JEOPOLİTİK STRATEJİ

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.”

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.

In line with containment, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security advisor of Jimmy Carter, is another name who approached containment through the lenses of geopolitics. According to Brzezinski, for containing the Soviet Union it was imperative to gain control over ‘linchpin’ states, which were key states owing to their geopolitical location. The linchpin states according to Brzezinski at that time were, Germany, Poland, Iran, Afghanistan-Pakistan, South Korea and the Philippines.

Geo-economics makes use of economic tools for gaining influence in geostrategic competition and for the global powers in shaping the institutional framework of the international economic order. These tools are all economic techniques of statecraft, ranging from trade policy to investment policy and from sanctions to foreign aid. However, at this point, some questions arise which blurs the line between military and economic tools. Bombing a factory for example is not geo-economics since bombs are not economic means. But when it comes, for example, to the economic blockades, the case gets confusing. Although blockades are part of military power, they still are economic tools because they should not be engaged only in hot military conflicts. For this reason, blockades can be included within the sphere of geo-ecomics as a means.

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. For Wallerstein, the world system is global capitalism and the geo-culture of the system has been formed by liberalism beginning from the French revolution which has been underlined by the nation state as a form of political entity. The world economy that is capitalism in Wallerstein’s understanding and liberalism as its ideological premise formed the geo-culture of the world system.