Geopolitics

The geopolitical is a social science which, étymologiquement, proposes to study the implications Politique S of the Géographie.

Genesis of contemporary geopolitics

Since its birth at the end of the 19th century, contemporary geopolitics underwent evolutions, which it is possible to study under an epistemological angle .

Founders

The term appears under the feather of the professor of Political science/Géographie Swedish Rudolf Kjellén initially in a course in the years 1905 heading, the Great powers of the present , then in a work, Stormakterna . For its author geopolitics is “the science of the State like geographical organization or entity in space: i.e. the State like country, territory, field or, more characteristic, like reign. As political science it observes the official unit firmly and wants to contribute to the comprehension of the nature of the State” .

It takes again actually the elements of political Géographie stated by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, which one regards as the father of the German Geopolitik . Ratzel analyzes the State in connection with its Géographie, its space, its medium, both are in interactions. In its work Politische Geography oder die Geography der Staaten, of Verkehrs und of Krieges , Ratzel perceives the State like an living being.

Schools of thought

Following the analyzes of Friedrich Ratzel, then of Kjellén, a number of academics and members of the Staffs try to develop geopolitical analyzes with the service of their country. One can thus distinguish four universities:

The German School: die Geopolitik

German geopolitics - or Geopolitik - rests on the theoretical approaches of Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), which will give rise to the School of Berlin. This Geopolitik emerges with the birth of the II^e Reich, in the second part of the 19th century, which seeks to give itself a territorial legitimacy and to reinforce its power. It is strongly influenced by approaches naturalists or environnementalisms like those of the geographer Carl Ritter, the thought hégélienne in particular diffused by its disciple Ernst Gap, or the social Darwinisme passed between the hands of the biologist-philosopher, father of the term Écologie Ernst Haeckel.

The geographical approach of Friedrich Ratzel, interpreted like geopolitics, endeavors to show that the State, main theme of geopolitical work, is " as an living being which is born, grows, reaches full sound development, then degrades itself and meurt". The State to live (or survive) must extend and strengthen its territory. Through this prism, Ratzel defends the idea that Germany to live must become a true empire and thus have a territory with its measurement. For that, it is necessary that the policy sets up a political volunteer in order to increase the power of the State. This last thus has need to develop territories, of a space, feeder space, the Lebensraum (term invented by Ratzel), " the space of vie" (often translated by " vital Space ").

The successors of Friedrich Ratzel put this new discipline at the service of the Prince and it will be applied under the IIIe Reich. They propose with the Nazi regime a cartographic approach of the world where " Large Peuples" (great powers) divide planet according to alliances and of a racial hierarchy of the people. This Geopolitik activates is registered against the idea of the right of the people to have them same emitted by SDN. Among the disciples of Friedrich Ratzel, it is necessary to quote the Bavarian general Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) who refines the concept d'" space vie" and the Perception of space with an hegemonic aim. After the defeat of 1918, it becomes one of the cantors of the German power. Haushofer envisages a division of the world in four zones:

a Pan-European zone recovering the Africa and dominating the the Middle East; dominated by the Germany,
a Pan-American zone dominated by the the United States
a zone side-Russian including the Central Asia and the South Asia dominated by Russia
an side-Asian zone dominated by the Japan, allied of the Germany, recovering the the Far East (China), the Southeast Asia and the Northern Pacific. This partition of the world makes it possible to counter Anglo-Saxon surrounding.

This application by the policy of a discipline perceiving the State like an organization and with hegemonic goal is applied during the Second world war.

Following its drifts, with leaving the war, geopolitics as well in Germany as elsewhere in the world is banished academic world and États-majors, with the profits of other approaches of the world. Moreover, the geographical disciplines gave up re-using these approaches until years 1970/80.

The American School

The American geopoliticians - the admiral Alfred Mahan (1840-1914) or the journalist/professor of Political science Nicholas Spykman (1893-1943) - were interested in the relations between technological development of civilizations and the domination of space by the State S. Fortement influenced by the English school, Alfred Mahan and Nicholas Spykman articulates their work on the maritime power ( sea power ) and the policy of Endiguement ( Containment ) of the Germany then of the Russia, choosing alliance with the British Empire.

The American School also explained how the great empires of Asia had succeeded in being stabilized in time while being based only on the very hierarchical administration of the irrigation in the territories or Asia of monsoons. It is the theory of the Eastern despotisms, great thesis of geopolitics. The American School - or School of Berkeley - was always interested in the cultural dimension which marks terrestrial space.

The return of American geopolitics continues at the 20th century with the theses of Samuel P. Huntington in the Choc of Civilizations (cf Bibliographie ).

