JEOPOLİTİK STRATEJİ - Deneme Sınavı - 16

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. He discussed many topics that can be now classified as geopolitics, more than twenty centuries before the term was coined. Aristoteles analyzed the relationship between climate and human nature, the impact of geography on states' economic and military preferences. The correct answer is A.

Montesquieu in the 18th century explained in his book “The Spirit of the Laws” the difference of legislative structures of states by relating it to geography, namely the climate. The answer is A.

Sea power theory is developed by Thayer Mahan.

In 1904 Halford Mackinder published his article “The Geographical Pivot of History” 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”. The correct answer is B.

German geopolitics encompasses different viewpoints of different geopolitical thinkers, but they share some common views. These common viewpoints can be summarized as follows;

The correct answer is E.

Containment was the core of the US geopolitical strategy against Soviet activities after the Second World War. The correct answer is D.

Geostrategy refers to the foreign policy of a state based on geopolitics. The correct answer is A.

Geoeconomics refers to the use of economic instruments to produce beneficial geopolitical results. The correct answer is B.

Geo-culture was coined by Immanuel Wallerstein to refer to the cultural framework of the modern world system. The correct answer is E.

The determining factor for struggle in Samuel Huntington’s theory is civilization. The correct answer is D.

It was Halford Mackinder who for the first time stated that geography should be analyzed politically as a scientific discipline and thus he was the person who paved the way for the establishment of geopolitics as a distinct discipline. In this manner, geopolitics as a research area emerged out of Mackinder’s paper titled “The Geographical Pivot of History” that he submitted to the Royal Geographical Society in 1904.

Geopolitics does not have a single definition. It is differently defined according to different approaches or world views on the one hand, but on the other the definition has changed throughout the concept’s historical evolution. For Karl Haushofer, the founder of German geopolitics, it was a doctrine that determines all political processes of the state spatially. In Haushofer words, “geopolitics is the new national science of the state, … a doctrine on the spatial determinism of all political processes, based on the broad foundations of geography, especially of political geography.”

Although later definitions came to include a much wider area, Mackinder’s original concept of “pivot” primarily included the Caucasus and Central Asia. A revised version postulated that whoever controls the “Heartland”, controls the “world island”, and whoever controls the World Island, will soon rule the world. This version included the Black Sea rim and Baltic Sea Basin and parts of modern day Russia in addition to the Caucasus and Central Asia in the definition of Heartland.

Eurasia is a vast region, stretching from eastern Europe in the West to the Wall of China in the East. Its western parts has had a specific role in the development of geopolitical analysis. What Alfred Mackinder called struggle to control over the “pivot” in 1904 in a paper submitted to Royal Geographical Society, later came to dominate the geopolitical understanding of the great powers of the time and much later the superpowers of the Cold War era. Simply put, according to Mackinder, whoever controls the Eastern Europe controls the Heartland, moving ahead in the quest to achieve world dominance.

Although later definitions came to include a much wider area, Mackinder’s original concept of “pivot” primarily included the Caucasus and Central Asia. A revised version postulated that whoever controls the “Heartland”, controls the “world island”, and whoever controls the World Island, will soon rule the world. This version included the Black Sea rim and Baltic Sea Basin and parts of modern day Russia in addition to the Caucasus and Central Asia in the definition of Heartland.

Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC) Established in June 1992, BSEC officially became a ‘regional economic organization’ with an international legal identity in May 1, 1999 upon entry into force of its Charter, signed in June 1998.

In 1919 Mackinder re-examined his argument and concluded that his thesis was still valid and applicable. In his new book “Democratic Ideals and Realities” he replaced the term pivot with heartland and expanded its boundaries as to encompass also Eastern and Central Europe. In this work, he also postulated that “Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island. Who rules the World Island commands the world” (Mackinder, 1942: 106).

German geopolitics encompasses different viewpoints of different geopolitical thinkers, but they share some common views. These common viewpoints can be summarized as follows: the main political unit is the state and states are treated as living organisms, the life of the state as a living organism is dependent upon its geographical area, states are inclined to expand, interactions between states are based on rivalry and hence war is a normal and expected result of state relations, economic self-sufficiency is vital for states and this self-sufficiency is contingent to geography.

Ratzel is the first theorist who introduced and used space and location as a means of analyzing the state. For a state, to grow a sufficient life-space (lebensraum) is imperative, therefore in order to grow, states have to expand by changing existing borders. Lebensraum was defined by Ratzel as the geographical surface area required to support a living species at its current population size and as population grew it had to expand. In this sense Lebensraum seemed to place Darwinian natural selection in the spatial and environmental dimensions (Smith, 1980: 53) in the shape of social Darwinism. This theory provided the base for expansionism in foreign policies of states, especially the German state.

By Rimland theory, Spykman suggested that the key for world domination was passing beyond controlling the coastal lands of Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and China, which he defined as rimland and the rimland includes the heartland as well. In this vein, his formulation like Mackinder’s, came as “who controls the rimland rules Eurasia; who rules Eurasia controls the world.”. The difference of Spykman’s theory from Mackinder’s is that while Mackinder suggested an expansion from the core to the outer area, Spykman claimed that development should extend from the outer area to the inner.

Since Kennan was a member of the US Department of State during the Truman administration, he could promote the idea of containment. Containment, according to Kennan, is the “application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy” (X/Kennan, 1947: 7). The underlying idea here was to prevent the Soviet Union from imposing its ideology on other countries and thus providing economic and military assistance to developing countries could be the main part of the containment policy.