"Geopolitics" In

1 Geopolitics programmatically entitled book Influences of Geographic Environment that “the natural envi- GEORGE STEINMETZ ronment” was “the physical basis of history” (Semple 1911: 2). Geopolitical thinkers at the The word geopolitics points to the interface turn of the century emphasized the effects of between two distinct ontological realms and physical geography and spatial location on the scientific disciplines, geography, and politics. growth and decline of states and on military and The first of these root words, “geography,” is foreign policies. British geographer Halford not necessarily restricted in this context to tra- Mackinder (1904: 422), another key founder ditional geographic concerns like climate or of geopolitics, argued that the “geographical the Earth’s physical surface, but entails a much causation” of politics was permanent, ines- broader spatial perspective concerned with capable, and pervasive, and that control of the scale and location, the size, shape, and bounda- inaccessible lands of the Eurasian “pivot” area ries of territories, and the processes by which (see Figure 3) was the key to world supremacy. territories are socially defined. The other root Alfred Thayer Mahan, a Rear Admiral in the word, “politics,” points toward subfields of US Navy, developed an opposing argument political science like international relations about the primacy of seapower and control of which are also focused on states and empires, the sea. In a chapter on the “general nature of borders and frontiers, international alliances geographical influences,” British historian H.B. and polarizations, the balance and imbalance George argued (1907: 7) that “the destinies of of global power, and war, imperialism, and man are very largely determined by their envi- diplomacy (Burchill & Linklater 1996). ronment,” especially climate and the “physical If geopolitics is delimited by the overlap features of the Earth.” The leading figure in between geography and politics, this defini- the German geopolitical school from the early tion does not yet specify the nature of the 1920s until 1945, Karl Haushofer, defined the relationship between the two realms. The field as recognizing that “the fundamental fea- founding decades of geopolitical discussion tures determined by the surface of the Earth saw an emphasis on geographical modes of … are the only lasting ones” in international explanation. Geopolitical thinkers at the turn political struggles (Haushofer 1924 [2002]: of the previous century emphasized the effects xxxiii). The editorial committee of Haushofer’s of physical geography and spatial location on Journal of Geopolitics (Zeitschrift für Geopolitik) a state’s growth and decline and its military defined geopolitics as the “science of political- and foreign policies. The word geopolitics was spatial organisms [politische Raumorganismen] coined by the Swedish social scientist Rudolf and their structures” insofar as they are con- Kjellén (1917: 46), who defined it as “the doc- ditioned “by the Earth” (Haushofer et al. trine of the state as a geographic organism or 1928: 27). a spatial phenomenon: i.e., the state as land, Contemporary treatments of geopolitics territory, region, or, most precisely, as a Reich often contain echoes of these environmen- [realm, empire].” Kjellén’ s thinking was based tally-determinist origins. Heinz Brill defines largely on the work of German geographer geopolitics as the “doctrine of the influence Friedrich Ratzel, who founded the subfields of geographic space on the politics of a state” of political geography and anthropo-geogra- (Brill 1998: 206). A recent dictionary of secu- phy as the study of the geographical basis of rity studies defines geopolitics as the “analysis the state’s action (Ratzel 1882, 1897). Ratzel’s of the influence of geographic conditions of American disciple Ellen Semple argued in her The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, First Edition. Edited by George Ritzer. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. wbeog239.indd 1 2/4/2012 9:28:11 AM 2 a state on its national and international poli- “the study of relations between the conduct of cies” (Meier et al. 2005: 144). The Encyclopædia a politics of power oriented toward the interna- Britannica (n.d.) still defines geopolitics as tional level and the geographic frame in which “analysis of the geographic influences on power it is carried out.” The exact nature of the rela- relationships in international relations.” Even a tionship between the two terms, their specific Marxist geographer like David Harvey (2003) mechanisms, causal powers, and their relative conjures up an image of a conflict between one importance, are left open in this image of a group of states trying to forge a Eurasian bloc semantic