68, has already run the country for more
than two decades, and with his recent crackdown on
political opponents and civil society, he has made it clear
that there's little room for dissent.
• A copy of the new law was posted on the government's
legal information website on Monday, confirming that the
legislation — the success of which was really never in doubt
— had been finalized. Prior to the new law, Putin would
have been required to step down after his fourth and
current term in 2024.
• But in March last year, lawmaker Valentina Tereshkova, a
lawmaker from Putin's ruling party, proposed the
constitutional change during a discussion in the State Duma
(congress). After Tereshkova, who is a Soviet cosmonaut
and was the first woman to go to space, suggested the
amendment, Putin himself showed up in the parliament
building and offered his backing for the idea, undermining
earlier speculation that he might seek to maintain power by
taking another role.
Geopolitics in the United States
• In contrast to the western European powers, America has enjoyed an abundance of

natural resources, a large land area and secure borders.
• Throughout American history, US foreign policy has shifted between introverted cycles
in which American interest has been dominated by domestic concerns, and extroverted
cycles when the US took a more active interest in international relations.
• The Monroe Doctrine adopted in 1823 which established as a cornerstone of American

foreign policy the opposition to any further European colonial expansion in North and
South America.
• The Monroe Doctrine embodied three principles:
• the principle of noncolonization
• the nonintervention principle
• the principle of nontransfer
• Alfred Mahan (1840-1914)

The Influence of Seapower upon History (1890)
The Interest of America in Seapower (1897)
• Nicholas Spykman (1893-1943)

America’s Strategy in World Politics (1942)
• Woodrow Wilson, 1917, defined ‚fourteen points’ in calling for a new approach to
international diplomacy; Outcome: the creation in 1919 of the League of Nations, as
an international organization based on the principal of collective security.
• After the WWI, the US moved again into an introvert phase in its foreign relations up
to the 1930s.
• In early 1950s a bipolar view of international relations, contrasting Soviet communism

with American democracy, was characteristic of American foreign policy.
• Truman Doctrine – statement made President Harry Truman in March 1947that “it must
be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”. Intended to persuade
Congress to support limited aid to Turkey and Greece the doctrine came to underpin
the policy of containment and American economic and political support for its allies.
• Containment – American political strategy for resisting perceived Soviet expansion,

first publicly espoused by an American diplomat, George Kennan, in 1947.
Containment became a powerful factor in American policy towards the Soviet Union for
the next forty years.
• Two other considerations have influenced 20th century American geopolitics – the role
of aviation and the role of the Arctic regions.
• Bush Doctrine of preemptive war (against Irak), explained in 2002, states that it is the
policy of the United States that preemptive war may be waged in appropriate
circumstances. Preemptive war is waged in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived
inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an unavoidable war
before that threat materializes. Recently supported by Obama administration against
Iran.
AMERICA’S allies are nervous. With Russia grabbing territory, China bullying its
neighbors and Syria murdering its people, many are asking: where is Globocop?
Under what circumstances will America act to deter troublemakers? What,
ultimately, would America fight for?
THE US SECURITY SUBSIDY IN FIGURES
Combined NATO defense spending is $1 trillion – half of Russian GDP and almost
nine times greater than the annual Russian military budget; but the imbalance in
the East provokes anxieties regarding the feasibility of extended deterrence;
Russian military expenditures dwarf those of CEE militaries: Russia spends 4.5% of
its GDP ($116 bln), compared to 1.9%($9.3 bln) for Poland and an average of 1.1%
($18 bln total) for the entire CE;
• The United States places the Pacific Ocean at the heart of its geostrategy. The attacks of the 11th
September 2001 signified a substantial acceleration of Washington’s geostrategic reorientation –
away from Western and Central Europe – and towards the Middle East and Central Asia. But this
Middle Eastern focus will be short-lived; for in the late 2000s, the key American geostrategic
development was the decision to spend multiple billions of dollars on upgrading naval, air and
ground facilities in Guam. This, as well as the formation of closer alliances with its East Asian
partners, is symbolic of the United States’ decision during the late 2000s to shift its power into
the Pacific Ocean and East Asia to hedge against China.
LIKELY AREAS FOR FUTURE CONFLICTS –WHERE NATO WAS
LOOKING TOWARDS
FACTORS FOR NATO 2030
Changing US Defense policy

