Geopolitics

From European supremacy to Western hegemony?

J anuary 2006
Marieke Peters, 0108251
J asper Balduk, 9911952
Table of contents



Introduction 3

1. From practice to formalized geopolitics 4
1.1 Dominant Europe-centered world view before formalized geopolitics 4
1.2 Ratzel and Organic State Theory 4
1.3 Mackinder and the Heartland 5
1.4 Haushofer and the German Geopolitik 6

2. American dominance 7
2.1 The United States part in world politics before the Second World War 7
2.2 Geopolitics after the Second World War: containing communism and
satellite states
7

3. A new geopolitical order? 9
3.1 Resources 9
3.2 The emergence of new insights in geography and globalization 9
3.3 Current policies, the rise of new great powers and new forms of government 10
3.4 Conclusion 10

References 12
























2
Introduction

geopolitics
1. The study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics,
especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation.
2. a. A governmental policy employing geopolitics.
b. A Nazi doctrine holding that the geographic, economic, and political needs of
Germany justified its invasion and seizure of other lands.
3. A combination of geographic and political factors relating to or influencing a nation or region.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/geopolitics


We live in complicated times with everyday global practices and networks. Economic
globalization, global media flows and the Internet seem to make our conventional geopolitical
imagination of the world in terms of spatial blocks, territorial presence and fixed identities no
longer adequate. The deepening impacts of globalization and the de-territorializing
consequences of new information technologies seem to have driven a stake into the heart of
geopolitics ( Thuathail & Dalby, 1998: 1).
As may be derived from the above quoted explanation of geopolitics, geopolitics is
always ideological. More specifically, it is not only a Western term, but it is also associated
with particular Western policies and the Western, Westphalian system (Agnew, 2003: 72).
But what is geopolitics?
The term geopolitics came to prominence during the late nineteenth century and
referred to the way in which ideas relating to politics and space could be used within national
policy. Geopolitics is concerned with political relations between states, the external strategies
of states and the global balance of power (J ones, 2004: 173). It is about understanding the
basis of state power and the nature of states interactions with one another.
In this paper we will focus on geopolitics through time, because the term contains a
practice as well as a theoretical understanding of the world. A practice that finds its roots in
colonial Europe and which came to a theoretical understanding with the actual invention of
the term. Since then, it was associated with policies of war because of its use in German
Geopolitik, but it is just as much connected to contemporary policies. However, because of
great changes in the current world order and the decline of the modern state, one might ask
the question: are there still modern state territorial geopolitics?














3
1. From practice to formalized geopolitics

1.1 Dominant Europe-centered world view before formalized geopolitics
The emergence of the modern Europe may be said to date from the second half of the fifteenth
century. Western Europes monarchies began to represent something more than mere
authority; they became centers of an emerging national consciousness and pride. Emerging
states engaged in commercial competition, and mercantilism was viewed as the correct
economic policy to serve the general interest. The notion developed that wealth was measured
by the accumulation of large quantities of gold en silver. The quest for such precious metals
led to a large number of ships, primarily from western European countries, which sailed to
lands that laid open to discover (Glassner & Fahrer, 2004: 52, 53).
This search for wealth in the form of gold (or ivory or slaves) and the evolution of
European mercantile competition are the origins of European expansion and is, what is called,
the first phase of colonialism (Gregory, 2002: 93).
In the late nineteenth century a huge expansion and enlargement of the world economy
through the new imperialism came to light. By 1900 not only was the world formally bound
into the colonial empires of Europe (as in the case of India, South East Asia and Africa) or
under commercial domination by one or more of the European Great Powers (as in China or
Latin America), but more and more of the resources were drawn into a geographically
specialized world economy. This was also a period of technological change, which created
new modes of thinking about time and space. It is under these circumstances that more and
more systematic thought about states, human beings and society arose, which eventually led
to a formalized geopolitics, although it was hardly anything else but a theoretical framework
for a continuation of current policies.