The English School: the sea power

This School defines the English power by the domination of the seas/oceans (theory of the maritime empire). Principal contributor, the British admiral Halford Mackinder (1861 - 1947) designs planet like a unit composed by a " world ocean " (9/12e), a " world island " (2/12e - Africa, Asia, Europe) and of large peripheral islands or " Outlyings Islands " (1/12e - America, Australia). In order to dominate the world, it is necessary to dominate the island world and mainly the heart of this island, the heartland , true " geographical pivot of the world " (energy of the plain of the Central Europe in Western Siberia and in direction of the the Mediterranean, the the Middle East and the South Asia). Thus, the British Empire, which was built on the domination of the oceans, must from now on, to remain a world great power, to stick to position on ground by controlling the means of transport by way of railroad. The approach English geopolitician returns to this will of domination of the world via the trade, by controlling the seas, then from now on the grounds, being made the direct heiress, not only of German geopolitics, but also of the first English navigators, like Walter Raleigh: " Which holds the sea holds the trade of the world; who holds the trade holds the richness; who holds the richness of the world holds the world itself ". The geopolitics of Mackinder is to be replaced from the point of view of competition between the British maritime power and the German power which through its control of the Mitteleuropa, tends towards the control of the heartland .

The French School

It seems that there does not exist geopolitics “with the Frenchwoman”. However, according to Yves Lacoste one of the works of Paul Vidal of Blache (1845-1918), father of the French School of geography, France of the East (1917) must be analyzed as a geopolitical work insofar as Vidal of Blache explains the reasons of the membership of the Alsace and the Lorraine with the France. Let us quote also the geographer Jacques Ancel (1882-1943), author of works on the question of nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is interested in the questions of the borders defined as isobar (S) political (S), which fixes (NT), for a time, balance between two pressures; balance masses, balances of force , resuming work of Andre Chéradame.

If there exists a French geopolitics, it is especially in the dispute of the German geopolitical approach and its deterministic legitimations. Andre Chéradame, dice 1916, condemns the drifts of Geopolitik German in its work uncovered the pangermanist plan. The frightening Berliner trap of the null part . In the interval war, the admiral Raoul Castex (1878-1968) synthesizes the naval strategy in his work with geopolitical range strategic Théories (1929).

It seems however that these three directions are not also distant from/to each other. Indeed, all three propose a dynamic geopolitics, activates, perceiving the State as an organization which must live or survive vis-a-vis the competition of other States.

Since the end of the year sixty, this school of thought was reactualized through the various works of Yves Lacoste (cf bibliography) and the French Institut of geopolitics (IFG) of Saint-Denis (University Paris 8), directed by Béatrice Giblin - Delvallet. Disciple of Yves Lacoste, Pascal Lorot works on the relations between Géopolitique and economy and founds the Géoéconomie.

End of geopolitics with the Second world war?

After the Second world war, the concept of geopolitics, badly representing an increasingly complex distribution of the institutional capacities in the world, moves back with the profit of four disciplines of social sciences:

the International relations, supported on the theory of the International law,
the political Sociology, sociology of the international relations, cf War and Paix enters the nations (Raymond Aron). It will be noted that on this point the evolution remains limited, since the concept of international reflects the division of the world in sovereign nations, which results in practice in the Intergouvernemental rather than by a institutional Mondialisation.
the political Geography which studies:

the organization of the capacity and the territories on the surface of the Earth
the social division space in the relations of being able
the electoral cartography

the Géostratégie , study of the interests of the States and the political actors in space especially international.
C' is a space of the international law, alliances, conflicts, positions because the strategy consists in projecting the interests of a State in the world (and by extension for the companies).
Le géostratège considers the consequences of a conflict localized.

Some great geopolitical movements in the History

With the passing of the History, one more easily perceives the main tendencies, and the motivations which led the States to adopt a strategy:

the policy of glacis (Cyrénaïque, Cyprus, Palestine) developed by the ptolemaic sovereigns .

the control of the alpine collars, which was a major stake of the time préromaine (Celtic tolls) and Roman epoch (tolls imposed by Rome),

the collapse of the Carolingian Empire at the 9th century, under the effect of the invasions of the Viking S (gone up rivers by the Drakkar S), of Buckwheats and the Hungarians,

the development of the Chinese empire under the Dynasty of Song of 10th to the 12th century,

the development of the Islamic Civilization of the VIIIe at the 15th century.

the development of the Republics of Venice and Genoa, which was carried out by the trade in the the Mediterranean, consecutive with the Croisades,

the development of the maritime trade at the 15th century between London, Bruges, the Hanseatic Cities of north, Genoa and Venice, which ruined the continental ways of trade which passed by the Foires of Champagne (Layered branches, Troyes…),

the skirting of the Africa by the large European trading vessels, making following the Chute of Constantinople, whose consequence was that the trade caravaneer felt some: inexorable decline of powerful commercial cities like Tombouctou, Gao or Samarkand, and that of the empires associated with their prosperity.

