GEOPOLITICS:

How states behave and compete

in the political landscape
Friedrich Ratzel’s
Organic Theory
 German, 19th Century

 States are like organisms

 Hunger for land

 Are born, grow and deteriorate

 What happened at Berlin

Conference in 1884?
Application Activity

 Find example states for:

 Babies
 Adolescents
 Middle Age
 “Over the Hill”

 Justify each answer

 1904: Mackinder’s
Heartland Theory
 Whoever rules Eastern
Europe controls the
Heartland.
 Whoever controls the
H. controls the World
Island.
 Who controls the W.I.
controls the WORLD
1940s: Spykman’s
Rimland Theory
World War II

 Hitler and Annexation

 Who most represented

Mackinder’s Theory?

 Where was the shatterbelt?

Post World War II
Geopolitics
 Buffer Zone

 Satellite States

 NATO vs. Warsaw Pact

 Domino Theory/Policy of
Containment
Cold War Europe
Iraq Today
Spatial Distribution of Islam