1.2 Ratzel and Organic State Theory
As may be understood from the introduction of this paper and from the term itself, geopolitics
is concerned with politics regarding power and resources in combination with the spatial or
territorial dimensions of states. This also means that spatial differences between certain
territories are evaluated for their uses in different policy objectives. In the above, we have
outlined the circumstances of the (European) practices before the invention of the actual term.
A new phase in the practice and ideas about geopolitics began in the late nineteenth century in
Germany with Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904).
Ratzel was interested by the space or area occupied by the state, and its position on the
world map. Ratzel was greatly influenced by social-Darwinism. In his 1897 Politische
Geographie (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 70), he applies the idea of social-Darwinism
to states. Ratzel used metaphors from biology in his analysis of political science and
geography, comparing the state with an organism. States, like plants and people, need living
space (Lebensraum) and resources, and they constantly compete for them. States are organic
and growing, with borders representing only a temporary stop in their movement. States can
only thrive if they expand into other territories to express their vitality. The competition for
Lebensraum, either in Europe or overseas, leads to natural selection in which the species that
are best accustomed to their surroundings will survive. The expanse of a states borders is a
reflection of the health of the nation. Ratzels writings coincided with the growth of German
industrialism after the Franco-Prussian war and the subsequent search for markets that
brought it into competition with England. Much of Ratzels work was driven by a desire to
justify intellectually the territorial expansion of Germany (J ones, 2004: 4, 5). His writings
served as a welcome justification for imperial expansion.
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The Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjelln was Ratzels student who would further
elaborate on organic state theory and who coined the term geopolitics in 1899 (Agnew, 2001:
30; 2003: 5). Kjelln was describing that part of politics that is essentially concerned with
the external relations, strategy and politics of the state, and which seeks to employ such
knowledge to political ends (J ones, 2004: 5). He focused on the territorial dimension of
politics. In these ideas, a given space is granted certain absolute qualities, depending on the
location of resources and physical characteristics. It is fair to say that from that moment, a
more critical vision arose in systematic thinking linking geographical scale and politics. The
earlier practical strategies of European territorial states, although just as much geopolitical
in nature, came to be described in terms of a more theoretical framework. No need to say that
the world-view from which these theories emerged was a particularly Europe-centered one, in
which global space was visualized as an ordered, structured whole, containing a hierarchy of
places, from known (Europe) to unknown (the rest of the world) and from friendly (again,
Europe) to unfriendly (again, the rest of the world) (Agnew, 2003: 5-16). Accordingly, the
theories known as geopolitics described the development of states as it was conceived of in
relation to European territorial states, including their overseas colonies.


1.3 Mackinder and the Heartland
While Ratzel and Kjelln were thinking about the dynamics of state power and territory,
another stream of thought emerged in Britain, Geostrategy, by person of Sir Halford J ohn
Mackinder (1861-1947). Mackinder was primarily concerned with issues of global strategy,
the balance of power between states. He tried to find patterns in state development and
behavior (J ones, 2004: 6).
Mackinder ordered the world map into three political regions: an outer crescent
across the Americas, Africa and the oceans; an inner crescent across Europe and southern
Asia; and the pivot area located at the heart of the Eurasian land mass. Whoever controlled
the pivot area, or Heartland, Mackinder argued, would be a major world power (J ones, 2004:
6). The key to the Heartland was East Europe. The state that controlled East Europe would
have made the first step to world domination, according to Mackinder. He summarized his
vision in three statements (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 82):

Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
Who rules the World-Island commands the World.

The World-Island can be identified as Eurasia. Mackinder expressed his fear that after four
centuries of maritime superpowers, the hegemony in world politics would change in favor of
continental powers like Russia, China and Germany.
Perhaps it is worth mentioning that these statements indicate the Europe-centered
world view that dominated political thought in the early twentieth century. Moreover, like the
German Geopolitik, which will be discussed later, they tend to speak of dominance and
competition rather than cooperation and diversity.
Mackinders ideas had a strong influence on the Versailles peace conference in 1919,
in the creation of buffer states in Eastern Europe, separating Germany and Russia.
Mackinders influence was not only visible in Europe, it also played a role in the US strategy
in the Cold War (J ones, 2004: 6). Most ironically is the interest in Mackinders thesis from
the country who suffered the most from its practical application at Versailles, Germany. After
the First World War Germanys territory had been reduced. The geopolitical ideas of Ratzel
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and Mackinder offered a strategy for revival. Most prominent in this movement was Karl
Haushofer and his Geopolitik.


