Problematizing Geopolitics: Survey, Statesmanship and Strategy Author(s): Gearóid Ó. Tuathail and Gerard Toal Source: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1994), pp. 259-272 Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/622322 Accessed: 16-07-2015 09:04 UTC

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This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 259 Problematizinggeopolitics: survey, statesmanshipand strategy

Gear6id 0 Tuathail (Gerard Toal)

'Geopolitics'is a polysemousterm that exceeds all attemptsto delimitit as a singular presence.It is betterapproached by criticallyinvestigating how the conceptis made to carrycertain meanings in politicaldiscourse. This paper considersthree different ways in whichgeopolitics is used to make meaningin global politics:(i) as survey, (ii) as a philosophyof statesmanshipand (iii) as grandstrategy. In documentingthis performativerange of geopolitics,the paper problematizesthe conditionsof possibilitywhich enable the productionof geopoliticsas knowledgegenerally. The key problematicit identifiesis a Cartesianperspectivism which operates through assumptionsabout the facultyof sightto producethe sitingand citingof global politics.

key words criticalgeopolitics survey navigate strategy egopolitics

Associate Professor,Department of Geography,Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg,Virginia 24061, USA

revised manuscriptreceived I December 1993

Introduction thereforenot surprisingthat 'a certainamount of obscurityhas accompaniedits use' (Thermaenius Geopoliticsis not an immanentlymeaningful term 1938, 165). but a historicallyambiguous and unstableconcept. The outbreakof World War II and the sub- Originallycoined in Swedish by RudolfKjellen in sequent allied propaganda war against Nazi an articleon the boundariesof Sweden in 1899, the Germanyfacilitated the emergenceof an English word geopolitikwas firstintroduced into Germanin language word 'geopolitics'. Geopolitics became a reviewof Kjellen'swork in 1903 and subsequently the name for a new and 'lurid scientificsystem' by Kjellen himselfin 1905 (Holdar 1992, 319-20). that, in the words of Life magazine, 'a Briton Popularizedmost famouslyby KarlHaushofer, who invented,the Germans used and the Americans discoveredKjellen's work during World War I, the need to study'(Thorndike 1942). Once introduced term establisheditself in interwarGermany and into allied politicaldiscourse, geopolitics came to took on a set of meaningsdistinct from its use as a have a paradoxicaldouble life.On the one hand, categoryin Kjellen.Kjellen was the firstof many the term was a taboo word associated with an commentatorsto decrythe polysemityof the term, imperialistNazi foreignpolicy. On the otherhand, complainingthat the Germanswere misusingthe geopolitics was a necessary evil, a hardheaded very word he himselfcoined (Thermaenius1938, strategicapproach to the study of global politics 166). By the 1930s, the word had become a popular that the allies could not affordto ignore. 'Let us one in Germanpolitical language on international learn our geopolitics' and 'It's smart to be a affairs.Inevitably, this popularizationof the term geopolitical'were the distilledsentiments pushed was accompaniedby a certainamount of confusion by anti-Naziemigres in the earlyforties (Schuman as to whatgeopolitik really meant. One commentator 1942; Strausz-Hupe1943). suggestedin 1938 that the term'geopolitics' had Though stigmatizedas a 'pseudoscience'by cer- at least five differentmeanings and that it was tain influentialintellectuals like Isaiah Bowman,

TransInst Br GeogrNS 19 259-272 1994 ISSN: 0020-2754 Printedin Great Britain

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 260 Gear6id6 Tuathail RichardHartshome and Hans Morgenthau,geopoli- and strategy.Though we could identifymore, I ticsbecame part of Cold War strategicdiscourse. In have chosen to elaborateon these threeusages of the early 1950s Schmidt(1954), in an introduction geopoliticsnot because theyare objectivelydistinct to a bibliographyon geopoliticsfor the US Airforce, but ratherbecause they,first, provide a point of noted thatit is used in a wide varietyof senses.In entryinto longstandingpractices associated with some instances,he suggested,the termappears to geopoliticsand, secondly,provide a pointof depar- have no meaningat all. In the 1960s and 1970s, turefor an explorationof the conditionsof possi- Henry Kissingerpropelled geopolitics back into bilityof geopoliticsas knowledgein general.The general public discourse and made it a favourite productionof geopoliticsas knowledge,I wish to termof journalistskeen to be read as seriousand suggest,is dependentupon the practiceof privileg- worldly (Hepple 1986). In Latin America at this ing a transcendent,seeing man as the authoritative time,the conceptbecame part of the ideology of seer of global politicalreality. The task of critical bureaucraticauthoritarian states (Hepple 1992). geopoliticsis to expose the operationand subvert Withinthe United States in the early 1980s, geo- the authorityof thisCartesian figure. politics came to have significancein the Reagan administration'srevitalized production of the Cold War,appearing frequently in discussionsconcerning Geopolitics as survey: the panopticonism Central America and the Caribbean (O Tuathail of the strategicgaze 1986; Ronfeldt1983). Inevitably,these proliferating usages erodedthe confidence of some in geopolitics Though the termgeopolitics has been in use for as a meaningfulconcept. In 1986 one political less than a century,the general historyof geo- scientistwas moved to writethat the difficultywith graphicaldiscourse has been a deeply politicalone geopoliticsis that'it is conceptuallyso broad thatit (Livingstone1993). Geography is a practicethat can and does meanall thingsto all people' (Haglund gained its identityfrom the Westernimperializing 1986, 223). projectof surveying,mapping and cataloguingthe Complaintsabout the polysemityor meaning- earth.From the fifteenthcentury onwards, Western lessness of geopolitics are problematicin them- expansionismproduced a 'world' measured and selves.In general,such observations assume a naive definedby Westernsystems of signification.The theoryof languagewhere words and conceptshave mathematicalsystems constructed upon notionsof stable,assured identities which refer unproblemati- Euclidianspace gave rise to systemsof calibration cally and unambiguouslyto a fixedset of referents. which measured the earth in terms of European This assumption,however, has long been question- scales (theFrench metric system, the British imperial able. Ratherthan assumingthat we can ever truly system). The Linnean-inspiredscience of natural defineand isolate the essence of geopolitics,this historyin theseventeenth century created a tableof paper seeks to problematizethe ways in which classificationwhich European explorersprojected geopolitics has been made meaningfulin recent onto territoritiesthey considered 'blank' (Pratt political discourse. How is geopolitics put into 1992). The scientificsurveying of figures like politicaldiscourse? How does it function?What is Alexandervon Humboldt was made possible by the problematicmarked by its deploymentand use? earlierprojects of militarysurveying which enabled Instead of treatinggeopolitics as a self-evident territoriesto be conqueredand subdued.The con- presence,this paper seeks to questionhow geopoli- tinuedmaintenance of colonial empires,and their tics is presencedin our politicalculture, how it is a laterencroachment into the interiors of Africain the gatheringpoint formeaning and knowledgeabout middlenineteenth century, was dependentupon the global politics,a markof a series of performative persistentgeneration of surveysand maps of all practices.This paperis partof a broaderproject that sorts: navigational,military, topographical, econ- has come to be known as criticalgeopolitics (Dalby omic, demographic,scientific and political. The 1991; Dodds 1993; 0 Tuathailand Agnew 1992; maintenanceof empire depended on a will to 0 Tuathail1994). knowledgeabout places,territories and populations. To effectthis problematization of geopolitics,this Europeanscience understoodits knowledgeto be paper considersthree cases of how geopoliticsis an objectiveaccount of the earth,a formof knowl- deployedin late Cold War US politicalculture, cases edge which describedthat which was supposedly which I have organized as survey,statesmanship independentof thought.Maps were consideredto

