Chapter 1: Basic Concepts and Historical Development of Geopolitics, Strategy and Geostrategy, Geoeconomy and Geoculture

Introduction

Geopolitics, in its broader definition, is the analysis of the geographic influences on power relationships in international relations. Etymologically consisting of the words “geo” meaning earth, land and “politics”; geopolitics is a discipline emerged out of political geography.

A similar, broader and contemporarily wider accepted definition of the concept “a method for the analysis of the world through explaining and understanding the impact of geography on national and international politics” shows that the core of geopolitics is to reveal the opportunities of geography for national and international politics.

At this point, we come across the relationship between geopolitics and strategy. Opportunities for politics provided by geography and how those opportunities could be used by states relate geopolitics to strategy. Geostrategy links geography with strategies of diplomacy and war. In other words, it is the geographic direction of a state’s foreign policy.

Geopolitics: Conceptual And Historical Evolution

In the survey of geopolitics’ historical evolution, we encounter different periods where geopolitical ideas were produced. The pre-modern period is the period before geopolitics was founded as a scientific research area in the 19th century. The historical journey of geopolitical thought and theory passed through the classical era, the Cold War era and entered the current geopolitics of the postCold War era.

Pre-Modern Geopolitical Thinking

In ancient Chinese and Indian writings, geopolitical ideas were set forth in relation to war strategies and statecraft. In the writings of Confucius (Confucius, The Analects) and Sun-Tzu (Sun-Tzu, 2002) the focal point is geostrategy through which the two thinkers aimed to guide their state for political and military success.

In the Western tradition, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers are the first sources regarding geopolitical thinking. In this manner, Aristoteles (BC 384 -322) stands out among his contemporaries.

The pre-modern geopolitical thinking assumes the man as a part of the nature and therefore is not geopolitics in the sense of the word. In other words, what separates modern geopolitical thinking from the premodern one is the assumption that man and nature are distinct and geopolitics as a science aims to reveal and analyse the relationship between them.

The Classical Era in Geopolitical Thinking

Classical geopolitics refers to the period from the beginning of the 20th century, when the transition from political geography had actualized until the end of the Second World War. The main geopolitical approaches of this period are, Friedrich Ratzsel’s “lebensraum” or “living-space”, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “sea power theory”, Halford Mackinder’s “heartland theory”, Rudolph Kjellen and Karl Haushofer’s perspectives and Nicholas Spykman’s “Rimland theory”.

German geographer Friedrich Ratzel pioneered the founding of political geography as an area of research and hence contributed to the formation of geopolitics.

In 1904 Halford Mackinder published his article “The Geographical Pivot of History” (Mackinder, 1904) which represents the birth of political geography. He introduced a number of key elements and concepts within his theory, one of which is the “heartland”.

Alfred Thayer Mahan was an American naval historian and thus put more emphasis on sea power. His views on the importance of sea power and naval strategy were previously studied by other naval strategists, however he was the first who set forth these ideas systematically. Mahan’s work had influenced policy makers in that time, such as the US President Theodore Roosevelt, and even German Emperor Keizer Wilhelm.

Another prominent figure of this period is Rudolf Kjellen who coined the term geopolitics. He not only coined the term, but also defined its essence with his emphasis on the physical character, size and relative location of the territory of the state as central to its power position in the international system. According to Kjellen, geopolitics is one of the main disciplines to understand and analyze the state.

Karl Haushofer is the founder of German geopolitics. German geopolitics is an important phase in the evolution of geopolitics both in theory and in practice. In this sense, it can be said that German geopolitics as a research area had a direct impact on Germany’s policies regarding the World Wars.

German geopolitics caused geopolitics in general to be discredited as a research area due to its effect on Nazi Germany. This was mostly true of American scholarship. However, an American scholar of international relations, Nicholas Spykman was one of the few who did work on geopolitics during the Second World War. In fact, geopolitics during the Second World War had been studied within the realist international relations tradition, without mentioning the term geopolitics. In this manner, geopolitics had been employed in power politics which Spykman did as well.

Cold War Geopolitics

Geopolitics after the Second World War was discarded as a research area as mentioned above and studies regarding geopolitics had been integrated within the area of international relations, especially in the US. In Cohen’s words, American Cold War warriors embraced geopolitics as a base for national policy aiming at confronting the Soviet Union.

