Geopolitics Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The concept of geopolitics is widely used in the public domain by politicians, journalists, policy analysts, and academics. As a result of its broad usage, providing a precise, succinct definition of the term is nearly impossible. In the academic world, the concept of geopolitics is used in many disciplines of the social sciences. Political scientists, economists, geographers, and historians all use the concept widely as well, but with differing meanings.

In most general terms, the term geopolitics refers to simple visualizations of relationships or concepts in world politics. At the end of the cold war, for example, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill predicted that an “iron curtain” would come down over Europe virtually separating the East from the West. A more recent example is the “axis of evil,” a term used by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002 to describe the connections of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq to a group of rogue states. In short, geopolitical descriptions in this sense provide a geographical simplification of international relations.

Geopolitical activities, however, are not solely conducted by states and their governments. International organizations such as the United Nations (UN) or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International, private multinational businesses, and supranational institutions such as the European Union (EU) are also geopolitical actors. They not only influence international decision-making processes but also have a stake in world politics in terms of strategic, military, political, economic, social, and environmental issues.

Swedish political science professor Rudolf Kjellen first used geopolitics as a scholarly term in 1899. His approach to geopolitics can be termed the “realist approach”—he emphasized the role of territory and resources in political decision making. World politics at the time was divided into states and empires as well as sea and land powers. Specifically, geopolitics was the intersection of politics and geography. British geographer Halford Mackinder then promoted the term to endorse the field of geography as an aid to British statecraft abroad. During the Nazi regime, models of Lebensraum (the need for more “living space,” a justification for the German invasion of Europe during World War II) and autarky (a state’s ability to be politically self-sufficient) were added to the concept of geopolitics. German political geographer Friedrich Ratzel presented the state as a natural organism that flourished or died with the struggle among states in an anarchic world. The term geopolitics was associated with fascist ideology of the 1930s and 1940s, so it is thus not surprising that after World War II (1939–1945) the concept fell into disuse.

With the beginning of the cold war in late 1949, the scholarly concept of geopolitics was transformed and the term acquired a new meaning. With the birth of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 and the ascendance of the doctrine of containment and deterrence, the term came to refer to geostrategy in pursuit of particular diplomatic and military goals. For the rest of the twentieth century, the scholarly concept of geopolitics was extended to strategic regions in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Particular attention was paid to the struggle between the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union. With the end of the cold war in 1989, the concept of geopolitics was amended again, and the debate shifted from geostrategy to geoeconomics—the primacy of economics in international affairs—in the post–cold war era.

Bibliography:

Anderson, Ewan W. Global Geopolitical Flashpoints: An Atlas of Conflict. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000.
Dodds, Klaus. Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

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