range. versus an American strategy of disrupting this Another feature of “classical” geopoliti- alliance by cultivating allies in what geopo- cal discourse that resonates in contemporary litical thinkers used to call the East European usages is the field’s emphasis on practical “shatterbelt” (Trampler 1932) between Europe political applications. For most of its history and Russia, with the ultimate goal of prevent- geopolitics has been a “‘science’ of the mili- ing the first group of powers from securing a tary staffs and security councils” (Tunander stranglehold on Middle Eastern oil. 2008: 167), though this has started to change Today the idea of geopolitics covers a broad in recent years. Geopolitics has never been an semantic terrain that ranges between geo- exclusively or even a predominantly academic determinist and politicist extremes. At the formation; the boundaries between scientific geodeterminist pole we find Kjéllen’s original and applied geopolitics have always been fluid. definition of geopolitics as the doctrine of the Even the word geopolitics is characterized by influence of geographic space on the form and a constitutive ambiguity insofar as it refers action of states and empires. At the opposite both to the object of analysis and to the sci- pole, geopolitics is a synonym for great power ence of that object. The field of geopolitics has politics. This second usage owes much to Henry included both imperialist politicians and arm- Kissinger, who defined “geopolitical” perspective chair intellectuals. For Otto Maull (1926: 246), as “an approach that pays attention to the Hans W. Weigert (1942: 734), and Richard requirements of equilibrium,” thereby margin- Hartshorne (1960: 53), geopolitics was simply alizing spatial considerations (Kissinger 1979: applied political geography. Indeed, the most 55, 1994; Howard 1994), but it was used in this famous geopolitical thinkers, from Mahan, way long before Kissinger (Coogan 1991: 5). Mackinder, and Haushofer, through to Henry Others soon began echoing Kissinger’s influ- Kissinger, Augusto Pinochet, Colin S. Gray, ential usage, defining geopolitics simply as “the and Zbgniew Brzezinki, have all moved in and art and the process of managing global rivalry” out of academic settings and foreign policy (Jay 1979: 486). Whereas the geodeterminist making. Even the university-based geopoliti- definition threatens to efface any difference cians have pursued political aims. Friedrich between geopolitics and political geography, Ratzel called for changes in popular educa- the second definition is almost identical to tion in order to promote awareness of plan- “realist” models of international relations, etary politics (Hell 2011). And even though except that geopoliticians pay more atten- adherents of contemporary “critical” versions tion to territories, borders, and concrete loca- of geopolitics have distanced themselves from tions, while realist models often treat space as the tradition of providing “advice to the prince” entirely abstract. The modal definition under- (Dalby 1994), many direct their work toward stands geopolitics as the analysis of all relations an alternative set of practical aims such as between space, on the one hand, and organized developing militant counter-strategies to mili- forms of political domination, contestation, tarism and imperialism and supporting local and alliance, on the other (Meier et al. 2005: and social movements or weaker nation-states 144). Pierre Gallois (1990: 37) exemplifies this against larger hegemons and centralized pow- modal definition, describing geopolitics as ers. Some have tried to transform geopolitics wbeog239.indd 2 2/4/2012 9:28:11 AM 3 into a theory of peace rather than war (Hepple There was also a growing sense after 1945 2000; Gilmartin & Kofman 2004). that geography was no longer as politically or Analysis of the relations between geogra- intellectually significant as it had been before. phy and political power reaches back to Plato, The new models of military and foreign policy Aristotle, Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, were no longer as likely to be rooted in con- Strabo, and other writers in the ancient Greek crete maps and categories of geographical and Roman worlds (Hartog 1978; Gallois 1990: space. Although containment strategies actu- 140–144). Attention to the nexus of geogra- ally took highly specific spatialized forms, the phy and politics reemerged in Europe during ideological definition of the struggle between the eighteenth century, partly as a result of the communism and capitalism tended to detach Enlightenment and partly as a reaction against itself from specific places (Mamadouh 1998: it. In Spirit of the Laws, first published in 1748, 238). As the United

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