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Problematizinggeopolitics 261 be mirrorsof nature,cartographic projections of the geopoliticsof X' where X=oil, energy,resources, realityof territory(Harley 1992; Rorty1979). information,the Middle East, Central America, Though the historicalcircumstances surrounding Europe,etc.) signifiedan abilityto createa compre- the production of surveys has changed in the hensivestrategic survey of global politicalspace, to twentiethcentury, the Westernwill to surveythe read the manifestfeatures of thatwhich was held to territoritiesof the globe has remained.This will is be 'extemrnalreality', and to speculate upon the institutionalizedin a multiplicityof differentsites in meaningof the supposedlytransparent features of political and civil society,sites which enable the global politics.Following Foucault, we can read this sighting(recognition and renderingvisible), siting type of geopolitical knowledge productionas a (the delimitingof global political space; e.g. the formof panopticonism,an institutionalizedstrategic 'Middle East', 'EastemrnEurope', etc.) and citingof a gaze that examines,normalizes and judges states world (judgingand textualizingof places by means froma centralobservation point (Foucault 1979; of literaturesof Orientalism,developmentalism, Luke 1993; 6 Tuathail,forthcoming). The strategic Sovietology,etc.) (Luke 1993; 6 Tuathail1994). It gaze, likethat described by Foucault,seeks to render finds expression,for example, in the cybemrneticthe dynamicsof statesincreasingly visible. It com- 'watching machines' of late modem states (spy prises a formof surveillancethat is both global satellites,electronic surveillance regimes, photo- and individualizing(or, betteryet, in-state-ing),a graphic intelligence,etc.) and in Western mass surveillancethat simultaneously sites (i.e. places in a media organizationswhose dispersednetworks of schema of global political space) and cites (i.e. reported,electronic systems of access and global summonsesbefore a courtof knowledgeand judge- televisualeyes functionas the surveyinginfrastruc- ment) states. Its centralpoint of observationand tureof informationalempire (Virilio 1989; De Landa judgementis representedas detachedand objective 1991). Built upon enormouselectronic and cyber- but its very functioningis dependent upon the netic streamsof data, the panopticsurveying eyes naturalizationof hegemonicways of seeing,siting of spy satellitesand the global media (fromprint to and citing. the instantaneousglobal televisionof CNN) prom- As a means of illustratingthis argument,let us ise thepossibility of a worldorder more transparent considerGeopolitics of the Caribbean: ministates in the than ever before (Vattimo1992). New cybemrneticwider world, a 1984 monograph writtenby the surveyingtechnologies hold out the possibilityof geographerThomas Andersonand copublishedby an ever more exact reproductionof reality,of an Praeger and the Hoover Institutionof Stanford increasinglytotal identityof map and territory. University.Anderson's book presentsitself as an Indeed, as has been widely noted, the formsof objective work of geographicalscholarship on a reality generated by the technologiesassociated regionclose to the UnitedStates. Yet the banality with the new mode of informationmake the very of the work belies its significanceas a motivated notionof the referentproblematic (Poster 1990). In form of power/knowledge.First, the book was typicallyhyperbolical terms, Baudrillard (1983, 2) produced at the height of the Reagan has suggestedthat traditional principles of represen- administration'sideological and militarywar in the tational survey are giving way to principlesof mid-eightiesagainst liberationalistmovements in simulation,of representationwithout reference to an Central America and the Caribbean. Within the originary'real'. Territory,he proclaims, contextof thisimperial reassertionism, the work can be interpretedas a motivatedact of surveillanceof no longerprecedes the map, nor survivesit. Hence- a spatial zone the US government deemed forth,itis themap which precedes the territory ... itis 'strategic'.Secondly, the work is part of a Hoover themap that engenders the territory. Institutionseries on politics in Latin America. Founded in 1919, the Hoover Institutionon Caught in this disappearanceof the referentare War, Peace and Revolutionwas, in 1984, a 200- the institutionalsites which produce geopolitical strong conservativethink-tank with a budget of surveysof the territorialityof global politics,seeing $10.4 millionand an endowmentof $79 million sites such as universities,strategic institutes and (Henderson1984). In Ronald Reagan's own words, area study centres.During the Cold War, these theHoover Institution'built the knowledge base' of institutionsproduced many surveys under the the so-calledReagan Revolution.Key Hoover per- name geopolitics.To produce a geopolitics ('the sonnel helped write the policy documents that