1.4 Haushofer and the German Geopolitik
While the two other streams of thought in geopolitics were developing, a new school of
geopoliticians was forming in Germany, Geopolitik. Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) was an
important theorist within the Geopolitik. He was particularly concerned with geographical
factors that shaped military and political world history. The objective of his studies was to
derive from the location of oceans, seas, mountains, resources and the distribution of different
cultures and states based upon those characteristics of the geographical environment, what the
foreign policies of states should be or, more precisely, the foreign policies of Germany (De
Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 82).
Based upon the geopolitical theory of the British geographer Mackinder, German
Geopolitik also adds older German ideas. Haushofer used the theory of an organic conception
of the state and the need for self-sufficiency through the top-down organization of society
from Ratzel and his Swedish student Kjelln. Haushofer justified Lebensraum, even at the
cost of other nations existence because conquest was a biological necessity for a states
growth. Combined with the idea of states as organisms that need space to develop, his
recommendations of German foreign policies can beyond doubt be described as plainly
aggressive: the German unification dated from 1871, and it follows that this young state was
completely justified in its search for Lebensraum (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 82).
Clearly, because of their ideological aspects, these ideas were presumed to be eagerly adopted
by the national-socialists in their Nazi propaganda most notably before, but also for a short
time during World War II.
Before the end of the war, the high-days of the Geopolitik were passed and, partly
because of its consequences, the physical-deterministic view in geography was abandoned in
the years following the Second World War.
What was a frightening image to Mackinder was in fact a utopian dream to Haushofer
and the Geopolitiker, namely that Germany would get in control of East Europe. Even after
the Second World War, the idea of a key-territory like the Heartland maintained to dominate
geopolitics (De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 83), which will be discussed in the next
chapter.

















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2. American dominance
As weve seen, it wasnt until the beginning of the twentieth century that geopolitics as a
formalized theory emerged. Underlying this theory and its practice was the dominant Europe-
centered world view, striving for western hegemony. However, it is obvious that in todays
world, the United States play a major role in world politics. In this chapter the geopolitical
practices of the United States of America will be discussed, beginning with a short outline of
American geopolitics before the second half of the twentieth century.

2.1 The United States part in world politics before the Second World War
In the run to World War I, the pursuit of global primacy took place largely on the European
continent, where the great colonial powers tried to outrun one another. These early examples
of arms races were to be found between, at first, France and Britain, and later, Britain and
Germany (Agnew, 2003: 68). In this period, as weve also seen with Mackinder, emphasis
was laid on the strengths of a navy. The United States, as an offset of Europe, came to follow
this conclusion in the person of Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914). He put forward the idea
that the United States had to have a large, globe-spanning fleet in order to avert the risk of a
political eclipse or even invasion at the hands of those countries that had stronger navies. His
view was that the world hegemony of sea powers could be maintained by control of a series of
bases around the Eurasian continent (Agnew, 2003; Chaliand & Rageau, 1986). So to speak,
the first objective of early American geopolitics was to maintain the balance of power
between the European Great Powers (Agnew, 2003: 1), or a matter of self-defense. The
importance of the Eurasian continent that is central to Mahans ideas, can also be retraced to
Mackinders views, although both came up to different conclusions and solutions regarding
this area.
After the First World War, Americas geopolitics could be described as creating
collective security (Agnew, 2003). Still, the Eurasian continent continued to play an
important role in geopolitical views, as in the German Geopolitik. In the 1930s, therefore, the
American Spykman followed Mackinders views and adapted his concepts to the
circumstances of that time. He argued that the only thing preventing Germany from
controlling the Eurasian land mass, and thus achieving world domination, would be an
alliance between an Anglo-American sea-power and a Russian land power. However, he saw
more importance in the ring surrounding the Heartland (the Rimland), which included roughly
spoken the whole of West-Europe, the Arabian peninsula, India, China and the coastal regions
of South-East Asia (Chaliand & Rageau, 1986).
Finally, when the United States got involved in World War II, the first objective was
to free Europe from absolute dictatorship (McKay, Hill & Buckler, 1999: 983). The
underlying view of a relative safe world, thus, had moved from an image of a balance of
power to one that was more of a democratic character.


