geopolitics
Geopolitics is the applied study of the relationships of geographical space to politics. Geopolitics, therefore, concerned with the reciprocal impact of spatial patterns, features, and structures and political ideas, institutions, and transactions. The term 'Geopolitics' has originally invented, in 1899, by a Swedish political scientist, Rudolf Kjellen and its original meaning is to signify a general concern with geography and politics. However, defining the concept of 'geopolitics' itself is a considerably difficult task because definition of geopolitics tends to changes as historical periods of time and structures of world order change. Therefore, there have been numerous ways of interpreting the term and arguments on them all through the history. In this essay, I intend to examine how geopolitics has influenced on international relations and how it has evolved using well-known geopoliticians' theories in a chronological order: Imperialist, Cold War, and New World Order.In early 20th century, geopolitics was a form of power or knowledge concerned with promoting states expansionism and securing empires. It was a time characterized by colonial expansionism abroad and industrial mod
To back up this view in a concrete sense, Theodore Roosevelt applied social Darwinian ideology. He emphasized that all the races are in a struggle for survival and only the fittest and the strongest can survive. He wrote " there is no place in the world for nations who have become enervated by soft and easy life, or who have lost their fibre of vigorous hardiness and manliness." Along with his view, the most civilized and superior state in the world, the United States had a right to exercise an international power in the region to keep troublesome and, namely, uncivilized states. To conclude, it can be said that the main purpose of each state's geopolitics has been achieving power and maintaining the stance with power in international context. Although the history produced many contending perspectives on geopolitics that seemed to be merely an adaptation to newly emerged issues to keep pace with a rapid radical change. Thus it seems hazardous to assess 'Geopolitics' in a facing contemporary context without considering how it has been evolved. Geopolitics is not only a way of interpreting current geopolitical realities but also an evolutionary process, which constantly reflects the whole picture in a wider historical context. The geopolitical order established by the Soviet Union in the wake of World War II was largely confined to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Just like the US built a huge military complex to support its national security, so did the Soviet Union that its state structure became even more militarised than that of the US. The Soviet geopolitical order was set by the maintenance of a system extended deterrence in Eastern Europe by ruling communist elites and military structure of the Warsaw Pact organization. Because it did not have the resources and wealth of the capitalist West, the Soviet Union intervened erratically in the Third world such as a few radical states like North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba, to compete its counterpart, the capitalist West. In "why geopolitik", he claims that the reason Germany lost World War I was because its leader did not study geopolitics. He said that geopolitics is the study of the "earth-boundedness" of political processes and institutions. Like Mackinder, he attributes special power to the god-like geopolitician, treating geopolitics as a faith that offers divine revelations. His persistent emphasis on the need for geopolitical education is nothing more than a legitimation for the right-wing militarist foreign policy.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Gulf War, Cold War, Pivot History, Soviet Union, Seats Power, World War, Theodore Roosevelt, Alfred Mahan, Soviet Domestic, War II, cold war, soviet union, world war, world war ii, war ii, eastern europe, imperialist geopolitics, world island, 20th century, sea power, war geopolitics, cold war geopolitics, god's eye global, emerged significant player, eye global view,
Approximate Word count = 3153
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)
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