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 262 Gear6id0 Tuathail became Reaganomicsand helped staffthe Reagan Indianperspective. In short,Anderson's geography administration.By 1993 its influencehad waned is contestablycomprehensive. But we can go further considerably(King 1993). In 1991 the Institution and problematizethe veryproject that leads one to cancelled its Yearbookon internationalcommunist assume one can comprehensivelyunderstand a affairs,its annualsurvey of the stateof communism region.The assumptionthat places can be compre- and 'communistfront organizations' worldwide. hensivelyseen and understoodis a productof an The Hoover Institutionis appropriatelyhead- unreflectivegaze that assumes it can renderthe quarteredatop the Hoover tower on the Stanford world fullytransparent and knowable.Anderson's campus.In a forewordto Anderson'swork, Robert very project - to write the geopolitics of the Wesson of the Institutionviews the Caribbeanfrom Caribbean- is an instanceof a strategicgaze that the Hoover panopticonas a naturalhazard region sees but is not seen. What Anderson'swork of for the United States,a place of stormypolitical geopoliticalscrutiny' (1984, 2) failsto scrutinizeis weather generated by centrifugalstates. It is a the cultureof competencethat makes it possible. region Beforeaddressing this (see Conclusion),we need to understandgeopolitical scrutiny as performance, besetby swirling currents of revolution. All four of the as the executionof certaintasks. Using Anderson's of Marxist-Leninist-inclinedstates theWestern hemi- chaptersas a guide,to practicegeopolitics as survey sphere- Cuba,Nicaragua, Grenada, and Suriname- is to: arehere, and it is in thisarea that the influence of the UnitedStates is mostfiercely challenged by hostile (1) providea descriptivesurvey of thegeographical ideologiesand guerillaassaults. settingof a region noting the locational re- Wesson describesthe value of Anderson'swork as lationships,political entities,physical settings and naturalresources found within the region helping 'increase the understanding'with which (specifiedand scrutinizedbecause of its per- these problemscan be met by the UnitedStates. ceived value to the hegemon).For Anderson, Anderson himselfrepresents his work as an geographyis the productionof geographicintel- unconventionalapproach to geopolitics'because of ligencefor hegemonic managers; the comparativelylittle attention he gives to 'ortho- (2) provide an historicaloverview of the relation- dox topics such as militarypower, nationalobjec- ships,events and processeswhich have shaped tives, and national will'. However, this is only thisregion. Part of thisexercise involves tracing because the smallsize and briefperiod of indepen- dence of the Caribbean 'ministates'make these the historicalrelationship of the hegemon (the UnitedStates) to the region; featuresless relevant.In Anderson,geopolitics is (3) providea comprehensivesurvey of 'contempor- geographicalsynthesis. His geopoliticsunderstands ary geopoliticalissues' of interestto the hege- itselfas comprehensiveand geographicallyholistic: mon in the region.Anderson's study addresses marineboundaries, traderoutes, the In geopoliticalanalysis how a regionfunctions econ- petroleum of and omicallyand politicallyas wellas its culturalperson- condition democracy 'regional power alityare essential to fullerunderstanding. (1984, 2). centres',the first of whichis Cuba, a statewhich has 'consistentlysought to export its system [The]comprehensive understanding of a regionpro- throughoutthe region'(1984, 132); videsa superiorbasis for successful policy formulation. (4) providea clearset of foreignpolicy options for (1984, 9) thehegemon to governits relationshipwith the region in the most efficientmanner possible. The notions of increasingunderstanding, full 'Formulationof effectivepolicies benefits from a understanding,and comprehensivenessappealed to frameworkof realisticperceptions' (Anderson hereare worthproblematizing. For regionalspecial- 1984, 157; emphasisadded). Andersoncriticizes ists,Anderson's work is farfrom comprehensive. In the'conceptual blinders' that sometimes lead US a review,Richardson (1984, 482) points out that policymakersto treatthe Caribbeanas a cluster althoughAnderson's book suggestsregional cover- of tiny, similarand unimportantplaces. The age his focus is only on Jamaica,the Bahamas, region is strategic,he claims,and the United Trinidad and Tobago, and the smaller eastern States needs to adopt a more flexiblepolicy islands.Furthermore, his work also lacks any West towards'political mavericks' like Cuba, Grenada

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Problematizinggeopolitics 263 and Nicaragua,and be seento be on the side of geopolitics (Kissinger1979, 1204). Geopolitics is social progress(1984, 166). penetrativeperception, the abilityto breach with one's sight,to see inside,to stripaway 'illusions' We can identifytwo basic types of utterances and 'surfaceappearances'. Henrikson (1981, 398) here:denotative and imperative.The firstaspires to reads 'geopoliticalinsight' as indicatingthat politi- the productionof pure descriptionsof the full cal realityfor Kissinger must not only be 'viewed geographicalcharacteristics of a spatial zone (or objectively'but also 'subjectivelypenetrated': issue) which has been deemed significantby the foreignpolicy communityof the hegemon. The Statesmanshiprequires above all a senseof nuance and second aspires to constructa series of imperative proportion,the ability to perceivethe essential among statementsto guide foreign policy formulation a massof apparent facts, and an intuitionas to whichof many aboutthe future is founded upon the denotative analysis presented. equallyplausible hypotheses likelyto provetrue. (Kissinger 1979, 31) While such a practicetakes the identificationand descriptionof the 'real' (territory,geography, geo- The of statecraftas is politicalrealities, etc.) as its raisond'etre, the realness coding states-man-ship not was a of this 'real' is determinedby the culturalconven- insignificant;geopolitical insight type of seeingcoded in masculinistterms by Kissinger.Yet, tions and, increasinglythe technologicalinscriptive ironically,his evocation of 'intuition' systems,of the hegemon's political culture.To (traditionally coded as feminine)subverts his masculinist criticallyproblematize geopolitics as survey,there- coding of fore,involves the problematizationof the rules of in-sight. Kissinger'ssense of must be under- competenceby which political cultures(and sub- geopolitics stood within the context of his of cultureslike strategiccommunities) are empowered reading nineteenth-centurycontinental to see/writeglobal politicalspace. EuropeanRealpolitik, particularlythe foreign policy philosophies of Prince Metternichof Austriaand Otto Von Bismarckof Geopolitics as statesmanship:Henry the Prussia(Kissinger 1957). Threeaspects of thisread- Navigator ing are noteworthy:the understandingof (i) equi- librium,(ii) sentimentalismand the is also the fora (iii) connectivity Geopolitics gatheringpoint particu- of events. lar understandingof the practicalconduct of state- First,geopolitics is a which is craft.This conceptualunderstanding of perspective pre- geopolitics mised on the so-called'historical lesson' thatthere as the savoirfaire of statesmanshipis almostexclu- can be no peace without a balance of sively the legacy of HenryKissinger, the German- power born HarvardProfessor who became US National amongst the great powers. A geopoliticalforeign therefore,is one that seeks to maintain SecurityAdvisor and thenSecretary of State under policy, equilibriumin global politics and thus maintain RichardNixon and GeraldFord. Through his many peace. In his initial with Nixon, newspaper columns,regular television interviews recalling meeting Kissinger(1979, 12) notes how he stated that the and extensive connections throughoutthe US overridinggoal of US shouldbe foreignpolicy community,Kissinger continues to diplomacy shape the meaning and practice of geopolitics to freeour fromits violenthistorical (Isaacson 1992). foreignpolicy fluctuationsbetween and fromthe In the firstvolume of his memoirsWhite House euphoria panic, illusionthat decisions depended largely on theidiosyn- years(which address the firstNixon term),Kissinger crasiesof decision-makers.Policy had to be relatedto (1979) makes his involvementsin international some basic principlesof nationalinterest that tran- diplomacyintelligible by constantrecourse to the scendedany particularAdministration and would concept 'geopolitics' (which he never explicitly thereforebe maintainedas Presidentschanged. defines)and the qualifier'geopolitical' (it qualifies 'interests','ambitions', 'points of view', 'realities', Those basic principles,for Kissinger,were the consequences' and 'challenges' amongst others) principlesof geopolitics,a perspectivewhich is (Kissinger 1979; Hepple 1986). Kissinger's key balanced (not fluctuating),realistic (not illusory), expression,for Henrikson (1981, 398), is 'geopoliti- rational (not idiosyncratic),transcendental (not cal insight',an idiom that reveals his relianceon historical)and permanent(not transitory).In the the rhetoricsof vision and visualityto describe closest he gets to an explicitdefinition, Kissinger