2.2 Geopolitics after the Second World War: containing communism and satellite states
To prevent a repetition of the Second World War and to keep the world (that is, Europe and
the United States) safe for democracy, Spykman repeated his recommendations to give
special attention to the Rimland surrounding the Heartland. His advice was taken quite
seriously as the communist and totalitarian Soviet-Union had deployed itself as a new Great
Power (Chaliand & Rageau, 1986; De Pater & Van der Wusten, 2002: 85-86), the more since
it was tightening its grip on the liberated nations of eastern Europe (McKay, Hill & Buckler,
1999: 993-1027).
In the course of the new arms races that followed between the two new superpowers,
the United States and the Soviet-Union, the insights of Spykman and Mackinder were
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estimated quite valuable. During the Cold War, NATO strategies were especially directed to
containment of communism (Agnew, 2003; Chaliand & Rageau, 1986; De Pater & Van der
Wusten, 2002: 85-86), which meant that the Rimland was provided with a strong chain of
maritime bases.
Also, since the end of the Second World War, two other geographically identifiable
rings of states emerged, apart from the Heartland, the Rimland and the actual sea power
(the United States and Canada, West-Europe and J apan). These were a broad ring of
underdevelopment, roughly containing South-America, Africa and overlapping with the
Asian part of the Rimland, and a developed southern ring, last named existing of Argentina,
South-Africa and Australia, which was linked to the sea power (Chaliand & Rageau, 1986).
The ring of underdevelopment existed mostly of former colonies of the European
Great Powers. Their, often violent, struggles for independence were euphemistically called a
process of de-colonization. During the Cold War, a heated competition for influence between
East and West arose in these newly independent states, in the case of Soviet-influence also
denunciated satellite-states (McKay, Hill & Buckler, 1999: 993-1027). This gave way to a
new perception of the world being divided as if it contained three different worlds: a normal,
natural First World which was capitalist, democratic and free, challenged by an unnatural,
state-dominated Second World. Both West and East were vying with the other to produce
political-economic disciples in a Third World of traditional yet developing countries that
became the typical representation of the enduring geopolitical division between East and
West (Agnew, 2003: 30). It is redundant yet worth mentioning, again, that this geopolitical
division still had a Europe-centered character, which continues to dominate geopolitical
thought: the First World is situated West of Europe, the Second World situated East of
Europe.
Despite the dominant view that the West had won, as Slater (2004: 247) roughly
summarizes Francis Fukuyamas well-known end of history (1992), there remained a lot of
different points of attention in ideas concerning (Western) geopolitics. After the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet-Union in the years that followed,
geopolitical views were to be strongly revisited (Agnew, 2002: 133). Or, as Agnew (2002:
133) follows Tuathail in his statement that threats from global warming, increased
worldwide economic inequality, and global terrorism are all symptomatic of the geopolitical
order after the Cold War. What this new geopolitical order looks like, will be discussed in
the next and final chapter.
















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3. A new geopolitical order?
Thusfar, we have discussed how geopolitics as the spatiality of existing political systems and
the territorial extension of their policies has developed. After the Cold War, the dominant
world view has become one in which hegemony can be described in terms of democracy,
capitalism and Western values. The new world order is dominated by only one superpower,
the United States. This doesnt mean that geopolitics would not matter anymore. Physical
qualities of a certain territory continues to play an important role in states international
politics as well as business strategies. A short and far from complete overview of
contemporary geopolitical thoughts about global problems, conflicts and developments will
be presented here.


3.1 Resources
Already since the 1950s a notion had emerged that, in order to create a safe world, the poorer
states of the South needed to develop and to modernize, whether it was from a humane
point of view, for maintaining hegemony, for the economic interests of Western society, or in
the run for allies against communism (Slater, 2004: 57-79; Arts, 1994). In the post-Cold War
period, the problem of North-South relations became one of the main subjects in geopolitical
thought.
Central to the North-South problem is the unequal access to resources, as well as new
forms of Western dominance, for example regarding economic reformations, which led to
different theories about dependency and neo-colonialism (Slater, 2004: 128). Some activities
of the United States in regions like the Persian Gulf are directly related to this new
geopolitical order, in which policies are directed to securing resources for Western oil-driven
economies (Slater, 2004: 191; Agnew, 2002: 158).
A current example of a conflict about resources has been the situation with the Russian
gascompany Gazprom. Gazprom reduced the gassupplies to Ukrain and Europe for one day
(NRC Handelsblad, 2006-01-07) in the negotiations concerning the renewal of supply-
contracts. Not accidentially, this happened on a moment Ukrain was trying to get into closer
relationships with the European Union. It might be seen as a wake up call for the Western
world, as the prominent view had been that politics, power and energy werent interwoven
that strong anymore. The world seemed to become a global free market; however, this
example shows that relations between politics and resources should be held into account.
One of the most persistent conflicts that has major consequences around the globe, the
Middle-East conflict, is for a large part about resources as well, namely drinking water
shortages (Agnew, 2002: 158). Geopolitical conflicts concerning Gaza and the West Bank
should be seen also in this light, apart from more obvious water wars in Bolivia (Slater,
2004: 218) and the almost yearly returning drought catastrophes in Central-Africa.
Another notion that emerged in geopolitical thinking which is related to the problems
of global inequality is that of sustainable development. Globe-spanning environmental
problems, mostly initiated by developed countries but often having severe consequences for
the underdeveloped countries of the South, have led to the view that a safe world is not only
about a balance of power or a redistribution of wealth and access to resources, but also about
fair chances for future generations regarding resources, including an environment that is free
from pollution (Arts, 1994).


