The transmutation of world geopolitics

2.4.2000, Peter Kopa

Summary of an article appearing in the NZZ, Zuerich. 16.3.2022 written by Andreas Ernst.

Wikipedia: geopolitics is the study of the effects of human geography and physical geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain, and predict international political behavior through geographical variables. It is a specialty concerned with the study of the spatial causality of political events and the proximate or future effects of political events.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN5hXm1GsZs

In the course of history, each nation has a territory and climatic conditions and a place on the world map, which determines its geopolitical importance, the ingredients of which are its population and its degree of human and technical education, its natural wealth, its communications with the rest of the world by land, sea and air etc. All these variables ultimately define its military power and its relevance in the concert of relations with other nations.

The concept of geopolitics emerged at the end of the 19th century as a Darwinian vision of history, in the context of the vital concurrence and natural selection of species, which Darwin has coined as an assumption that has dialectical resonances of German idealism, formulated as thesis, antithesis and synthesis that advocates the right of the strongest. It sees peoples in an endless struggle for supremacy and “living space”. A few decades later, Nazi Germany used this poisoned concept to justify its wars of conquest and extermination.

Later, geopolitics was dignified, becoming a part of political science that focuses its attention on how economic and military power is distributed in the world, or in a region of it. Therefore is possible to speak about the transmutation of the world politics.

Eurasia as a game board

This continent is home to five billion people who produce two-thirds of the world’s GDP. At the time of the Cold War, both Henry Kissinger and Brzezinski believed that this immense bloc would be the stage for the game for world hegemony of a single superpower. Kissinger thought that Russia would assume a leading role in this game of forces, and that Ukraine would be the meeting and friction point between the Eurasian bloc and the West.La situación geopolítica de Rusia 

We are currently witnessing this clash, which is causing a new distribution of decks at the game table for hegemony. Ukraine is a dangerous point of fracture, especially if China decides to join the fray in the future. So far it has shown no signs of wanting to make life even more difficult for itself.

Faced with this panorama of pure and simple war, the European way of thinking, not lacking in naive romanticism, of wanting to build a ‘common home’ from Lisbon to Vladivostok, based on high values shared by all, is breaking down. This globalist dream is now proving to be unrealistic, also because it presupposed the constant support of the USA as the No. 1 power.

USA redefining its role

China is becoming a competitor of the United States. But for the American political scientist John Mearsheimer, the American unipolar hegemonic role causes contradictions: overexertion, overburdening and also overconfidence marked the end. The USA overestimated its capacity to export its own values and to rebuild states all over the world in its image and likeness: it is a kind of messianism that tries to impose American-style democracy as a guarantee of political well-being.

We have seen this in Iraq, where there was no way to introduce this kind of democracy, leaving the war behind a national and regional disaster. In Islamic countries, terrorism cannot be eradicated by democracy. Analogous has been the story in Afghanistan, where the Taliban were removed from political power, but had not been defeated. The same was true in Syria and Libya.

A decade earlier, the Americans had succeeded in ending the wars in Yugoslavia, but before that 140,000 people had died there. The EU failed to establish a stable post-war order in the region over the next 20 years. In contrast, in East Central Europe, the Baltic States and the Black Sea, NATO and EU enlargement progressed successfully. It was not an imperial project, but was absolutely desired by the countries under former Soviet rule. Here, U.S. and EU soft power was transformed into security and relative prosperity.

The Siege of Europe

For Mearsheimer, things are clear. A world is emerging dominated by two superpowers, the United States and China, surrounded by a ring of allies. However, unlike during the Cold War, these blocs continue to cultivate economic exchanges. What will Russia’s role be? A junior partner of China or its vassal? Will it become democratic after Putin, or will the gigantic empire disintegrate? Almost anything now seems possible in view of the impressive events of the war in Ukraine, where Russia is staking its prestige and credibility.

Europe has to become aware of its own importance, since it generates a quarter of the world’s economic output, with a highly educated population of some 500 million. It certainly deserves to become a serious geo-strategic player, not constantly clinging to the protective mantle of NATO.  But to do so, it must be able to defend itself independently. Higher military spending is not enough. It is much more important to finally coordinate defense between countries. Europe needs an armed force in alliance with the United States.