Modern Theoretical Development of Geopolitics and Strategic Studies

In the first stage of geopolitical thinking, geopolitics was understood as an objective scientific exercise whose primary reason was to offer ironclad statements on the impact of geographical location and physical terrain on the ability of states to maximize their power in international politics. Geopolitical thinkers were conceived of offering birds’ eye explanations and advice on how states might potentially become more powerful than others and lay claim to regional and global hegemony by utilizing geographical factors.

Mackinder, a geographer in the United Kingdom, is considered to be the first important geopolitical thinker. His heartland theory assumes that the particular power that controls the Eurasian landmass would eventually control the global politics and master the universe. In his characterization, land powers are more likely to lay claim to regional and global hegemony than maritime powers.

Unlike Mackinder, Alfred Mahan, a military historian in the United States, argued that the road to global primacy in international politics would go through mastering oceans and other sea lines. He recommended that the leaders of the United States follow in the footsteps of the British Empire to build up a massive naval force if they want to become the most powerful country on earth. Controlling international trade routes at sea would require huge investments in bluewater navy as well as the United States establishing military bases in vital choke points. In Mahan’s thinking, controlling sea traffic through a powerful navy would absolve the United States of taking direct control of other countries. To him, the United States should avoid transforming other nations in the image of American values and stay away from nation-building exercises in far distant places. The United States is already safe because of its territorial location.

To Ratzel and Houshofer, states are like living organisms that require lebensraum, viz. living spaces, to survive in the anarchical international environment. Just as individuals require a healthy body and mental condition, states are also in need of fertile and defensible physical terrain as well as robust and uncontaminated people to survive in international politics.

Hitler thought that the German/Arian race is superior to all other races and its purity needs to be ensured through the elimination of Jews, transsexuals and gypsies from the German nation. Hitler’s geopolitical thinking was also informed by the idea that all ethnic Germans should be brought together under the rule of German state. Such thinking on the part of Hitler’s Nazi government pushed Germany to invade neighboring countries one by one and then organize a massive attack against the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The concentration camps constructed by Nazi Germany across Europe were used to undertake a massive genocide against Jews.

Russian elites and people alike tend to believe that Russia should never let hostile countries take control of territories to Russia’s west and south mainly because Russia is highly indefensible from these directions. The reason why Russian leadership, particularly the current Russian President Putin, is very much against the idea of NATO’s enlargement towards post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Caucasus is that Russians believe their country would be surrounded by hostile nations and this would be a direct assault on Russian geopolitical interests in the post-Soviet area. From the Russian perspective, Russia is a great power and its geopolitical primacy in the post-Soviet area should be recognized by other great powers.

While investing in area-denial and anti-access military capabilities aiming at curtailing the access of the United States to the East China and South China Seas on the one hand, the construction of massive infrastructure projects in the larger Eurasian region and across the globe targets connecting many states to China. Using China’s geographical location and immense economic power, Chinese leadership has been trying to increase China’s power capacity in the emerging great power competition all over the world. Surrounded by more than a dozen countries, Chinese leadership tends to believe that China’s territorial security would best be ensured if all these countries were connected to China through diverse economic relationships and multiple infrastructural projects. The idea that China is the Middle Kingdom and sits at the center of regional politics in Asia is quite geopolitical.

It has already been a part of Turkish security culture that Turkey is the inheritor of the Ottoman Empire and all other countries that lie in Turkey’s vicinity gained their independence through the wars waged against Turks. Such thinking seems to have led the majority of Turkish people to internalize the ideas that Turkey is surrounded by enemies to all directions and Turkey’s territorial integrity and national security would be ensured if Turkey had a powerful military and pursued a prudent and vigilant foreign policy approach.

Lying at the intersection of three different continents and possessing vital sea passages like the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits, Turkey is simultaneously both secure and insecure. Its geographical location and the physical characteristics of its terrain can be seen both as assets and liabilities in Turkey’s dealing with other countries.

Similarly Turkey feels itself exposed to myriad security challenges emanating from the wider Middle East due to its proximity to the region. Turkey also tries to leverage its transit country role in its relations with the European Union. One of the core arguments of those who think the European Union would do well to admit Turkey to membership is that Turkey would help lessen EU’s excessive reliance on Russian gas and oil resources. Turkey would simply connect the energy thirsty European Union members to energy abundant countries in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Middle East.

