These are some of the notes I made while reading An Introduction to Geopolitics(?), published by Oxford University Press. I’m pretty sure I dictated some of it which is why the style is not my usual and a bit stilted.
Note that the book was released sometime between 2012 and 2014 and therefore is seriously out of date when it comes to global geopolitics. However it is useful reference when understanding events including 9/11, 2008, the rise of China, and the Arab Spring.
Geopolitics, while mostly referring to the study of global interconnectedness and influences, has often been understood as a pragmatic and cynical approach to international relations, characterising them primarily as struggles for dominance over land, resources, and so on.
In times of crisis, this realist definition of geopolitics (realpolitik) becomes particularly prominent. Recent years (!) have seen pop culture full with stories about territorial and ethnic struggles, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. This represents a tectonic shift in the perception of geopolitics, contrasting sharply with the optimistic 1990s outlook that predicted the global spread of democracy.
In the vein of Isaac Asimov’s work, one might say that geopolitics is to psychohistory what Aristotelian physics is to modern physics. It provides a framework for analysing what makes the world tick, and covers everything from dramatic events like the Arab Spring to mundane daily stuff like American schoolchildren reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Conservative journalists and pundits often employ the term “geopolitics” as shorthand for dividing the world into zones of countries either friendly or hostile. However, geopolitics by necessity includes international relations and high politics, as well as their impact on everyday life. An example is George W. Bush’s State of the Union address delivered a few months after 9/11. This speech did two things: communicating current policies to American citizens while simultaneously signalling the United States’ international intentions for the coming years.
In the speech, Bush identified three “regimes that sponsor terror”: North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. North Korea was cited for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction while its citizens starved. Iran was accused of pursuing such weapons and harbouring terrorists, and Iraq was mentioned for its continued hostility toward America and commitment to developing biological and chemical weapons. Bush famously labelled these nations the “axis of evil.” While their governments obviously criticised the denouncement, the phrase served as both a warning to these states and a simple geographical template for the rest of the world: you either stand with the United States or against it.
The timing of the speech, so soon after the 9/11 attacks, created an implicit association between these regimes and the attacks themselves. Despite there being no clear evidence to link them (at the time), many Americans and citizens worldwide accepted this geographical and rhetorical connection. This association later helped the administration justify the invasion of Iraq as a crucial step in the War on Terror.
The United States effectively used this crisis and presidential rhetoric to conflate counterterrorism aims with broader Middle Eastern policy objectives. The domestic audience played a crucial role by consuming and reproducing this propaganda, and the message to other states was clear: do what we say (perhaps not as we do lol).
The psychological and geopolitical impact of 9/11 remains especially visible in popular culture. Consider the James Bond series: In 2005’s Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s Bond faced a markedly different threat landscape. Where previous iterations featured localized targets like an evil genius’s lair, this new incarnation presented an all-encompassing, omnipresent network of danger. By 2012’s Skyfall, even London became a primary target, clearly alluding to the July 7, 2005 attacks and reflecting how danger was no longer safely confined to distant locations. Recent media has consistently portrayed antagonistic regimes as North Korea, Russia, China, and Middle Eastern nations like Iran and Iraq. Given Hollywood’s influence on global audiences, this shift reflects the broader changes in public outlook, including the increasing wariness toward Russia and China—changes notably influenced by governmental messaging campaigns + the military-industrial complex of Hollywood.
Less obvious forms of geopolitics manifest in everyday life. Consider the subtle significance of flags in cosmopolitan or divided cities like Quebec, Belfast, Jerusalem, or New York. The choice of flag displayed outside homes and offices often reveals much about the occupants’ identities and allegiances. In Quebec, for instance, the Quebec flag typically indicates a French-speaking Québécois resident, while a Canadian flag might suggest support for the Canadian federation.