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 264 Gear6id6 Tuathail (1979, 914) describes the geopolitical as an Kissinger'srendering of geopoliticsas a philoso- approachthat pays attentionto the requirementsof phy for the conduct of statecraftdoes not break equilibrium'.He lamentsthe factthat the US has no fromthe panopticonismof geopoliticsas survey. geopoliticaltradition and thatthe geopoliticalpoint Kissingerwrites frequently about Nixon and other of view findsno understandingamong those who leaders producinga tourd'horizon of global affairs conduct the public discourseon foreignpolicy in (e.g. 1979, 93, 384). Kissinger brought to the the US (1979, 914-5). This made it difficultfor both analysisof internationalpolitics the same objectivist Nixon and Kissingerto pretensionshe employedto analyze the Congress of Vienna in his academic work. Once in power foundAmerican foreign policy on a soberperception of Kissingerwas able to pass offhis own philosophical nationalinterest, rather than on permanent fluctuatinginterpretations of, for example, Soviet foreign emotionsthat in thepast had led us to excessof both policy or the significanceof the Vietnamwar, as interventionand abdication.(1979, 914, emphasis added) objectivedescriptions of the stateof global politics. These descriptionswould then be reproduced and circulated the US new media with whom Secondly,the imperativeto contain fluctuating by had a emotions'(euphoria, panic, etc.) leads Kissingerto Kissinger carefullydeveloped relationship (Isaacson 1992, 573-586). Declarativestatements of describegeopolitics as foreignpolicy withoutsen- fact and statementsof are not timentalism.Geopolitics is a philosophyof foreign imperative policy in rhetoricbut policyfounded on the realitiesof power and not on separable Kissinger's mutuallylegiti- his skilled use of the the vagaries of personalityor ideological guilt mating. Through Western was able to exercisea (whichis invariably'liberal guilt' in Kissinger;e.g. media, Kissinger profound influenceover the of in late 1979, 192). To act geopoliticallyis to act in termsof writing global politics Cold War culture. 'hardheaded'power politicscalculations and not in In order to this of termsof idealisticglobal visionsor personalwhims. problematize writing global we need to reflect on how 'Our objectivewas to purgeour foreign policy of all politicalspace, critically has and sentimentality'(1979, 191). The Chineseleadership, Kissinger represented experiencedglobal First,a recurrent in White for example,learnt that 'our approach to foreign diplomacy. metaphor Houseyears (1979) is thatof thejourney. Part one of policy was unsentimentaland geopolitical'(1979, the book is labelled and two 786). In describingNixon's tripto China,Kissinger 'Beginnings' part '1969: the startof the Detailed rationalizes Mao's 'preferencefor dealing with journey'. descrip- tions of various undertakenby RichardNixon over the wayward representatives journeys Kissinger and Nixon are the book but, of Americanliberalism' by quoting Bismarck:'A presentedthroughout more thesubstantive conduct of sentimentalpolicy knows no reciprocity'(1979, significantly, foreign 1089). policyis understoodas a typeof journeying. History is movementand travel and time: Thirdly,geopolitics is a foreignpolicy analytic by throughspace knows no and no which local events and regional conflictscan be 'History restingplaces plateaus 55). The establishmentof a with understoodin all theirglobal significance.To think (1979, relationship China,for with'small geopoliticallyis to thinkof a global frameworkof example,begins steps'(Chapter VI: First towardsChina). the US- power withinwhich, Kissinger maintained, regional steps Describing China at the end of Nixon's firstyear, strugglestake on a significancethat extends far relationship remarks(1979, 194): beyond the immediategeographical location. In Kissinger explaining his approach as 'strategic and We stillhad a to Butwe wereat lastin geopolitical',Kissinger (1979, 31) describesit thus: longway go. thefoothills of a mountainrange that it wouldtake us I attemptedto relateevents to each other,to create anothereighteen months to traverse. incentivesor pressuresin one partof the worldto influenceevents in another. Kissinger's most popular journeying metaphor, however,is not mountainclimbing but navigation. This was formalizedby Kissingerinto the doctrine Drawingupon the classicPlatonic metaphor of the of linkage,a doctrinewhereby events in one partof shipof state,Kissinger repeatedly understands diplo- the globe were linkedto events in otherparts in maticactivity as the art of managingthe statequa superpowernegotiations (1979, 129). ship (states-man-ship)(Foucault 1991, 93-4). Nixon