• When will Europe become a security producer and not a consumer?
• Former Secretary of War, Leon Panetta – “the age of growing defense budgets is over”
(not referring to China or emerging countries, of course);
• The US will, eventually, pivot towards Asia Pacific – it just needs a bigger crisis than what
Europe can muster;
• Will the United States still look towards working with a Europe whose collective military
capabilities are likely to continue to decline, especially when compared to those of the
US?
MAPPING AMERICA'S WAR ON TERRORISM: AN AGGRESSIVE NEW STRATEGY The maps on these pages show all United
States military responses to global crises from 1990 to 2002. Notice that a pattern emerges. Any time American troops
show up--be it combat, a battle group pulling up off the coast as a reminder, or a peacekeeping mission--it tends to
be in a place that is relatively disconnected from the world, where globalization hasn't taken root because of a
repressive regime, abject poverty, or the lack of a robust legal system. It's these places that incubate global terrorism.
Draw a line around these military engagements and you've got what I call the Non-Integrating Gap. Everything else is
the Functioning Core. The goal of this new strategy is simple: Shrink the Gap. Don't contain it, shrink it. -- THOMAS P.
M. BARNETT
DISCONNECTEDNESS DEFINES DANGER: Problem areas requiring American attention (outlined) are, in the author's
analysis, called the Gap. Shrinking the Gap is possible only by stopping the ability of terrorist networks to access
the Core via the "seam states" that lie along the Gap's bloody boundaries. In this war on terrorism, the U.S. will
place a special emphasis on cooperation with these states. What are the classic seam states? Mexico, Brazil, South
Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia.
SNAPSHOT OF US ASSETS IN REGION BEFORE ISIS CRISIS
GEOPOLITICAL WORLD ORDERS
WORLD ORDERS IN THE 20th CENTURY
• World orders are interpreted as relatively stable distributions of political

power across the world.
• Geopolitically, there are two well marked world orders during the 20th
century:
– one is from the beginning of the century to the end of the WWII, and
that is the world order of the British Succession
– and the other is between 1945 to the late 1980s, the Cold War.
KEY FEATURES OF THE WORLD IN 1945
• Prominence of the US and USSR

– US first nuclear superpower, after explosion of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, August 1945
– US emerges from WWII as major creditor nation, and centre of the international
economy
– USSR in economic ruin after war, but Red Army occupies all Eastern and much of
Central Europe, to Berlin and beyond
• Collapse of Europe
– Rapidly divided East and West; Germany split until 1989
– National economies in ruin; large debts owing to US
– European colonial empires undermined by war and by Japanese overrunning of
colonies in South-East
• Growing nationalism in the colonial empires
– Wartime “Atlantic Charter” makes commitment to national self determination
– India seeking independence (achieved in 1947)
• Civil war in China
– Ended with victory of Mao and establishment of the People’s Republic of China in
1949
– Together with the population of the USSR, one third of the world lives under
communist rule
THE COLD WAR ORDER
• The term was popularized by US political commentator Walter Lippmann in
1947. It was born of disappointment in the new post-war era: the hot war
with Germany and Japan was over only to be replaced by new
international tensions as the Grand Alliance broke up.
• The world order was totally transformed: the USA replaced Britain as
leader, and the USSR replaced Germany as challenger.
• The new world order was proclaimed in civilization terms: in his famous
speech to Congress in 1947 US President Harry Truman talked of the
world having to choose between “two ways of life”: freedom or
totalitarianism.
• The Prime Minister Winston Churchill used his influence to speed up the
process of world division. His phrase “an iron curtain has descended over
the continent” positing the dark forces of communism against Anglo-
American liberties came to symbolize Europe’s position in post-WWII
geopolitics.
• The East-West geographical pattern of power conflict was dominant in the

inter-state system. US political hegemony was also challenged by a new
Third World
PATTERNS OF POWER IN 1945
• One world, where the Grand Alliance survives to lead an undivided and
peaceful world
• Three monroes, where the three superpowers split apart and each
concentrates on their division of the world
• An anti-imperial front producing two worlds where the USA and USSR
combine to oppose Britain and other European Empires
• An anti-hegemonic front producing two worlds where Britain and the USSR
combine perhaps as socialist states after Labor’s 1945 election victory in
Britain, to confront the overwhelming economic power of the USA
• An anti-communist front producing two worlds with Britain and the USA
confronting the USSR
THE UNFOLDING OF THE COLD WAR
1945-1953: Onset of the Cold War
• By the 1950s Europe was divided into the two blocs: the Eastern Europe
under the domination of the Soviet Union, and the western bloc including
Britain, France, Spain and the Low Contries under the leadership of the US
• The Domino Theory expresses the belief that Communism diffuses from
state to state by a contagious process - the interpretation belongs to a
former US ambassador in Moscow, William Bullitt
• Both superpowers consolidated their spheres of influence – the Soviet’s

