JEOPOLİTİK STRATEJİ - Deneme Sınavı - 11

Both the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Imitative and the so-called Quad Initiative aim at bringing into existence a counter-Chinese power block by pushing the traditional American allies in the region to gear up their military expenditures and improve security cooperation among them. Quad members are the United States, Japan, India and Australia. The United States strongly disputes China’s sovereignty claims in the East and South China Seas and it has noticeably increased the frequency of its naval operations there.

The second generation of geopolitical studies came to the fore following the end of the Second World War. Throughout the long Cold war years, the US-led Western camp was in bitter ideological competition with the Soviet Union-led eastern camp. The major faultiness between the two opposing power blocks was ideological. The parties competed with each other as to whose politicaleconomic model would triumph across the globe. Ideology and identity were the main signifiers of their geopolitical competition. This era in geopolitical studies is also called ideological geopolitics. Therefore, the correct option is E.

Europe sits in the westernmost part of a vast Asian landmass (or World Island as defined by the US geopolitical theorist Nicolas Spykman as it stretches from the Atlantic shores of Portugal in the West to the western parts of Eurasian-wide Russia in the East, i.e. from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains).

The second principle relates to linearity which is founded on water courses such as rivers or lakes. This principle is applied in many parts of Europe where there are lots of rivers flowing towards the seas or oceans, and a few lakes forming hydrofrontiers. In the north, the long Finnish-Swedish border is marked by rivers such as Könkämäeno, Muonio and Torne, while the border between Russia’s Kaliningrad and Lithuania follows the Neman River. In southeastern Europe, parts of the Maritsa River constitute the Turkish-Greek border, just as the Danube River, Europe’s second longest, marks the borders between Slovakia-Austria, SlovakiaHungary, Croatia-Serbia and Bulgaria-Romania along its course towards the Black Sea. Lastly, the principle of linearity is also applied in western Europe and is mostly to do with economic and to a greater extent military considerations that force neighboring countries to form linear and thus easy-to-defend borderlines as exemplified by the Franco-Belgian border. Therefore, the correct option is C.

The geopolitics of Europe also has an external component in the sense of dominating proximate and distant maritime areas to which European influence may extend. While Europeans concentrated on maritime areas surrounding Europe such as the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic from the era of the Roman Empire to 13th Century due to the lack of technical progress in the naval domain, at a later date they were able to sail overseas by crossing huge oceans with the arrival of technical advancements and thus reach undiscovered territories more easily. Therefore, the correct option is E.

Drainage divides or water courses play a central role as the basis of the natural border theory. Following physical geography logic, international borders are drawn using these natural formations, while they provide a useful means in mountainous areas of separating one nation from another, as exemplified in southern, northern and central Europe by the FrancoSpanish, Swedish-Norwegian and Polish-Czech and Polish-Slovakian borders in the Pyrenees, the Scandinavian and the Carpathian Mountains respectively. This principle of natural limits goes back to the 17th Century, when France and Spain agreed on the border dividing them in the Treaty of Pyrenees. “In 1792, in France, the theory of natural frontiers was invoked for geopolitical ends to justify external conquests in the Hainaut region of Belgium, and, in the south-east, the County of Nice and Savoy.” (Dumont and Verluise, 2016). It survived the subsequent centuries and still applies in many border cases in Europe such as the 1947 Paris Treaty between France and Italy over the borderline on the upper valleys of Tinée and Vésubie rivers, which was drawn on the basis of drainage lines. In northern Europe, the Swedish-Norwegian border is also based on the same natural border principle as it passes through the drainage line of the Scandinavian mountains. Lastly, Poland’s southern borders with the Czech Republic and with Slovakia are other prominent cases of the implementation of natural border theory as both the Carpathians and Sudetes Mountain ranges constitute the natural borderline.

For some European countries such as Italy and Turkey, the end of the Cold War meant a decreasing strategic importance in the Western security architecture, while for others such as the neutral states of Europe including Finland, Austria and Sweden, the post-Cold War era made their neutrality mostly irrelevant in the absence of the opposing camp. Therefore, the correct option is A.

Beyond the national revival of geopolitics, the EU’s launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), also called the Barcelona Process, in 1995 was an ambitious response to the new geopolitical environment in the post-Cold War era. Therefore, the correct option is D.

The Copenhagen Criteria:
Political criteria: democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities;
Economic criteria: the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union;
The adoption of the EU acquis: the ability to take on the obligations of membership.

Therefore, the correct option is B.

In the past several decades, both the deepening and enlargement of the EU has affected the meaning of the internal borders and the dynamics of bordering across Europe. With the entry into force of Schengen Treaty in 1985, and the completion of the EU’s single market in 1992, the internal borders of the EU have become fuzzier and individual countries are easily accessible, since border checks and controls have been removed and cross-border interactions have increased steadily. This has led to a change in the meaning of borders across the EU, and external borders have gained a new relevance and importance in the face of security concerns following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the growing tide of illegal immigrants in the 2000s. Thus, the protection of external borders has become a pressing necessity. “Within twenty years of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, Western Europe, once the main critic of the closed borders of Eastern European communist regimes, has closed its southern and eastern borders, built fences and established an EU agency, Frontex, to help border states guard its long maritime border” (Mamadouh, 2015: 58). These controversial measures, accompanied by the outsourcing and offshoring of external border protection, have been criticized for being exclusionary and otherising.