Following World War II, geopolitical analysis focused on identifying potential “shatter belts”—regions where superpowers like the US, Russia, and China might engage in resource and territorial struggles. These analyses correctly predicted major Cold War battlegrounds in Southeast Europe, the Middle East, Korea, and Vietnam. In 1950, the American National Security Council’s report to President Truman warned of Soviet plans for world domination, later supplemented by theories about the Third World’s vulnerability to Soviet-backed expansion—a dynamic eerily similar to modern China’s activities in Africa.
Within a decade of NATO’s formation, the United States established security pacts with Australia, Central Asia, Japan, and South Korea. Some American political geographers supported this strategy while emphasizing the importance of recognizing distinct regional differences within the “Third World.” Despite the efforts of the government under the Truman administration, there were accusations of neglecting important regional differences and the National Security Council report was seen as geographically simplistic and too concerned with representing the Soviet Union as a relentlessly expansionist threat from the East.
The association of geopolitics with Nazism led to decreased American interest in the field following World War II. However, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (EW DISGUSTING), a German émigré whose doctoral thesis analysed 19th-century European geopolitical history, is credited with reviving American interest in geopolitics. His tenure coincided with significant changes in the Cold War landscape, including America’s increasingly unpopular involvement in Vietnam. Kissinger’s approach to geopolitics emphasized global equilibrium and permanent national interests in a world characterized by a new power balance between the US, Russia, and China.
Moving away from Nazi concepts of nation-states as organisms locked in perpetual resource conflicts, Kissinger advocated for flexible policies attentive to new possibilities, such as developing relations with emerging powers like China. It’s worth noting that the intellectual history of geopolitics often overemphasises European and American contributions while undervaluing those from East Asia and Africa, such as Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere’s pan-African vision that sought a middle path between Cold War binary politics.
The militaristic sway of American geopolitics around 1980, not entirely eradicated by Kissinger’s approach, influenced the decision to support resistance against Soviet operations in Afghanistan from 1979 onward. This policy had far-reaching consequences, including the emergence of groups and figures like bin Laden.
Kissinger’s attempts to reframe geopolitics faced challenges from the Committee on the Present Danger, which argued for abandoning balance-of-power policies in favour of more aggressive approaches to contain Soviet expansion. While not immediately adopted, this viewpoint gained traction during the Reagan administration, leading to increased support for anti-Soviet proxies and regimes worldwide, including Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and various Latin American military governments.
Kissinger’s attempts to reframe geopolitics were further undermined by the creation of the committee on the present danger which contended that America had to be prepared to ditch policies of balances of power in favor of a more aggressive approach designed to curb Soviet expansionism. They fully believe that the Soviet Union was determined to extend its domination over the entire Eurasian landmass. While this point of view was not immediately accepted by the current administration later governments such as that under Ronald Reagan embrace this worldview and therefore American following policy shifted. It pursued Soviet backed proxies in Central America and Africa and more forcefully supported anti Soviet regimes throughout the 3rd third world. This aim took precedence over all else and guided by it regimes which would ordinarily not be allies of the American government buy used in pursuit of this. For example reagan’s administration supported Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq and countless military regimes in Latin America in pursuit of the single aim. They also stationed nuclear missiles in Britain and West Germany as part of NATO’s attempt to dispel any Soviet attempts to expand their influence into western and central Europe.
Under the price of the United States in the post war period by the mid 1980s, do you politics shifted once again from militaristic to a desire to protect American power and influence in the midst of the so-called second Cold War following the collapse of the stalemate. It also signalled a return to the Nazi esque imagination of geopolitics what states are superorganisms continued striving for territory and resources.
Throughout the soul you may note a certain toxic realism at cynicism on the piping American conception of geopolitics. Realist geopolitics tends to assume that states inhabit a world which is anarchical because of an absence of a world government capable of restricting their actions. In fact self interest and power projection are assumed to be axiomatic in international relations. Even if authors and intellectuals do not explicitly refer to this in their works they often assume it as a matter of course. For example for Latin American generals in the 1960s and 70s this realistic worldview coincided well with the geopolitical imagination filled with dangers and threats from communist forces inside and outside the state .