buffer satellites in Eastern Europe and the US „backyard” in Central
America and the Caribbean
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – organization established by

treaty in April 1949 comprising initially 12 countries from Western Europe
and North America. The most important aspect of the NATO alliance was
the American commitment to the defense of Western Europe.
The Cold War: The Geography of Containment
1953-1969: Conflict, confrontation and compromise
• Korean War: IN 1950 North Korean attack on South Korea was interpreted
as part of a communist offensive and a test for American resolve and the
will of the United Nations to withstand aggression
• The death of Stalin in 1953 had significant consequences at home and

abroad; his successor Khruschchev pursued a policy of coexistence and
confrontations supporting the movements of liberation in the Third World
• The creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 and the Soviet intervention in
Hungary in 1956
• Crises over Berlin in 1961 and Cuba in 1962 marked the most dangerous
moments of the Cold War due to the risk of direct military confrontation
and the possibility of nuclear war
• Détente between USSR and USA had its roots in mutual recognition of the
need to avoid nuclear crises, and in the economic and military incentives
in avoiding an unconstrained arms race
NATO VS. WARSAW PACT
1969-1979: the rise and fall of détente

• This new phase in Soviet-American relations did not mark an end to
political conflict as each side sought to pursue various political goals, some
of which were to prove incompatible with the aspirations of the other
superpowers
• Both sides maintained support for friendly regimes and movements and
this came at a time when various political upheavals were taking place in
the Third World
• 1979 the overthrow of the Shah of Iran resulted in the loss of an
important American ally in the region
• 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan to support their revolutionary
allies “the Soviet Vietnam war”
• 1980 President Reagan was committed to a more confrontational approach
with the Soviets in arms control, Third World conflicts and East-West
relations in general
1979-1986: “the second cold war”

• Reagan policy (military intervention in Grenada in 1983 and against Lybia
in 1986, support for the rebel Contras in Nicaragua) was a source of
controversy within the United States and internationally
• SU believed that the US was planning a first nuclear strike. In 1983 Soviet
air defences shot down a South Korean civilian airliner in Soviet airspace.
The American reaction and the imminent deployment of US nuclear
missiles in Europe created a climate of great tension in East-West relations
• In November 1983 Soviet intelligence misinterpreted a NATO training
exercise (codenamed Abler Archer) and led the Soviet leadership to
believe that NATO was preparing to attack them
• 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became President and launched the policies of
glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).
• Sinatra Doctrine (“I did it my way”) marked the end of the Brezhnev
Doctrine
USA –SOVIET UNION CONFRONTATIONS
• The competition went beyond the European borders, to Asia

• Other parts of the Third World have been subject to American-Soviet
confrontations
• During the Cold War, hundreds of wars took place across the less
developed world. Nevertheless, hostilities were concentrated especially in
a few critical regions known as shatterbelts:
– Middle East and Southwest Asia
– Southeast Asia
– Southern Africa
– Southeastern Europe
Geopolitics and business during the Cold War Era
• Alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact
were formed purely in pursuance of the military dimension of security. Other
US-centric military alliances like the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)
and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) were also formed to
contain the spread of communism.
• Massive US investments under the Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of
Western Europe, and extensive economic aid, investment, and trade
relationships between the USA and countries like Iran, Turkey, Pakistan,
Indonesia, and Philippines etc. signified the economic dimension of the
Western alliance. Likewise, economic links between the USSR and the East
European countries were forged under the COMECON. Such trade and
investment links thus were forged more as a response to the geopolitical
context than in response to a pure economics, or firm strategy rationale.
• The geopolitical context changed again with the collapse of the Soviet
Union, signaling the end of Cold War. Following this, the economic links
between these countries and the pattern of trade and investment with them
too underwent corresponding changes, in response to the newly emerging
geopolitical context.
A NEW GEOPOLITICAL WORLD ORDER
• One of the scenarios predicts a divide through the Atlantic, with

Japan and the USA leading a Pacific Rim bloc against a greater
Europe incorporating the ex-USSR and dominating the Middle East
and Africa
• The New World order seems to place the United States in the position
of world leader, either unilaterally, or more likely in concert with its
close Western allies
• Conservatives in the United States and elsewhere warn of a

continuing danger to the West of a heavily armed Russia and the
great instability of Eastern Europe
• Many Third World commentators are concerned that the United