The eastward enlargement was a strategic decision by the EU. With this decision, Celata and Coletti (2015: 1) argue “The European Union (EU) had to deal with three main challenges: first, to guarantee the security and stability of the Union along its new external border; second, to avoid the emergence of new “dividing lines” between the enlarged EU and its neighbouring countries; and third, to strengthen relations with those countries who, although not EU members nor candidates for accession, are of strategic relevance for the geopolitical and geoeconomic reconfiguration of ‘EU’rope as a global actor.” In other words, this was not only a large-scale enlargement in every sense of the word, but also an ambitious geopolitical undertaking on the part of the EU at the dawn of the 21st Century. Therefore, the correct option is C.

During the heightened Cold War era, Europe was geopolitically divided into two bitterly hostile parts in the form of Eastern Europe (the Socialist bloc) and Western Europe (the Capitalist bloc), signifying the ideological and political enmity between the two competing blocs (Berentsen,1993). At that time, nevertheless, geopolitics was not so popular in Europe because of its past association with the fascist regimes in the 1930s, and has been labeled as a highly militarist and determinist form of Realist International Relations School in the face of the tense Cold War rivalry. In the words of one analyst (Techau, 2013), “The intellectual concept of geopolitics originated in Europe, yet it is here that it is most unpopular today. It smacks of the ugly realism that many Europeans find so difficult to embrace. And it is too disquieting a reminder that history has not ended, and that the current peaceful state of the continent may not last forever.” Indeed the European integration project launched in the 1950s was devised and regarded as an antidote to the geopolitical thinking by nature (Guzzini, 2012: 62): “…the EU has staked its reputation on being an anti-geopolitical unit. In the memorable phrase of Ole Wæver, ‘Europe’s other is Europe’s past’, the EU being a peace organization, a ‘civilian’ or ‘normative’ power, aimed precisely at overcoming the militarism and nationalism, historically associated with classical geopolitical thought, that had plagued Europe’s early twentieth century.” The restoration of peace in Europe after long centuries of conflict between European nations was the main success of the 70 year-long European integration, and due to this success, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.

EU’s privileged relationship with its neighbors under the ENP “…will build on mutual commitment to common values principally within the fields of the rule of law, good governance, the respect for human rights, including minority rights, the promotion of good neighbourly relations, and the principles of market economy and sustainable development”. Therefore, the correct option is E.

For some European countries such as Italy and Turkey, the end of the Cold War meant a decreasing strategic importance in the Western security architecture, while for others such as the neutral states of Europe including Finland, Austria and Sweden, the post-Cold War era made their neutrality mostly irrelevant in the absence of the opposing camp.

Partners in EU’s Neighborhood Policy: ten Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria and Tunisia) and six Eastern countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine). Therefore, the correct option is B.

The main goal of the EU neighborhood policy, creating “a ring of friendly states”, has become “a ring of fire” in the second half of 2010s. While other states, most notably Russia, did not view Brussels as a partner but a geopolitical competitor, the Arab Spring dealt a severe blow to EU efforts to export its values and norms to the Middle East and North Africa. These unfavorable events and developments in Eastern and Southern neighborhoods “… arguably altered the Union’s strategic environment significantly” (Pänke, 2019: 111). As Europe turns inwards, and is busy with putting its own house in order in the wake of the simultaneous crises it has faced recently, it is claimed that it is seriously threatened by its eastern neighbor (Russia) and its southern and southeastern neighborhood (ISIS terrorism and irregular migration). Therefore the EU has to take “traditional aspects of geopolitics and strategic thinking” (Nitoiu and Sus, 2019: 1) into consideration in its dealings with these challenges and threats. During the second half of the 2010s, in fact, traditional geopolitics seems to have influenced the EU policymakers’ foreign policy thinking despite the denials of any geopolitical interest by the EU itself as a normative and civilian power in its external relations. Therefore, the correct option is A.

The European experiment in shared sovereignty is unprepared for a global era characterized by rising nationalism, great power competition, and a weakened transatlantic link” (Belin and Reinert, 2019: PAGE?). Therefore there is a stark difference between the past conditions under which the EU was supposed to be a key geostrategic actor on the world scene, and the current picture in which the Union seems much weaker, unassertive and disunited, let alone a significant global player.

A regional power is a leading country in a region which is able to project its power through the provision of public goods. A regional power should be able to garner support through consent. A regional power is also capable of representing regional interests at the global level. Therefore, the correct option is B.

The EU was founded in the 1950’s by the original six member states which jointly constitute the “core” of Europe. Since then, the geopolitical space surrounding this core region (or the EU’s near abroad) has been extended by successive rings such as the new Central and Eastern European member states, the remaining EFTA members joining the European Economic Area which integrates them in the single market, future prospective members from Southeastern Europe, the ENP partners and peripheral non-ENP states or “neighbors of EU neighbors” that are mostly an arc of crisis and unsuited for EU accession. Thus “The Union establishes a hierarchical order via geopolitical modelling of different layers of influence and power” (Pänke, 2019: 107). To this end, the EU has developed two comprehensive and inter-linked policy frameworks entitled “enlargement” and “neighborhood” in order to shape subregional spaces.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959, led by Marxist-Leninist Fidel Castro, ignited the US’s fears of an expansion of communist regimes in the region. In response, the John F. Kennedy administration initiated a generous economic aid programme, the Alliance for Progress, which was underpinned by the idea that economic development would gradually lead to democracy. The programme would thus contribute to a process of evolutionary change, referred to as “peaceful revolution”, in contrary to the communist idea of revolution. Therefore, the correct option is A.