Sea powers do not have too many borders with other countries and get benefit from their island status. The United States is surrounded by two vast oceans to the west and east and it has relatively twoweak neighbors to the north and south. It is not located in close proximity to many conflict-riven places in the world and developments in far distant places tend to have minor impact on core American security and economic interests.

A similar situation can be observed in the context of the United Kingdom, which is an island country and has long benefited from its splendid isolation. Rather than taking an active role in great power competition among land powers of the Eurasian region, both the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century and the United States during much of the twentieth century played offshore-balancer role.

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.

There was a rivalry between the two camps over the so-called Third World. At stake was to ensure the countries that were considered to be part of the Third World should not join the opposing side. Third world countries also constituted the playing ground between the two camps. Rather than facing off each other directly, they both preferred to score goals against each other through their proxies in the Third World countries. In many of the internal power struggles in Third World countries the United States and the Soviet Union supported different fractions.

Third generation geopolitics began with the end of the Cold War rivalry between two opposing power blocks adopting diverging political ideologies. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the unification of Germany in 1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 epitomized the end of ideological geopolitics. Since the early 1990s till the end of the first decade of the twenty first century, analysts observed the rise of a new geopolitical understanding being defined by many as a new world order. New world order geopolitics suggested that there was only one super power all over the world and all other states would gain influence in international politics in relation to the status of their relationship with the global hegemon. That sole superpower happened to be the United States. There was a huge power gap between the United States and all other countries and it was nearly impossible for any country, acting alone or in cooperation with others, to counterbalance the American hegemony.

The enlargement of the European Union and NATO towards former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe would accord with the flow of history by transforming almost every country in Europe in the image of liberal democracy and open market capitalism. Such enlargement would also extend to non-European geographies with the incorporation of them into the World Trade Organization and other multilateral platforms as responsible stakeholders.

The possibility of any great power war would be almost zero because it was assumed that all great powers would pay an utmost care to get along with the United States well. Just because none of the great powers was in a position to challenge the American preeminence and lay claim to hegemony in its own region, the best thing to do on their side would be bandwagoning with the sole superpower. Looking from this perspective, armed conflicts would rather take place within states. Intrastate wars, viz. civil wars, would replace interstate wars. The wars in the Balkans and the Caucasus during the 1990s demonstrated that the major threats to regional and global security would stem from internal conflicts rather than interstate power competitions.

Even though the 9/11 attacks on the US homeland dented the image of the United States as the omnipotent global hegemon and criticisms of the American approach to the global war on terror intensified following the US occupation of Iraq, it was primarily following the financial crisis of the late 2000s that a sense of decline began to percolate down to the western elites in the United States and EU members.

Not only has the feeling of optimism eroded but also the specter of non-western powers challenging the primacy of western powers has begun to haunt many westerners. As the Russian resurgence and Chinese revival took root, the calls for accommodating rising non-western powers in the institutional structure of the liberal international order began to be heard more loudly. The revised security strategy of the European Union, and the first national security strategy of the Trump administration demonstrate that western powers feel threatened by the rise of non-western powers.

China and Russia, have increasingly offered non-western conceptualizations of international political order. Non-interference in states’ internal affairs, primacy of state sovereignty, authoritarian leadership, the strengthening of national identities, state-led capitalism, spheres of influence mentality, multi-polarism in global governance, primacy of great powers in international relations, mercantilist trade practices, investment in military power capabilities, an increased use of economic power instruments in the name of securing geopolitical gains, and the questioning of the principle ‘responsibility to protect’ are some of the points that Russian and Chinese leaderships have been vehemently prioritizing over the last decade.

In today’s international order, the ideological polarization of opposing power blocks is not as sharp and rigid as it was during the Cold War era. The interconnectedness between liberal western powers and illiberal authoritarian powers is much higher now than it was between western capitalist and eastern communist countries during the Cold war era. This suggests that we now live in a multiplex world order. Not only are there more actors in international relations but also issues have become so complex that dealing with them increasingly requires global perspectives. This world order leads states with various power capabilities to adopt multidimensional and multidirectional foreign policy strategies.

The fundamental claim of critical geopolitical studies is that all kinds of geopolitical understandings are subjective and reflect particular values and previously conceived national interests. There is not an objective scientific understanding of geopolitics as claimed by first generation geopolitical writers. Naming particular physical locations as they are and attributing meanings to geographical locations are all political exercises in the background. There is not a bird-view of geopolitics which is claimed to be timeless and ahistorical.

For long, the US-led international organizations have not only enabled western actors to materialize their interests across the globe but also perpetuated the core liberal assumption that there is only one route to modernity and development, i.e., the western way.

