Download File - AP HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

Geopolitical Theory
2016
What is Geopolitics?
► Geopolitics
 The study of power relationships past, present,
and future
 The study of the relationship among politics and
geography, demography, and economics,
especially with respect to the foreign policy of a
nation.
 A branch of political geography that considers the
strategic value of land and sea area in the context
of national economic and military power and
ambitions
What is Geopolitics?
► Geopolitics
 The state’s power to control space or territory and
shape the foreign policy of individual states and
international political relations
 Geopolitics is concerned with how geographical
factors, including territory, population, strategic
location, and natural resource endowments, as
modified by economics and technology, affect the
relations between states and the struggle for
world domination.
 Geopolitics is defined as a branch of geography
that promises to explain the relationships between
geographical realities and international affairs.
Alfred Thayer Mahan: 1890
► sea
power necessary to facilitate trade and
peaceful commerce
► the country that possessed power would be one
that could control the seas
► development of a strong navy was an essential
ingredient to a powerful state as was the country's
location
► most power would be held by a country with
accessible relative location and connected with a
long coastline and good harbors
► power held north of the Suez and Panama Canals.
Mahan
Geopolitics
Ratzel’s Organic Theory(1897) and Geopolitics
countries are living organisms that need resources to
grow. Lebensraum-Living space
Mackinder Heartland Theory: (1942)
-land-based power (pivot area Europe)
-Heartland was Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Was resource rich and safe from sea power countries
Spykman Rimland Theory:
naval power; Britain and Japan
Ratzel: 1897
► "organic
theory“
► the state is an organism attached to the
earth that competes with other states to
thrive
► state requires lebensraum - living space
► must devour other territories to achieve this
goal
Sir Halford Mackinder: 1904
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
unequal spatial distribution of strategic opportunities in the
world
advent of railroads released countries from dependence on Navy
to move Army
focus of warfare would be shifted from the sea to the hinterland
"pivot area“
 northern and interior parts of the Eurasian continent where
the rivers flow to the Arctic or to salt seas and lakes
railroads would make this area easy to defend and hard to
conquer
Heartland Theory: "He who controls the Heartland controls the
World Island (Eurasia and Africa); He who controls the World
Island, controls the world."
believed Germany would be a threat to controlling the resources
of Eastern Europe and the Heartland.
Mackinder
Mackinder
Nicholas Spykman: abt 1942
economically, politically and militarily, the northern half of the
world would always be more important than the southern half,
and that the location of a state north or south of the Equator
would play a large part in determining the significance of the
state
► contrary to Mackinder's Heartland Theory
► both sea and land power were important
► the real potential of Eurasia was in the “inner crescent”
►
►
►
►
Rimland:
 Western Europe
 Middle East
 South Asia
 Southeast Asia and the Far East
Rimland was accessible to the sea and to interior regions
"Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia; who rules Eurasia
controls the destinies of the world."
Spykman
Immanuel Wallerstein: 1970’s
►
A world system: is a social system, one that has boundaries,
structures, member groups, rules of legitimization, and coherence.
►
three geographic areas
 Core:
► advanced
areas
► strong state structures and a national culture
► economic powers connected by trade and technology
► exploiters of the periphery
 Periphery:
► weak
states
► dependent on core
► colonial states or states with a low degree of autonomy
 Semi Periphery:
► act
as a buffer between the core and the periphery
► emerging somewhat but still dependent on the core
Immanuel Wallerstein: 1970’s
Cold War Geopolitics
► After
WWII (after 1945)
► Hostility bw/ US and Soviet Union
► Race for nuclear weapons
► Created a bipolar world in terms of conflict
► Capitalist Bloc(US and Western Europe) vs
► Communist Bloc (Soviet Union and allies)China,
NK, Mongolia etc
Marxism-Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto
Living in a capitalist society, however, the
individual is not truly free.
 Advocates the rise of the proletariat(working class
versus bourgeoise(capitalists). Class free society .
State controlled economy .


Shatterbelt-Cohen
He modified Mackinder’s theory . Heartland was the
pivot area, inner crescent was the rimland. He
pointed out that several inner crescent areas were
shatterbelts or areas of political weakness.
Domino Theory: the idea that if one land in a region came under the influence of
Communists, then more would follow in a domino effect. It governed much of U.S.
foreign policy beginning in the early 1950s. In Southeast Asia, the United States
government used the domino theory to justify its support of a non-communist
regime in South Vietnam against the communist government of North Vietnam, and
ultimately its increasing involvement in the long-running Vietnam War (1954-75).
Containment: by George Kennan
A resulting policy out of the Truman Doctrine that promoted
containment of communism, the domino theory was used by successive
United States administrations during the Cold War to justify American
intervention around the world. Vietnam to contain Communism in Asia
The new terminology