In this manner, a leading figure was George Kennan, an American diplomat and historian. Kennan was the figure who suggested containment as the core of US geopolitical strategy against Soviet activities after the Second World War.

Kennan in this manner also suggested that the US should use its economic power to assist Europe and Japan in their way to reach again the great power status. This vision of Kennan was formalized in the Truman Doctrine in 1947 and the Marshall Plan in 1948.

At this point, it is worth mentioning another theory which provided the base for the containment to be actualized. This is the domino theory which essentially was based on the idea that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow it in a domino effect.

Post-Cold War Geopolitics

The end of the Cold War has changed the geopolitical order of the previous period. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new world order emergedand thus geopolitical approaches had to be reviewed and renewed. This had an important impact on the negative reputation of geopolitics by raising it to the top as a method of research.

While geopolitics gained its former reputation again in the post-Cold War period, it was not the traditional understanding that came back. It was rather critical geopolitics which became more prominent. Critical geopolitics has been studied since late 1980’s, however, it can be said that the turning point for critical geopolitics was 1992 when John Agnew and Gerald Ó Tuathail’s article “Geopolitics and Discourse” was published in Political Geography.

While the early critical geopolitical studies were more historical analyses, aiming at deconstructing mainstream or Cold War geopolitics, it has further developed to combine the critical vision with new visions of alternative political space. Although the works of critical geopolitics is too much diverse to categorize under a fixed label, they all share the interest to question and reveal the underpinning assumptions of geopolitical claims.

Geostrategy: The Geographic Direction of Foreign Policy

There is not a consensus on the definition of geostrategy. It is defined as “a subfield of geopolitics”, or for others it is “the foreign policy of a state based on geopolitics”, or in Brzezinski’s words “the strategic management of geopolitical interests”.

Links Between the Geostrategy and Geography

What is common in all different definitions is that geostrategy links geography with strategy, and it is the intersection between them. In this manner, geostrategy is the field which transforms geopolitical visions into strategic plans. Then in a more precise and simple manner, geostrategy can be defined as the implementation of geopolitical visions.

Global Powers and Global Geostrategies

Great powers are states that can exert their power on a global scale and can influence global politics in favor of their own geopolitical interests. Great powers are thus global powers and formulate global geostrategies.

In this sense, as an example, the US can be categorized as a global power which has a global geostrategy. The postCold War US geostrategy can be seen as a reflection of Brzezinski’s geostrategy which he has drawn in his “The Grand Chessboard” in 1997.

When it comes to weak states in the international system, it is hard to refer to a geostrategy as the strategic implementation of geopolitical interests as it is for great powers. Weak states are quite the contrary of great powers and have no influence on both global and regional politics. Even for their survival, they generally need to depend on a great power or at least to a bandwagon. This results in a geopolitical vision and a geostrategy compatible with the great power dominant in their region.

Geo-Economics and Geo-Culture: Means for Geopolitical Benefits

There is a relation between geostrategy and geoeconomics which is defined as the use of economic instruments to produce beneficial geopolitical results. It is beyond any doubt that geopolitics (thus geostrategy) and geo-economics are interrelated and many times merging areas.

Geo-economics: Economic Means for Geopolitical Benefit

The given definition of geo-economics, in the introduction part of this chapter, as the use of economic instruments to produce beneficial geopolitical results relates the two closely. In this sense, geoeconomics provides a way for states to pursue their geopolitical aims without applying military means. It is the geostrategic use of economic power. At this point, it is important to highlight the main difference between geo-economics and geopolitics. The difference lies in the means-ends order of the definition. In other words, while geopolitics can be about gaining economic benefits for a country by using military means, the means of geo-economics are economic but the ends could be geopolitical.

Geo-culture: Cultural Convergence as a Means of Foreign Policy

Geo-culture was coined by Immanuel Wallerstein to refer to the cultural framework of the modern world system. Geo-culture in his conception is representing the cultural framework within which the world-system operates. In this line, approaches to cultural domination or hegemony of the world comes to the fore -such as globalization, Westernization, Americanization, Islamization- as explanations of cultural convergence.