GEOPOLITICS

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GEOPOLITICS

• International relations from a geographical
  perspective

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State

• a state is an independent country (though the
  term indicates a part of a country in common
  speech)
• an independent country is afforded sovereignty by
  international laws, agreements, and precedents
• internationally recognized boundaries
• states supply public goods (like roads and
  education), regulate economic relations, seek
  legitimacy in the eyes of citizens and others,
  and direct relations with other states

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The power of the state resides in state
authorities

• "L'état, c'est moi!" (I am the State!)
• Louis XIV
• There is only one way to construct such a Common
  Power as may be able to defend people from the
  invasion of foreigners and interpersonal
  conflictone way to ensure that industriousness
  and resources are sufficient for a contented
  life. That is to confer all their power and
  strength upon one Man or Assembly of men that
  reduces many wills to one will people must
  appoint one man or an Assembly of men to bear
  their Person. Every one must then acknowledge
  himself to be the source of the acts of the
  chosen leader who acts in support of the common
  peace and safety, and everyone must submit his or
  her will to the will of the leader and his or her
  judgment to the judgment of the leader.
• Thomas Hobbes Leviathan 1651 (paraphrase by P.
  Adams)

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nation

• a nation is a group of people with a claim to a
  shared past, common culture, and collective
  destiny
• some nations are virtually coextensive with
  states, forming nation-states (e.g. Japan,
  Sweden, Mongolia)
• some nations are struggling for
  autonomy/sovereignty and may lie entirely within
  a state (Quebec's situation in Canada) or across
  state borders (Kurdistan's situation in Iraq,
  Iran, Turkey, Syria region)
• Nationalism
• the passionate defense of national interests,
  either in a nation-state framework (where it is
  also called patriotism) or outside of such
  framework (where it is called by various names
  such as treason and terrorism, and usually
  suppressed violently)

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Enclave

• a "hole" in a political territory created by a
  sovereign or semi-sovereign entity (like a state,
  tribal homeland, or Indian reservation) or by a
  fragment of a foreign country (like the U.S.
  enclave at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba)
• a district, province, region, town, etc. in a
  state that aligns itself politically with a
  foreign state, usually an adjacent one

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Enclaves
Lesotho and
The Gambia
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Exclave

• a bit of a state that is separated from the rest
  of the state, such as Alaska (a U.S. exclave) and
  Kaliningrad (a Russian exclave bordering
  Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea)

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Exclaves
Kaliningrad Exclave of Russia
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Can you spot any potential problems here? Hint
discontinuities in formal culture regions often
cause political problems
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Enclave Exclave Trouble

• Two small countries in the Caucasus
• Mutually hostile despite 10 year ceasefire
• Armenia has an ethnically Armenian
  (Indo-European) Christian population
• Azerbaijan has a Turkic Muslim population
• Nagorno-Karabagh region of Azerbaijan is an
  enclave, populated by Armenians
• Currently held by Armenian military
• Turkey is imposing an economic blockade on
  Armenia to try to force it to give up N-K
• A bit of history
• 1915-1923 Turkey committed genocide in
  Armeniakilled 1.5 million Armenians, tried to
  conquer Armenian territory
• Turkey denies any wrongdoing
• Problems between Armenia Azerbaijan began under
  Stalin when Nagorno-Karabagh was included in the
  Baku Province (which essentially had the borders
  of Azerbaijan)
• What general perspective can explain each
  countrys position?

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Whats bigger than a state?

• Empire
• Multi-state multiethnic political entity
• Created sustained by force
• Empires
• Roman Empire
• Holy Roman Empire
• Thirty Years War was a religious war in Europe
• Both ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648)
• Westphalian system state is the highest entity
  (not religious affiliation) applied to Europe
  after this point, and to world in 1960s, 70s and
  80s
• Ottoman Empire
• Outside Westphalian system until after WWI
• British Empire
• Colonized areas outside Europe then granted
  independence to most of these between late 1700s
  and mid 20th c.

• Imperialism/colonialism
• European American dominance of poor countries
• Military political control
• Economic exploitation
• Hegemonic Domain
• Cultural and economic dominance without overt use
  of force
• Current US-dominated world system
• Cold-war marked US rise to position of global
  power
• Supranational Organizations and International
  Alliances
• EU
• NAFTA
• CIS
• Etc.

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Supranational political organizations

• Organizations of states based on any form of
  cooperation or coordination
• some are the vestiges of collapsed empires (CIS)
• Some are primarily military (NATO)
• Some are primarily economic (OPEC)
• Some are technological (European Space Agency)
• All imply some compromise of sovereignty, except
  possibly for the U.S., which is able to
  participate without giving up sovereignty

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Regional Organizations Worldwide
Source Wikipedia
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Supranational Entities in Eurasia
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GROWTH OF THE EU
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GROWTH OF THE EU
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D O M A I N
?
CORE
ANTICIPATED EXPANSION
?
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CONFIRMATION OF CORE-DOMAIN MODEL
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Geopolitics
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Terms to enhance discussion of geopolitical
discourses

• Geopolitical codes
• Particular constructions of us and them
• E.g. Evil Empire, hyperpower, failed state, a
  people in exile, Gods chosen people, members of
  a protectorate, etc.
• Particular constructions of space, place, and
  time
• E.g. manifest destiny, mission civilisatrice, a
  land without people for a people without land,
  the march of progress, lebensraum, etc.
• Narrative appeals
• The moral of a geopolitical tale
• Tragic, comic, romantic or ironic in nature
• E.g. once again weve been ripped off (tragic),
  once again weve been obligated to save the
  world (romantic), once again our ties to
  insert state name have benefited us, etc.
• All such appeals are constructions rather than
  facts
• Omissions
• Very little can be said in a news article
• What facts or conditions were left out of the
  story and how might they have interfered with the
  geopolitical codes and narrative appeals in the
  story?