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Problematizinggeopolitics 265 is the helmsmanof the good ship 'United States' charted course. (Interestingly,Kissinger describes and Kissingeris his principalnavigator (1979, 59, Nixon's temperas a stormand notes how he some- 1410). Together they, with a small hand-picked timesthrew 'restraint to the winds';e.g. 1979, 927, crew,navigate the ship of statethrough dangerous 969.) Geopolitics is sensible and balanced navi- times and stormyseas, all the while strivingfor gationalstrategy (it has a calmingeffect). Yet, at the balanceand equilibrium(against the dangersof wild time of these ideological figurations,Nixon and fluctuationsand oscillations).Crises, both domestic Kissingerwere conductinga wildlyviolent foreign and international,are experienced as stormy policy thatwas murderingthousands in South East weather.Domestic protestsabout Vietnamwere a Asia. The ostensiblysober navigatorswere practis- 'tidal wave of media and studentcriticism' which ing megalomaniacsdrunk with power (on Nixon caused significantdamage (1979, 512). Protesting and the rhetoricof madnesssee Sylvan 1992). studentswere 'rudderless'(1510). The President The second mastermetaphor found throughout triedto see himselfas 'the firmrock in thisrushing WhiteHouse yearsis that which representsdiplo- storm'(514). The India-Pakistancrisis of 1971 was a macy as gaming, a longstandingClausewitzian politicalcyclone that threatened to sinkUS efforts metaphor.Nixon's predispositionfor gaming meta- withthe Soviets and the Chinese.However, the US phors,particularly poker (whichhe played prolifi- 'survived the storm with the rudder intact.We cally in the navy duringWorld War II), is already could resumeour course' (1979, 918). Negotiations well established(Wills 1969). With Kissinger,we are frequentlydescribed as 'stormy'.In one of his find a multiplicityof differentgaming metaphors few referencesto Watergatein WhiteHouse years, used to describehis experienceof diplomacyand Kissinger(1979, 76) scathinglycondemns Nixon's internationalpolitics. The shootdown of a US advance men who 'have no ballast when their EC-121 aircraftby North Korea (14 April 1969) careers are in jeopardy'. During the Watergate propelled the Nixon administrationinto its first period they majorcrisis (Nixon, the ostensiblysober navigator, was reportedlydrunk when this crisis broke: producedthe unedifying spectacle of a rushfor the Cumings1992, 163). Kissinger(1979, 313) remarks lifeboatswith each littlecaesar seekingsafety by that pushinghis blood brothers over the side. [n]onew president can really know what kind of 'team' he hasuntil faced with such a crunch.Its essence is the The of these is that significance figurations they need to makehigh-risk decisions quickly and under normalize and naturalizecrucial relationshipsof pressure. power.The metaphorof the shipof stateascribes an absolutepower to the Presidentand representsany Kissingerwrites about 'tackling'global problems political challenge to that power as hazardous and 'playingfor high stakes'.Like Nixon, Kissinger weathernot legitimatedissent (thus the preoccu- frequentlyused card game metaphorsto convey pation with 'damage control'; megalomania and how he experiencedinternational affairs. The ability paranoia soon developed in the Nixon White to conducta tourd'horizon was Nixon's 'strongsuit' House). Congressionalantiwar resolutions, for ex- (1979, 1205). In global geopolitics,the US relation- ample, are representedas a dam-burstingflood ship withChina presenteditself as the 'China card'. (1979, 1373). It promotesa discoursewhich links Triangularpolitics holds the potentialfor playing 'America'with the rhythms,crises and patternsof China and the USSR offeach other (1979, 763). 'nature'- a naturalcommunity travelling towards its Negotiationswith Hanoi were orientatedtowards natural/nationaldestiny (Ross 1987/88,119). Politi- 'forcingHanoi's hand' (ChapterXXIII). Negotiations cal events are experiencedas naturalphenomena withThieu were made intelligibleas a pokergame (not only as stormsbut also as seismicgeological in whichKissinger should hold back the trumpcard events.For example,the schedulingof a Nixon visit until the last trick(1979, 1365). Other formsof to China was 'the announcementthat shook the gamblingare also employedto writeglobal politics. world';(1979, 758.) Foreignpolicy is representedas The 1971 springoffensive by theNorth Vietnamese a navigational challenge, geopolitics as weather army is described as Hanoi throwingthe dice forecastingqua horizon watching.It is inevitable (ChapterXXV). Soviet diplomaticpractice was not that the statesmanqua helmsmanwill occasionally to 'stakeeverything on a singlethrow of the dice' experiencestormy seas but he should stickto the (1979, 118). The 1972 Christmasbombings of

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 266 Gear6id6 Tuathail Hanoi were Nixon's 'last roll of the dice' (1979, term 'geopolitics' became taboo because of its 1449). Finally,geopolitics is also describedas a Nixon-Kissingerassociations. chess game (e.g. 1979, 524, 709). Kissinger,however, gave geopoliticsa performa- We can speculate on the significanceof these tivitythat exceeded its use as a means of general metaphorsfor understandingsof geopolitics.To surveyingof the landscapeof global politics.Ana- surveythe geopoliticalrealities of the globe is to lyzingglobal politicsgeopolitically in a Kissingerian read a playingfield or rathera series of different fashionenabled: arenasof gaming.Places are emptiedof any signifi- (1) the organizationand deciphermentof the over- cant contentother than theiridentity as locations whelmingcomplexity of global eventsand pro- forstrategic games (Shapiro1989, 89). International cesses. To thinkgeopolitically is to code the events are read as moves in a game, in many everydaylife of internationalaffairs with hier- instancesas manoeuvresin a pre-established'game archies of signification(see, for example, plan' by one's adversary(e.g. 1979, 679). To think Kissinger's(1979, 654) extraordinaryreading of geopolitically,therefore, requires that a 'game plan' the electionof Salvador Allende in September is worked out and ready to put in motion (see 1970 as part of a global challengeto the US). Brzezinski1986). Again suchfigurations depoliticize The significantis to be distinguishedfrom the global affairsand naturalizethe violence of the state trivial,the essentialfrom the concessionary,the by renderingit intelligibleas a sportor part of an ideologicalfrom the strategic, and thelocal from inevitablegame. They also serveto inscribeplayers the global. Everythingis affixedwith a geo- with secure identities.Tracing their operation also politicalmeaning. This systemof meaninghad enables us to perceivesomething of the addictive, its own internal structuringprinciples. For even erotic, aspect of geopolitics for statesmen example,things coded as 'ideological'(e.g. the like Nixon and Kissinger.Kissinger (1979, 614) interestsof a certainpower or the speech of a quotes Nixon's responseto the Jordaniancrisis of particularindividual) were of lessersignificance September1970: thanthings coded as 'strategic'.Things done in there'snothing better than a littleconfrontation now privatewere of greatersignificance than things and then,a littleexcitement. done in publicand so on; (2) the pursuitof a logical plan of decisiveaction. Nixon perceived himselfas best under pressure. Geopoliticsnot only decipheredcomplexity but Kissinger(1979, 1471) remarksthat empowered practitionersby providing them with a menu of decisive action. As Kissinger it was sometimesdifficult to avoid the impression that representsit, to thinkgeopolitically is to think he neededcrises as a motivatingforce. in the mannerof a detached,rational Cartesian consciousness.Homo geopoliticus was a masculine of Kissinger'shigh profilepractice geopolitics beingwho cogitatedin a hardheaded,realist and duringhis tenureas US National SecurityAdvisor balanced manner.He restrainedhis emotions and of State came under sustained Secretary and containedstormy floods. Fear of feminine- criticismafter 1972 within the United States. coded conditions - emotionalism,idealism, This which came most from Cold War attack, oscillation,soft- not hard-headedness- threat- like Jackson,Daniel Patrick ideologues Henry ened the ego securityof homogeopoliticus. Moynihanand RonaldReagan, was an attackon the Nixon-Kissingerpolicy of ditentefor its amoral The performativepower of Kissingeriangeopolitics accommodationwith Soviet totalitarianism.The is as a mode of deciphermentwhich recovers Jackson-Vanikamendment to the 1972 tradeagree- meaning from the everyday life of international ment between the US and USSR, the criticismof politics.Geopolitics is also a guidebook to action SALT II (which was never ratified)and the pro- forthe foreignpolicy prince, a navigationalsystem tests over the 1975 Helsinki agreementsin the whichempowers foreign policy decision-makersto Republicanconvention of 1976 were all explicit act in particularways and justifythis strategyof repudiationsof Kissinger's geopolitics (Isaacson action to themselves,their inner advisors and the 1992, 607-72). Amongstpolitical groups, on both public at large. To problematizesuch a type of the leftand the right(including those who would geopoliticsis to question the strategiesby which come to power with Ronald Reagan in 1980), the global politicalspace is producedin the everyday