But  since its opening up to the world economy in late 1970s, western powers hoped that China would gradually transform into one of the responsible stakeholders of the liberal international order and adopt its core values.  As of today, particularly given the protectionist trade war that President Trump has waged on China and China’s galloping internal challenges, Beijing is not in a position to risk the gains of its ongoing development process by adopting a hardline approach towards the United States and its neighbors. China has the largest reserves in US dollars and its access to American market, technology and foreign direct investment is still important for its economic modernization.

China owes its meteoric rise in global politics to its efforts to become a part of the capitalist world economy. Its influence in global politics arises from the intense economic relationships that it has developed with many other countries. China has now become the number one trading-partner of not only its neighbors to the south and east but also many developed countries in the West. China is still the global factory of merchandise goods and it needs to import many raw materials from abroad because it is a resource poor country.

An important characteristic of China’s rise also relates to its continental size and huge population. Because size matters in international politics, every small increase in Chinese per capita income will both lift many Chinese people out of poverty and increase China’s share in global economy. Despite the fact the per capita income in China is still less than ten thousands US dollars, China will likely overtake the United States as the largest economy by no later than the mid-century.

Another key characteristic of China’s rise is that despite all counter allegations that Chinese foreign policy has turned out to become more assertive and aggressive over the last decade Chinese leaders seem to have been following a low key foreign policy orientation by avoiding rigid positions on global issues unless core national interests are at stake

China is not openly questioning the established western liberal order by either forming antiwestern coalitions of states or doing its best to make sure that western-led international organizations do not operate smoothly. Today’s China is not pursuing a strategy of global hegemony. Chinese rulers have never engaged in an empire building project whose goal was to bring civilization to barbarians.

China is against the idea of a universal civilization as well as the practices of setting global standards of human rights. From Chinese perspective, rules, values and norms are relative and products of different time and space configurations. Similar to other great powers, China hopes that its values and norms are shared by others. However, it does not construct its foreign relations on the basis of a normative understating in that it is China’s historical and civilizational mission to project its values abroad. On the contrary, Chinese leaders appear to believe that the main features of Chinese civilizations have already shaped the dynamics of interstate and transnational relations in East and South East Asia.

To many, power is the ability of one actor to influence the behavior, interests and identity of other actors in the image of its own priorities, preferences and values. Put differently, power is the ability of one actor to get what it wants from others. power has both residual and relational aspects.

Power is residual because being powerful requires a particular state to possess both some capabilities, of both tangible and intangible sorts, and the will to use them in order to have an impact on others.

Power is also relational because for power to exist there needs to be at least two actors interacting with each other.

Not all states are willing to have an influence on the choices of others. Some states are defined as status-quo oriented powers whereas some others are considered to be as status-seekers or status-quo changers. Status-quo oriented states are those that are content with the current power configuration in the system and they do not aspire to change it. They are merely concerned with their existing status within the system and want to make sure that it continues

This dimension of power prioritizes capabilities of actors in a non-relational fashion. In this sense, some states are defined as hard powers.

Coercive hard powers are those that try to get what they want from others by coercing them to meet their choices. Others would either agree to the terms of the coercer or get punished severely for their non-compliance. Coercive powers would frighten their opponents and threaten them with the negative consequences of their noncooperation. Coercive powers try to instill fear on their targets and wish them to respond out of necessity. On the other hand, inducing/enticing/ coaxing hard powers are those that try to get what they want from others by pushing them to make materially construed cost-benefit calculations. Their hope is that others would be induced to cooperate if they saw that their cooperation with the inducer would yield to them more benefits than costs.

Soft powers do on the other hand rely on intangible capabilities, such as identity, culture, norms, values and the legitimacy of their internal and external policies.

On the one hand exist attractive soft powers, which do not need to do something specific in order to influence others because others are simply attracted by their values, cultures and political achievements. They neither coerce, nor induce nor entice others.

On the other hand, persuasive soft powers are those that think they need to invest some capital in order to help create legitimacy and attraction in the eyes of others. They develop specific strategies not only to brandish their achievements but also persuade others that their behaviors and policies are legitimate and other-regarding.

Being powerful requires the interaction of at least two different actors, one side trying to influence the choices of others whereas the other thinking/calculating whether or not to comply with demands of the one. In this regard power is defined as a relationship. Coercive, inducing/ coaxing, attractive and persuasive strategies are employed by the side that tries to influence others. Equally important is how others would reciprocate to such demands.