Nations is reverted to the period at the immediate end of World War
II when the international body was dominated by the United States
• “The new geopolitics”

GLOBAL TRENDS IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA
• The triumph of capitalism as a world system as a result of the end of the

competition between alternative economic systems
• The move from a bifurcated, two-world order in which the market only operated
in some countries, to one in which it was operating in nearly all countries had
immense and long-lasting consequences
• The short hand term used to define global economic policy during the 1990s was
the “Washington Consensus”, describing a strict set of economic criteria that all
countries had to adhere to, whatever the welfare consequences
• During the Cold War, politics in the West had largely been defined by the
strategic relationship with the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War and the
subsequent collapse of the USSR shifted the focus towards the global world
economy and how countries might survive and prosper within it.
THE ACTORS IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA
The United States – the new hegemony (the Gulf war, the disintegration of
the USSR, increasing American soft power, intervention in Bosnia, global reach,
peace mediation)
Russia – reform or decline? (failure to make the transition, financial collapse in

1998, Chechnya issue, Western acceptance – “better a collapsing Russia than a
unified, capable Soviet Union); revival in recent years; military assertiveness
China – regional threat (combination of communism and commercialism –

“Market Stalinism”, economic reform: foreign investments and privatization of
agriculture, a vast market, integration in the global economy, irreversible political
change)
Europe – integration, expansion and paralysis (German unification,

European integration, the war in former Yugoslavia, NATO expansion, BREXIT and
beyond)
Still the North: still the South (the meaning of the Third World, the capitalist
West, losers and winners in the less developed world, uneven development
continues to divide the world).

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INTRODUCTION TO GEOPOLITICS

PURPOSE OF THE COURSE

General remarks on contemporary geopolitical context

“geopolitics evolved from political geography, which is a branch of geography”

• Geopolitics is a long-established area of geographical enquiry which considers space to be

– geographic dimension of foreign policy

– applied political geography

– interpretation of the games of the great powers

• Old and new factors of geopolitics

– To knowledge, technology, money (Alvin Toffler – Powershift, 1991)

– Chronopolitics – “space is no longer in geography, it is in electronics… There is a

Brazil, Russia, India and China have

1973-1974: OPEC oil embargo

1979-1990: More turmoil in the Middle East

2007-2008: Boom before the bust

• The global economy is seen shrinking 3.5% last year,

STRUCTURES, DISTRIBUTIONS AND MIGRATION

Physical High Density Low Density

Human High Density Low Density

• pull factors: job and educational opportunities, wage differentiation, land

• economic (alleviate unemployment, remittances, cheap labour, brain

• population structure (younger, working force)

• political (welfare aid, services adaptation)

• cultural change (diversity, enhancement of values)

FACTORS THAT SHAPE THE WORLD ECONOMY AND

• About 20 metropolises had population of more than 8 million people in 2000,

• Urban population is increasing much more rapidly in developing countries than in

Rank Name Country 2021 Population 2020 Population Change

275 Bucharest Romania 1,794,248 1,803,247 -0.50%

• expression of human characteristics (collective or individual)

• web of social relationships and deposit of human energy

• concentration/accumulation of economies/wealth >> economic base (export)

• specialization of production, developing comparative advantages

• foundation of modern life: living systems vs. consumption systems

• The “Blue Banana”

• Post-fordist industrial metropolis - de/reindustrialization

• cities within globalization

• decentralized urbanism of edge cities (suburban US)

• mosaic of social inequality (fractal city)

• disciplinary, policed and gated spaces

• splintered cities - spaces for elite and middle-class groups**

Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC), Loughborough University

The modern corporation has had a huge influence on the contemporary

• Gentrification – central city residential revival, the rehabilitation of housing in

• Urbanization presents both opportunities and challenges. The current

• ‘When a Brazilian brews her morning coffee today, she is

Mack McLarty, former White House advisor

• By the year 2020, energy consumption by the

• The coming years will see important shifts among the

• THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 19, 2010:The recession precipitated a

• European dependence on Gulf oil will remain significant.

 Natural gas is the fastest growing primary energy source.

 Its use is to double, worldwide, by 2020.

 But this growth requires major infrastructure investments.

 The U.S. will become more reliant on imported natural gas.

 Russia, today providing 26% of the natural gas that Europe

Oil (Net Exports) Other Commodities

Islamic Republic of Iran 78

Syrian Arab Republic 64 Cotton 4

Algeria 63 Natural gas 27

United Arab Emirates 45 Natural gas 6

Brunei Darussalem 37 Natural gas 36