This view of global politics tends to overemphasize conflict and competition at the expense of cooperation and a taunt and is evidently incorrect as it does not assume new predict the creation of intergovernmental and international bodies such as the United Nations or the formation of international law. It is unsurprising that realist inspired geopolitics has found a warm reception in the United States where it is common for writers to present their Grand Designs for the world as if they were external observers simply telling the facts like they were.
If we want to remove the spice in geopolitics we need to understand how it is made and represented to different audiences. We need to understand that geopolitics is imbued with social and cultural meaning, and is far from the unfeeling coldly cyantific discipline as it is represented by post war intellectuals. The stories we tell about international politics are just that - stories.
Secondly it is also important to note that geopolitics is hardly a neutral language. The terms and language it uses are imbued with meaning and are innately influential in particular ways. For example on the Cold War geopolitics was frequently twisted to represent the United States as quote the leader of the free world unquote and the Soviet Union as the evil empire hellbent on endangering western civilization. Of course looking at it from the perspective of the Soviet Union, the situation is entirely reversed.
Finally it is important to note the breathtaking racial and gender bias inherent in geopolitics. The everyday experiences of everyone who is not a straight white man are entirely alien to those progenitors of the theory and therefore the theory is unable to describe them.
Concepts such as territory borders and scale take on a different meaning when considered in the frame of 90% of the world’s population.
In order to better understand how geopolitics works, a threefold division has been proposed dash formal, practical, and popular. Is how academics and commentators self consciously invoke an intellectual tradition associated with geopolitics. It is ivory tower part. Practical geopolitics refers to the policy oriented geographical templates by which governments make their decisions. Finally popular geopolitics includes the role of media and other forms of pop culture which citizens used to make sense of events happening at various scales. Phrases such as axis of evil attract attention precisely because they are designed to simplify world politics and appeal to the masses. It is therefore a true example of popular geopolitics and has no bearing on practical geopolitics.
It is important to understand however the influence of popular geopolitics on practical geopolitics. It is after all the populace that elects and ultimately controls the government. However this relationship may be twisted by the government. Propaganda campaigns often used to influence popular geopolitics so that the desired aims of the government are supported by the people.
To understand popular geopolitical culture in various different countries it is important to understand important events in that country’s past. For example the wartime experiences of Britain during the Second World war when it was forced to defend its borders from German invading forces, were significant in the reaction to the news that Argentina had invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. Journalists and politicians rapidly invoked parallels to the Second World war to drum up support for the dispatch of a naval task force. In order to gain advantage by using American technology and weaponry , Margaret Thatcher place considerable importance on the Anglo American relationship at the expense of the more traditional eurocentric relationship of the UK. This tactic was mirrored later by Tony Blair in the war in Iraq.
Focusing more specifically we can see that there are four geopolitical traditions.
the first is little England or Britain, the popular idea of the quaint little village in the English countryside .
Cosmopolitan Britain focusing on the cities and industry that kick started the industrial revolution and our mark of pride for many period this includes cities such as London Manchester Leeds Birmingham and so on.
The next is European Britain. This was historically one of the most important geopolitical traditions in the UK, seeing as the vast majority of English and British history is dominated by the international relations with nations and states on the continent.
Finally we have American Britain which only really kickstarted paid between 1900 and 1950 and only continue to grow from then on . It was solidified during the Cold War alliance and is currently one of the most dominant traditions in the UK.
Let us know exactly Russian geopolitical tradition. There are three period
The first is the notion that Russia is a part of Europe and the country needs to embrace western models of social and economic development. This is a relatively modern tradition certainly not around during the Cold War period.
The second is that Russia is a distinctive Eurasian territory, which is an amalgamation of western and eastern models.
Finally we have an extension of the second one which is that Russia is a bridge between the eastern and western traditions, similar to the way the UK is a bridge between the European and American models.
At certain times a particular tradition might be dominant over the others. For example the American geopolitical tradition of the US being the freedom the leader of the free world and enforcing its own model on the rest of the world was dominant during the administration of George Bush.