3.2 The emergence of new insights in geography and globalization
As already mentioned above, new theories about dependency and neo-colonialism emerged
within social sciences as well as within geography and geopolitics. For one part, these
9
theories critically investigate the distribution of resources, but moreover, in a broader sense,
the distribution of culture as they emerged within more post-structuralist perspectives. To put
it more generally, new perspectives on culture, power and the construction of reality have
opened up new ways of thought that may have to be incorporated within geopolitical views.
It is often stated that a decline of the state has to do with the rise of supranational
organizations and companies (De Pater, Groote & Terlouw, 2002: 168). A well-known
example of new power relationships is for instance the banana republic, in which business
companies are of great importance in national policies. Also, authors like Tuathail point, for
instance, to worldwide flows of people, products, money and especially information, to argue
that the role of state-policies has actually diminished in favor of a more network-like society
(De Pater, Groote & Terlouw, 2002: 168).
More feminist perspectives that have been introduced to economic and political
geography should perhaps also be taken into account, as they are particularly concerned with
the one telling the story; that is, they strive to reveal or unmask dominant perspectives by
explicitly taking position on the side of a specific minority (De Pater, Groote & Terlouw,
2002: 209-223).


3.3 Current policies, the rise of new great powers and new forms of government
The above mentioned new perspectives can be related to relatively new phenomena and
current policies that are of geopolitical interest. To begin with, Americas War on Terrorism
and military intervention in Iraq may be seen as a characteristic of the world order since the
Cold War, with the US government claiming the right to intervene militarily wherever and
whenever it wants (Agnew, 2003: 1) to secure the homeland, but other points of view should
be reckoned with. Of course, the presence of resources is most obvious, but what to think of
the continuing conflict between Israel and Palestine or the increasing opposition in world
views with, on the one hand, a democratic and safe society, and on the other, an Islamic world
that is liberated from Western influences (Agnew, 2002: 134-135)? One really notable feature
of todays geopolitical notion, then, is that of a stateless terrorist network (or is it liberation
front?).
The growing importance of China as a new superpower in both economic and military
context is also of concern. There is a careful approach in both East and West to one another in
recognition of each others economic advantages, but it goes hand in hand with suspicion
regarding ideology and the negative economical consequences like the loss of employment.
One last phenomenon that is of concern in current geopolitical perspectives is the
formation of the European Union, that is neither a simple common market, neither a mere
super-state. An organization that has for some part a common foreign policy but for another
part a huge diversity of interests regarding the different member states.


3.4 Conclusion
In this paper, we have tried to show how the dominant geopolitical imagination (emphasis
added) arose from European American experience but then was projected on to the rest of
the world and into the future in the theory and practice of world politics (Agnew, 2003: 2).
Geopolitics is about power and about states, with a bias towards the national and the
international. What has underpinned this bias is a dominant perception of the nature of power,
in which power has been seen as having two attributes that never change (Agnew, 2001: 31):
an ability to make others do the states will as this reflects the states advantages of location,
resources and populations; and an inherent characteristic of territorial states that attempt to
monopolize it in military competition with other states.
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In the present time, however, military force is less significant than it has been.
Economic power has become more an end in itself (more than a means to enhance military
capability), technology, education and economic growth have become more important in
determining the relative success of states and more intangible aspects of power, such as the
capacity to shape preferences or impose ideas (maybe even ideologies) have become more
important (Agnew, 2001: 31).
Besides the rise of new territorial superpowers like India and China, more and more
attention in geopolitics is directed to border-crossing resources and phenomena like
environmental problems, cultural dominance instead of literally occupied territory, the rise
of new governing forms like the European Union and a stateless terrorist network. In relation
to the development of modern geopolitics, which is framed in terms of an overarching global
context in which states vie for power outside their boundaries, gain control (formally and
informally) over less modern regions (and their resources) and overtake other major states in a
worldwide pursuit of global primacy (Agnew, 2003: 1), this puts forward the question if
geopolitics as a conceptual framework needs to be revisited. Future will tell.


































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