geopolitics

• Geopolitics


  Scholarly analysis of the geographical factors underlying international relations and guiding political interactions
• Geopolitics does not predict when events will happen. It observes evolutions and makes evaluations of what they may entail.
• Geopolitics focuses on set of conditions that enable certain situations such as: US military basis in Bahrain, EU towards Catalonia, US military overstretch in Iraq and Afghanistan, US NATO policies and EU common defence.
• Geopolitics as a discipline

  • It had controversial roots, was seen as deterministic, associated with realpolitik, and lacked empirically based principles
• Rational (in classical economic theory)

  Economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Power


  The ability to impose one's will on others
• Sources of power


  • Military strength and willingness to use it
  • Economic capacity and resources
  • Political strength
  • Population
  • Territory/geography
• Bipolar world


  Two global superpowers during the Cold War (USA vs USSR)
• Unipolar world


  Post-Cold War period with the US as the sole superpower
• Multipolar world


  Current world order with US, China, Russia, EU as major powers
• Regional powers also exist that have the capacities and ambitions to exert their influence beyond their regions
• Examples of regional powers

  • Iran
  • Turkey
  • South Africa
  • Brazil
• Main founders of early geopolitics

  • Ratzel
  • Mackinder
  • Mahan
  • Haushofer
  • Kjellen
  • Spykman
• Early geopolitics


  • Products of their time/environment, focused on imperial hegemony, intense nationalism, and social Darwinism
• Lebensraum


  Ratzel's concept of the state as a living organism that needs to grow and expand
• Mahan's sea power theory


  Whatever power rules the sea, also rules the world
• Mackinder's heartland theory


  Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world
• Haushofer's pan-regions


  World divided into pan-regions, with the goal of mastering the World-Island by neutralising USSR and destroying British sea power
• Today, geopolitics is more about global, regional, and thematic perspectives
• In 1800, share of world manufacturing reflected population: China 33%, India 20% and Europe 28%. By 1900, it was: China 6%, India 2% and Europe 62%
• Reasons for European supremacy

  • Lead in technology and finance, effective nation states, search for commodities leading to colonies
• Vienna system


  Multipolar world order after 1815, whereby major powers tried to maintain a balance of power and prevent war in Europe
• The Vienna system broke down due to rising nationalism and rigid coalitions
• Chain of events leading to WWI

  1. Gavrillo Princip kills Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo

  2. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia

  3. Russia mobilises to support Serbia

  4. Germany declares war on Russia

  5. France and Britain join the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary
• Germany was part of the triple alliance, which also included Austria-Hungary and Italy
• Due to this system of alliances, the triple alliance, and especially Germany will feel surrounded, trapped almost, by the triple entente, with France on its West front, Russia on its Eastern borders and Great Britain who dominated the seas, including the North Sea and the Baltic Sea if necessary

  
• The Vienna system will no longer serve its purpose
• On June 28, Gavrillo Princip (Bosnian nationalist) kills Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the son of the Austrian emperor, who was visiting Sarajevo
• Princip was a nationalist who no longer wanted Bosnia to be ruled by the Austro-Hungarian empire, but wanted Bosnia to be part of a greater Serb nation
• Chain of events leading to WWI

  1. Austria-Hungary advances ultimatum to Serbia on July 23, which is declined

  2. Austria-Hungary attacks the Serbian capital of Belgrade on July 28

  3. Russia backs Serbia and mobilizes on July 30

  4. Austria-Hungary and Germany mobilize on July 31, while Germany demands Russia demobilise within 12 hours

  5. Russia declines, Germany declares war on Russia on 1 August in support of Austria-Hungary

  6. Austria-Hungary follows on August 6; France fully mobilizes in support of Russia on August 2

  7. Germany demands free passage through Belgium, invades on August 4

  8. Britain declares war on Germany on August 4

  9. Britain and France declare war on Austria-Hungary on August 12
• By 1914, through centuries of colonisation, Europeans had gained control of 84% of the world
• This conflict spread to major parts of the world, in North Africa and Near Asia where the British and French fought against the Ottoman empire, which had joined the axis powers, in sub-Saharan Africa, where Belgian Congo was facing German Ruanda-Urundi and Tanzania
• These are just a few examples of how major parts of the world got involved in war, which was basically a conflict between royalties, between families, between cousins
• Impact of WWI on the European map

  • The Austro-Hungarian empire completely collapsed, creating new countries
  • Some of the new countries would later disintegrate, like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, but most of the borders established then still exist today
  • The Allied powers at the Versailles Treaty decided to create relatively large and strong countries as a buffer around Germany and between Germany and the Soviet Union
  • Germany lost territory in the East
  • Russia, now the Soviet Union, also lost a lot of its territory, compared to before the war started

  
• The Ottoman empire lost its North African territories in 1911 and almost all of its European territories in the Balkan Wars of 1912–13

  
• When the second World War broke out, the Ottoman empire were allies of the axis powers

  
• The British recruited Thomas Lawrence to help organize an Arab revolt against the Ottoman empire
• Through Lawrence, the British had promised independence to the Sharif of Mecca and the Arab Allies who participated in the rebellion
• Instead, the British and French divided Arab territories between themselves under the terms of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which they had secretly negotiated in 1916