political consolidation of the France under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, against the Spanish power,

end of the First Empire in 1814/1815, under the effect of the various coalitions between England and of the continental powers,

victory of alliance France/England/the United States… against continental alliance around Germany during the First World War,

the collapse of IIIe Reich under the effect of the unloading of the forces American, English, French (Unloading in Provence, Release of Paris), Canadian.

the control of the maritime or terrestrial crossing points, and conflicts around the the Bosphorus or of Gibraltar,

the construction of railway and road tunnels, tolls, through the Alps…

Geopolitical analysis today

Return of geopolitics

Geopolitics, after being banished like knowing scientific, found a new legitimacy of approach following the various conflicts which emerged in the years 1970. In his test, the geographer Yves Lacoste denounces the hand put of the various Staffs (policy, soldier, financier, economic) on the knowledge cartographic and geographical limited to strategic prospects. It wishes a popularization of the geographical approach. At the same period, around a coterie of teachers of various horizon, it launches the Hérodote Review which wants to be a review of strategy and geopolitics. Yves Lacoste defines new geopolitics as the study of the interactions between the policy and the territory, the competitions or the tensions which find their origin or their development on the territory .

Geopolitics, in order to avoid falling down in through past, must use the whole of knowledge related to the geography (physical Géographie, but also the human Geography in all its components (social, economic, cultural, medical), the raw materials and flows of Ressource S), but also use the Histoire, the Political science, etc

The Mondialisation will be able to perhaps consolidate the legitimacy of geopolitical new approaches.

Axes of analyzes

As of the beginning of the Années 1980 were foreseen risks of geopolitical marginalisation of Europe , which could be accentuated today if the reaction is not adapted:

Connections on the Pacific Ocean taking the step on those of the Atlantic Ocean,

Impact of the cast iron of the ice-barrier in the Arctic under the effect of the Climate change, and evolutions structural of the maritime transport and air,

Access to the oil-bearing fields of the Middle East, construction of Pipeline S and Gas pipeline S, oil transport, oil Peak, assembled oil consumption of the China

Deciding factors in alliances

Geopolitics attempts to study the various factors which lead to the constitution of alliances.

Geopolitics is interested in the various factors which influence the strategies:

total Control of the seas and/or the ground (people of the sea, people of the ground): one often attends differences in strategy between a power or an alliance between maritime powers and a power or an alliance between continental powers, this factor influences the others,
Contrôle of the points of passage and the means of transport: straits, collars, tunnels, airports, ports, stations,
financial Factors (taxes, taxes…)
Access to the natural resources and the raw materials,
Control of the techniques (navigation, aeronautics and space…),
Standard of political regimes (Democracy,…)
cultural, sociological and philosophical Factors.

Military and energy aspects

The the United States set up since the end of the Années 1980 a total Stratégie aiming at ensuring the supremacy of the American army and the American companies on the world. It is structured around a consortium of large companies of the sectors of the Informatique and aeronautics, which made it possible to project the American forces in Iraq, at the time from both Guerres of the Gulf in 1991 and 2003. This comprehensive strategy relates to now almost all the branches of industry, and is based on a very structured use of the Technologies the information (Web, networks of the Net).

The access to the Oil resources results in defining specific strategies (see Géopolitique oil).

One also notes his effects in the alliance which the United States carried out, in answer to the Protocole of Kyoto, with China, India, Japan, and Australia, aiming at developing the clean Charbon, and the new generations of nuclear reactors (engines of generation IV,).

Aspects Linguistic S

The Langue is a crucial factor of the Communication between the Peuple S. Ainsi, the precision of the language can it play a decisive part in international Négociation S.

It is undoubtedly one of the factors which made that the French language was the Langue spoken in the European Cour S with the Age of Enlightenment (18th century). Indeed, French was standardized and " défendu" as of 1635 by the French Academy.

It resulted from it from the strict rules of International law, recognized in the Statut of the Official languages retained by the United Nations. The French is thus one of the six official languages recognized by UNO for the Négociation S International are. The French thus plays a big role in the Diplomatie.

The Gentilé S (name of inhabitant of an Unintermitting , of a Country, a Area, for example) are a relatively invariable aspect of the Géographie Linguistique.

Examples:

a French (with a capital letter = gentilé),
a European.

The French, Glottonyme which indicates the French language. In a context of Mondialisation, where the use of the Web spreads more and more share the world, one can wonder about the Pérennité Langue S. the attribution of a name to a Langue is a geopolitical stake essential.

See: Glottonymie

See too

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