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Problematizinggeopolitics 267 practicesof statecraft.It is also to questionthe male Strategy,in contrast,was an intelligencegiven over fantasies which engender global political space to the contemplationof unchangingessences and and secure hardheaded subjectivitiesfrom floods pre-existentidentities. For De Certeau (1984, 36), and other threateningfeminine-coded conditions strategyis (Theweleit1987). a masteryof places throughsight. The divisionof space makespossible a panopticpractice proceeding as the froma place whencethe eye can transformforeign Geopolitics grand strategy: forcesinto objects that can be observedand measured, geopolitician as geomancer andthus control and 'include' them within its scope of vision.To be ableto see (farinto the distance) is also Despite the ideologicalreservations of the Republi- to be ableto predict,to runahead of time by reading can right-wing,the rhetoric of geopoliticsflourished a space.(emphasis in original) ratherthan disappeared under the two adminis- trationsof Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Part of Whereas Kissinger'sgeopolitician is a clairvoyant the reason for this was undoubtedlythe return managerof the everydaytactical conduct of state- of ex-Kissinger staff to power under Reagan craft,Gray's geopoliticianis a grand strategist,a (most notably Alexander Haig). As significant, Delphic seer/prophetwho looks intothe distanceof however, was the resurgenceof geopolitics as a historyand into the essence of things. way of thinkinggrand strategy. Although this sense Secondly,geopolitics, for Gray, is a traditionof of geopolitics was sometimes confused with thinkingabout grandstrategy in termsof the most Kissinger'sgeopolitics, it was re-animatedby the fundamentalfactor conditioning national security: ideologicalproductions of the second incarnationof geography.The key to nationalsecurity lies in the the Committeeon the PresentDanger, a right-wing proper understandingof the strategicmeaning of foreignpolicy group formedexplicitly to critique geography: US foreignpolicy under Jimmy Carter (Dalby 1990). With the electionof Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Geographyis the most fundamentalof the factors group dissolved and manyof its memberstook up whichcondition national outlooks on securityprob- positionsof power in the new administration. lems and strategysolutions. Geography, treated One of these members was the British-born properlyin politicaland strategicanalysis, is not a factor.But it conditionsthe out- Gray,who servedfor a timeas an rigidlydetermining strategist,Colin an as it conditionsthe advisor on naval issues and arms controlto the look of insularpeople, just outlookof a continentalcommunity. The influenceof is Presidentof the Reagan administration.Gray geographyis trulypervasive, notwithstanding thefact NationalInstitute for Public Policy and continuesto that influencemust vary in detail as technology producebooks and articlesanalyzing global politics changes (Gray 1990, 14). from a position he terms 'geopolitical'. Gray's renderingof geopoliticsis distinctivein fourdiffer- The distinctivenessof geopoliticsas a formof grand ent ways. First,geopolitics is about the contem- strategylies in its emphasis on geography as a plation of grand strategyand not, as in Kissinger, permanentconditioning reality of global politics. about the everydaytactical conduct of statecraft. Geographydoes not determinenational destiny or Navigation and game playing requireda tactical strategicculture but establisheslimits and provides intelligencethat in ancientGreece was known as the necessaryconditions for both. A state'snational metis,literally 'informed prudence'. Metis implied securitypolicy, for Gray (1988, 15), is rootedin its geopolitical soil. The mixtureof geography and a complexbut very coherent body of mental attitudes politicalculture set the parametersof statecraftand and intellectualbehaviour which combine flair, strategy.Ideology has a secondarysignificance to of mind, wisdom,forethought, subtlety deception, geography. resourcefulness,vigilance, opportunism, various skills, Thirdly, Gray grounds his understandingof and experienceacquired over the years. It appliedto in a canon of situationswhich are transient,shifting, disconcerting geopolitics explicitly prophetic and ambiguous,situations which do not lend them- thoughtwhich has HalfordMackinder and Nicholas selves to precisemeasurement, exact calculationor Spykmanas its leadingseers (Kissinger's 'wise men rigorouslogic. (Detienneand Vemant1978, 3-4,. were not detached observers but long-serving, quotedin Stephanson1989, 198) conservative, nineteenth-centurypractitioners:

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 268 Gear6id6 Tuathail Metternichand Bismarck).The great genius of himto suspendany responsibilitytowards the real. Mackinder and Spykman is not only that they In a 1988 statementwhich is a testimonyto the identifiedgeography as themost fundamental factor force of fantasy/denialin his geopolitics (during in internationalpolitics but thatthey also discerned a time of historicupheaval in the USSR), Gray the operation of a set of 'enduringoppositions' proclaimed(1988, 1-2) (founded upon permanentgeographical realities) For as farinto the future as can be claimedcontem- whichhave definedthe strugglefor power through- porarilyrelevant, the Soviet Union is going to out the ages. These oppositions are those be- remainthe source of danger- narrowlyto American tween landpower and seapower, heartland and nationalsecurity, more broadly (and quite literally) to rimland,centre and periphery,individualism and the exerciseof the values of Westerncivilization. authoritarianltotalitarianvalues, East and West (Emphasisin original). (Gray 1988, 39, 212). Althoughcharacterizing his Gray's in the 1980s were distinguish- writingsas 'steeped in history'(1990, 13), Gray's geopolitics able from those of in conventional analysisis distinguishedby its remarkableindiffer- Kissinger ence to historicalcontext and The political discourse by their relative emphasis on particularity. accommodationwith the Soviet Union. Whereas dynamics of the Greek city states, the Roman Kissinger sought stabilityamongst the Empire,the ByzantineEmpire, the Britishand the supposedly (this is for Soviet Empirescan all be reduced to the play of superpowers questionableconsidering, his commitmentto theVietnam war or the these oppositions. example, subversionof Chilean Fourthly,Gray reads the Cold War in termsof a democracy),Gray's writings the their on systemof understandingprovided by the above throughout eightiesplaced emphasis achievingvictory over HeartlandUSSR, thus mak- principlesand opposition.The Soviet Union is a threatto the United States not because it is a ing him appealing to right-wingideologues dis- affectedwith Kissinger's geopolitics. Both Kissinger Marxistsuperstate but because it is the only plau- and Gray's nevertheless,have many sible bidderfor hegemonic control of the assets of geopolitics, featuresin common. both Eurasia (1988, 70). The Cold War is not about Methodologically, usages to a level of thanthat ideology or a strugglebetween two competing appeal deeper interpretation whichseeks only to recoverthe immediatemeaning ways of lifebut a dramaticstruggle between two of the everydayevents in global politics.Both are essential spaces: 'insular USA' and 'Heartland scepticalof the accounts offeredof statecraftby USSR'. The role occupied by the United States is most participantsand journalists.They seek to that of an insularseapower with an individualistic democraticculture in alliancewith the rimland states uncoverthe hiddenstructures of meaningthat exist below such accounts,the deep truthshidden by of WesternEurope and Japan.The Soviet Union's everyday practices that escape most observers. position in the plot is as the great Heartland Both, in sum, set themselvesup as men who are superpower.It is a backwardyet formidableterri- seers of 'the reality'of global politics. torialempire with an innatedesire for expansionism, privileged As a typeof propheticseeing, Gray's geopolitics both territorialand hegemonic.Geography makes it can be describedas divinationor geomancy.The a naturalenemy of WesternEurope and the United States. conceitof his analyses is its pretensionsto reveal the timelesshidden secrets of human historyby It is thestill-landlocked continental superstate that has speculatingon lines in the earth.Gray sets himself beenbequeathed by its distinctivehistory a political up, with a certaindegree of hubris,as a British cultureand a strategicstyle which - whenmarried to teacher of the Americans;as a seer who has a permissivebalance of power - is profoundlythreat- unlockedthe secretsuccess of Great Britainin its eningto the securityof the 'MarginalCrescent' of imperialheyday. 'The key to Britishsecurity', he Eurasia evento theinsular peripheral and,ultimately, declares, 'lay in proper understandingof the continental-scale thatis theUnited States democracy of Enter Halford (1988,195) strategicmeaning geography.' Mackinder,another British teacher (to whom we all should have listened).Mackinder's ideas are ones The in narrative- desireand rape sub-text Gray's that'have stood the test of time'.He permissivenessthreaten a vulnerable 'marginal crescent'- is found throughouthis works. Read providedan intellectualframework for understand- symptomatically,it is a fantasyfetish which enables ing the recurrentpatterns in internationalpower

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Problematizinggeopolitics 269 relationshipsthat was well foundedin historyand Conclusion: the problematicmarked by geographyand that the events of the twentieth 'geopolitics' centuryhave substantiatedin mostessentials (Gray 1988,5). It should be clear fromthe three late Cold War usages of geopoliticsexamined in thispaper that the The of is relevanthere: Lacanianreading prediction term geopolitics does not have a singular,all- or This is not to [a] contingentreal triggers the endless work of inter- encompassingmeaning identity. pretationthat desperately tries to connectthe symbolic implythat geopolitics as survey,statesmanship and networkof the prediction[in thiscase, Mackinder's strategyare ontologicallydistinct. The practiceof ideas]with the event of... [humanhistory]. Suddenly, statecraftor grand strategyare both activitiesthat 'all thingsmean something' and ifthe meaning is not requiresurveying just as the practiceof surveying clear,this is onlybecause some of it remainshidden, could itselfbe viewed as a formof statecraftand waitingto be deciphered(Zizek 1991, 31) strategicthinking. None of these usages are mutu- ally exclusive.Rather, they mark out a problematic Mackindersupposed propheticdivination is given thatneeds to be confrontedand analyzedby critical as a semiurgicforce by being displayed global map geopolitics.I wish to conclude by offeringthree (a crude Mercator projectionas geomancy map) briefspeculations on thisproblematic. withhuge swathsof territorystamped with differ- First,it is frequentlyassumed that geopolitics 'Islands ent identities:'Heartland', 'Marginal Lands', representsa problematicthat can be describedas or Outer Continents'.Spykman's modification to 'advice to the prince'.Geopolitics involves using this Mackinderianmap is then displayed,carto- geographyas an aid to statecraft.From the evidence graphicdisplays of timelessearth truths. of the usages discussedin thispaper, however, this Gray's rechargingof Mackinderand Spykman's formulainadequately described the performative system of opposition and geopolitical identities rangeof geopolitics.The veryconcept of advice to empowersa transcendentalseeing subjectto: the prince,exemplified by Mackinder(1942, 150) in (1) divinewhich things are permanent(e.g. thelaws his famousimage of an airy cherubwhispering in of internationalpolitical behaviour) or continu- the ear of the statesman,is an archaicmedieval one, ous over time (e.g. geopoliticalrealities), and anachronisticnot only in the age of huge foreign whichthings are cyclicalor given to oscillations policy bureaucraciesand postmodemrninformation (e.g. nationalsecurity policies); flows but also in a culture where traditional (2) fitthe messy places of global politicsinto the Cartesianassumptions about theunity of thehuman collectionof geopoliticalidentities (Heartland, subject are being overturned(Grosz 1990, 1-5). Rimland,etc). 'Withoutthe benefitof an appro- Geopoliticsis betterunderstood not as advisorsand priategeopolitical framework', Gray (1988, 67) princesbut as discoursesand subjectivities.A more suggests,'neither US policymakersnot the gen- appropriateframework for understandinggeopoli- eralpublic can be well equippedconceptually to tics as a type of knowledgeis perhapsFoucault's make sense of argumentsabout US interestsin (1991) concept of 'govemmentality',the ensemble particularcases'; of rationalitiesconcerned with the governingof (3) produce an analysiswhich is 'impartial'(1988, territoritiesand populations that emerged in the 93), sophisticatedand decisive in sortingout eighteenthcentury. Perhaps geopolitics marks a what foreignpolicy the nationshould adopt. particularexpression of govemrnmentalityin the twentiethcentury, a governmentalityconcerned In sum,geopolitics, for Gray, is a geomanticpractice with the task of hegemonicmanagement. Hege- thatenables us to identifythe permanent patterns of monicmanagerialism produces its own rationalities global politics,label territorieswith the appropriate and informationalprojects. Among themare those geopoliticalidentities, and constructpolicies on the we have examined:(i) thesurvey and surveillanceof basis of revealed earthpatterns and identities.To objects (regions, minerals, issues like energy) problematizethis type of geopoliticsis to question deemed 'strategic';(ii) writingson the art of con- the ritualsby which it cites its own power, sights ductingstatecraft in turbulenttimes (which includes the strategistas propheticseer and sites places as the artof self-government,how a statesmanshould geopoliticalblocs whichare caughtin the inevitable conduct himself);and (iii) the divinationof the play of transcendentalopposition. (meta)physicsof earthand space as causal forcesin