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The driving question

• Q. What is geography good for?
• A. Defense and conquest.
• This, at least, is the oldest and most common
  answer to the question!
• geography was important to the Roman Empire, the
  Chinese Dynasties, the British Empire, the
  expanding U.S. (19th c.)
• Realist approach to foreign policy
• based on assumption that world is governed by
  force rather than cooperation
• Appropriate foreign policies either subdue other
  countries or contain them
• Alternative, Kantian approach is based on
  assumption that power politics do not provide
  lasting solutions and states must cooperate

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Uses of geographical info.

• settlement (planting colonists and resisting "the
  natives")
• contesting claims of other potential colonizers
• waging war (against "natives" and other
  colonizers)
• justifying the struggle for regional or global
  domination

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H. Mackinders "heartland" theory (1904)
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cold war containment
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Consider these questions

• What is the capital of Tanzania?
• What is the major export of Sri Lanka?
• On what battlefield did the British win control
  of Canada?
• Q. What do these questions have in common?
• A. They are questions that lend themselves to
  geography-as-statecraft

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Consider these questions

• Which of the following is produced by asking
  questions like these?
• understanding of foreign places
• understanding of foreign people and cultures
• understanding of how historical changes affect
  people
• understanding of globalization
• none of the above

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• Geographers still find employment working for
  various branches of the military
• However, now many are struggling to redefine
  geopolitics through specializations such as
• critical geopolitics
• political ecology
• cultural ecology
• conflict and peace studies

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Why dont they like us?
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Why dont they like us?

1. US Power
2. US Influence
3. Different values
4. Personal experiences
5. History
6. Pollution
7. Unilateralism

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US Power

• The U.S. is the richest, most powerful country in
  the world
• when people are unhappy they point the finger at
  us first
• this is particularly easy when
• The U.S. backs oppressive governments
• Someone steps on a landmine left by U.S. forces
  or is accidentally killed by Americans
• Someone loses a factory job because of U.S. trade
  policies

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US Influence

• Not everyone wants to live the American dream
• The U.S. influences life in other countries in
  ways that are disruptive of local values and
  traditional ways of life
• Should we expect people to appreciate their
  losses as well as their gains?

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History

• The U.S. is the only country in the world that
  has used nuclear weapons to kill people
• Hiroshima Nagasaki, 1945, 100,000 fatalities
• The US has used weapons of mass destruction on
  civilian populations
• Other casualties since WWII
• 400,000 children died in Iraq as a result of the
  first Gulf War (UN estimate)
• about 3,767 civilians in Afghanistan (769 more
  than the final Sept. 11 body count, and
  proportionately a much higher segment of the
  population)
• Millions of civilians killed or deprived of their
  rights in developing countries with US knowledge
  and consent
• 1,000,000 died in a brutal war in Angola in which
  we supported Jonas Savimbi
• 200,000 civilians were killed in East Timor
  (Indonesia) after Ford Kissinger gave Suharto
  the OK
• Tens of thousands of civilians killed in
  Guatemalan civil war, most by the US-backed Rios
  Montt government

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History

• The U.S. has supported various dictatorial
  regimes in other countries since WWII
  (collectively responsible for suppressing
  political dissent, killing millions of civilians,
  and running corrupt regimes)
• "Baby Doc" Duvalier
• Marcos
• Somoza
• Pinochet
• Suharto
• Hussein
• Musharaf
• US continued to maintain friendly relations with
  Argentina during its "dirty war" although the
  Argentine government was using torture and
  "disappearances" to suppress political dissent
• Abu Graib abuses
• Unfortunately there is plenty of evidence to
  string together a solid anti-American case if one
  is so inclined!

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US Unilateralism

• The U.S. (Republican Congress and Bush
  administration) currently opposes virtually all
  global agreements and treaties
• treaty on small arms trade (UN estimates there
  have been about 4,000,000 small arms casualties
  since 1990) allies Latin American and African
  countries domestic pressure from NRA, 10
  billion arms export industry
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
  Discrimination Against Women domestic pressure
  Population Research Institute (pro-life) debate
  blocked by Sen. Jesse Helms already ratified by
  168 countries
• Kyoto protocol on global warming 70 countries
  have ratified, including all EU countries
  domestic pressure from Competitive Enterprise
  Institute and other pro-business lobbies
• Anti-ballistic missile treaty
• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child allies
  the Vatican, Iran, Iraq, other Islamic countries
  domestic pressure Sen. Jesse Helms, Christian
  Coalition, Family Research Council, Focus on the
  Family, the John Birch Society, and others
• Treaty to ban landmines
• Rome Treaty creating International Criminal Court
  US finally gave in but displayed strong
  discomfort, then worked behind the scenes to win
  exemptions country by country
• U.S. policy of a "preemptive strike" (the
  privilege to prevent a country from attacking by
  attacking it first) is clearly not meant as a
  policy for any other country to follow it is a
  special right reserved only for the U.S.

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Pollution

1. Pollution

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Summary

• Nations and states are different things, and
  often coexist uneasily
• Political tension is common around an enclave or
  exclave, particularly if the population is
  culturally similar to the majority in a
  neighboring state
• Geopolitics is the study of power relations
  between states for nationalistic (patriotic) or
  scholarly purposes (the latter being critical of
  the former)
• Geopolitics now involves the effort to understand
  diverse elements of other cultures as these shape
  and interact with political elements at the
  nation and state level
• Transnational political entities are growing in
  number and importance
• The reasons they dont like us are varied and
  complex, not simply a matter of them being evil!