This content downloaded from 194.128.227.202 on Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:04:48 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 270 Gear6idO Tuathail internationalaffairs that enables hegemonicman- and desire (Deutsche 1991, 10; Zizek 1991). Geo- agers to see into the futureand therebyorganize politicalvisions are mediatedby fantasy,desire and their priorities.Such projects are not specificto denial; envisioningbecomes the means by which geopolitics;rather geopolitics is one gatheringpoint homogeopoliticus ostensibly secures his subjectivity fortheir expression and operation. as a tough,anti-sentimental, hardheaded realist. Geo- Secondly, one featurethat all three usages of politicsoperates as ego-politics.(Interestingly, some geopoliticsexamined here have in common is an elementsof theUS presssuggested that the geopoli- appeal to the metaphoricsof seeing and sight. tics of Nixon-Kissingeris a misspellingof ego- Andersonclaims to see thingscomprehensively and politics;Graham 1970.) Investigatingego-formation realistically.Geopolitics is geographicalscrutiny. in geopoliticiansthrough acts of recognition,specu- Kissingerholds 'insight'to be a vital geopolitical larization (constructionof mirror-images)and faculty and understandsstatecraft in terms of voyeurismis also somethingthat needs furtherin- subject-positions(the navigator,the cool poker vestigation.Ego-formation, as Freudand Lacan have player)which value the skillsof watching,recogniz- suggested,is a projectionism,a graphing of psychic/ ing and overseeing.The verypractice of strategyis imaginarymaps of meaning(Grosz 1990, 31-49). If one whereby the eye transformsforeign forces we read geopoliticsas ego-politicsin a Lacanian into objects that can be observed and measured. sense, then we are dealing with the ordersof the Panopticonismis a conditionof possibilityof grand imaginaryand the symbolicnot the real. In other strategy.All threecases could be said to represent words,we are dealingwith the systematicrefusal of instancesof a dominantCartesian perspectivism, a thereal (Grosz 1990; Zizek 1991). A criticalgeopoli- hegemonicvisuallscopic regime that separates sub- ticsought to engage withfeminist psycho-analytical ject and object,rendering the formertranscendental discoursesmuch more so thanit has done forthere is and the latterinert (Foster 1988, x; Rorty 1979). muchto be learntabout how geopoliticsand gender However, this is perhaps to attributea unity to worktogether. Cartesianperspectivism that it does not have (see The above points are offeredas speculations.As Jay1988; Crary1990) and to ignorethe peculiarities this very word indicates,any discourseof critical of the scopic regimesappealed to by the different geopoliticsis itselfcaught in a rhetoricof visuality usages of geopolitics(Kissinger's notion of insight, thatneeds to be exposed and known.So also is it for example,appeals to both the mimeticand the caughtwithin gendered epistemologies and perhaps subjective).Certainly this question needs further its own unconsciouseconomies of desireand denial. research.What we can say is that the strategyof It is only througha relentlessproblematization of sightin geopoliticaldiscourses works as a strategy our concepts,subjectivities and writingstrategies for the citing of certainforms of authority(e.g. that we can begin to explore the obscurityof the disembodiedseeing man) and a strategyfor the deceptivelysimple term geopolitics. siting of places as real and fantasyspace (Zizek 1991, 8-20). Thirdly,though it may be problematicto speak Acknowledgements of Cartesianperspectivism making differentgeo- An earlierversion of thispaper was presentedin the politicalstrategies of sight/site/citingpossible, it is session 'CriticalGeopolitics' at the annualmeeting neverthelessworth problematizinghow the geo- of the Association of American Geographers, political gaze(s) is/aregendered. That the disem- Atlanta,April 1993. Thanks to Tim Luke for his bodied, distancingand de-eroticizingcold eye of incisivecomments and suggestions.Thanks also to Cartesianperspectivism is masculinistis well estab- LennyBaer for researchhelp and to Simon Dalby lished,though hardly uncontroversial (Foster 1988; and PeterTaylor fortheir constant encouragement Haraway 1991; Pile and Rose 1992). That we can and support. begin to understandgeopolitical sightings as cases of pornographicvoyeurism - an obscenewill to see - everything is an intriguingpossibility (Doel 1993). References To designatethe looking found in geopoliticalprac- ticesas voyeuristicnot only subvertsthe objectivist AndersonT 1984 Geopoliticsofthe Caribbean: ministates perceptionpretensions of such practicesbut places ina widerworld Praeger, New York themwithin the domain of subjective(izing)pleasure BaudrillardJ 1983 SimulationsSemiotext(e), New York

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