GEOPOLITICS
Slide 2 (da integrare con appunti)
Geopolitics has different meanings; we can identify 4 meanings:
- Common sense geopolitics: synonym of international politics/international relations.
- Traditional geopolitics: How the geographic characteristics of a State shape its international policies
and attitudes.
- Modern/contemporary “classic” geopolitics: a particularly “realist” version of the realist IR theory
with emphasis on physical space and territories of power of different nature.
- Critical Geopolitics: how space, in general, is used to support/achieve political purposes.
In general, Geopolitics is a discipline “in between” two broad areas of research:
- The realm of international relations and of interaction among polities.
- How this is shaped by geography and how “control over space of every nature, intersects
international relations.
In classic geopolitics we’ll have:
- Agents, such as states.
- Means. In particular, mean = power, the ability to do something in order to achieve your objective.
o Hard power. Coercion, for example military power, sanctions. Means of coercion.
o Sharp power. Means of manipulations. It means to convince another state to behave as you
want. For example: Russia-Belarus. In this case this is called suzerainty, that means that you
are formally free but politically you depend on the biggest state.
o Soft powers. Means of persuasion. It’s the most subtle way to Exercise power. For example,
loans or investments, like China in Africa.
- Purposes, such as economic motivations, internal political consensus…
In International Relations, realism and liberalism are two main orientations.
Liberalism. It’s a way of thinking about IR that is based on the idea of the achievement of a common good
trough cooperation.
It’s a collectivist version in which everyone can exist. Liberal means mutual acceptations of the others. This
way of thinking was born after WWII. Liberalism still is the prevailing vision in IR. For examples ISS.
Realism. It’s a much more pessimistic vision and see state as self-centered, egoistic and the cooperation is
not the main objective for state and that drives state behavior. States try to control resources not infinite.
States compete for power.
States have the aim to get good position of hierarchy in the real world.
Summing up we can say that Classic geopolitics is the study of how agents try to expand their power-reach
in a space of whichever nature that is finite. Other than that, geopolitics has a realist orientation, it says
that the expansion of power reach isn’t a win-win situation but a zero-sum grade process. This means that
agents use geostrategic moves to achieve goals in order to determine their rank in the hierarchy of powers
(Ex. Venice/China sea expansion)
After all this sum-zero processes, there’s going to be a defined hierarchy that will stabilizes into a World
Order. A World Order can be:
- Uni-polar
- Bi-polar
- Multi-polar with a hegemon
- Multi-polar without hegemons
Obviously, World Order has different phases, those phases are called shifts and are characterized by a high
degree of instability in international relations.
A World order is made of great powers, agents need this characteristic in order to be considered so:
- Economic Might
- Military Might
- Cultural-Ideological might
- Demographic might
- Control over natural resources
- Tech superiority
- Territorial Extension
- Stability of the political system
Moreover, great powers can also be considered superpowers if they have:
- The capability to offense by far greater than a great power
- The capability of waging war globally by itself
HISTORY
Looking at history, this is the evolution of geopolitical instability over time:
1815 —> end of Napoleonic wars. There has been a warfare all over Europe. At this time Europe is the
center of the world and from this point the index of geopolitical instability is low.
The concert of Europe. In this phase not only, there was a multipolarity with an hegemon but there was an
informal agreement between the EU powers, to maintain stability. This concept lasted for a long time, up to
WWI.
There was a small relevant change that started unnoticed in 1833: the economic unification of Germany
under Prussia.
That’s when Germany started its power inside Europe. The rise of Germany was completed in 1870, with
the German unification (2nd REICH). At this time Germany was quickly ascending economically and had all
the attributes needed to be a great power.
Germany it’s so important because it is the key element that made a change in the 1st World Order,
creating a transition to a newer World Order that lasted 40 years.
This new phase is a multipolarity with one hegemon and one challenger (UK vs Germany).
This is called Tuchydide’s Trap by Graham Allison at Kennedy School.
Thucydides Trap, or Thucydides' Trap, is a term to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an
emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon.
That’s a situation like the situation we had up to 15 years ago. We had a multipolarity with an hegemon
(US) and up to 2008 there was globally a situation of relatively a low geopolitical instability, but now we
have a new challenger, China, that ascended and it’s ascending just like Germany.
Expansions Theories over time
Friedrich List
Friedrich List (1789 – 1846) gave birth to the classic geopolitics as an intellectual consequence of the US
Westward expansion. He had a clear perception of what does it means to develop and expands since he
lived in the US. He theorized that states as every other living organism needs to expand. In particular, the
state expands at the cost of the lesser (Natives in the US for example). It’s really a theory linked to the
Darwin one: the law of the strongest.
In continental Europe and particularly in the German area this line of thought gave origin to the first stream
of explicit geopolitical thinking, initially directly influenced by Darwinian/evolutionary perspectives on
States as living organisms (the “organic school”).
Friedrich Ratzel
Ratzel is considered the founder of geopolitics and he defined the organic school. The organic school says
that the state is a living organism that expand when it develops and shrink when it declines. Every state has
the needs to expand but only the stronger has the right to do so. The stronger state can occupy the space
of the lesser and gai vital space. This is the birth of Lebensraum.
Ratzel though the exact opposite of Malthus: to solve the problem of demographic expansion, states
doesn’t need to control the growth of population but need to gain vital space.
Rudolf Kjellén
Kjellén says that states can manage their survival through politics (state’s power) over economy,
population, society, and space. Kjellén geopolitics is the outcome of three components:
- Topo-politics. Politics connected with the geographic position of a State, that is given but can be
influenced with new connections.
- Morpho-politics. Politics connected to the morphology/shape of a State, largely given but in part
modifiable.
- Physio-politics. Politics connected to the size of the State. This is Ratzel’s idea of vital space or
lebensraum.
Kjellén is a relevant turning point. States and Nations do not expand in a vacuum of power, but in a
competitive arena in which the Weak has to leave place to the Stronger, States expand organically at the
expenses of the less strong incumbents. The process is not a win-win situation, but a zero-sum game based
on assertiveness and a realist vision of power based on confrontation and not on cooperation.
From now on geopolitics takes a further step – and puts on a new set of clothes:
How geography can help in achieving the position of a Dominant Power and/or keeping a challenger at bay.
Alfred Mahan
His thinking was basically emphasizing the key role of sea dominance in explaining the rise of World
Powers, and the superiority of the British Empire.
Halford MacKinder
Mackinder’s main focus is the British Empire, but his purpose was not to explain or justify its rise, as in the
organic approach. The issue was how British primacy could be preserved in an era of technological change
in which sea control was apparently losing strategic relevance.
MacKinder saw that the driving force was not demographic (and cultural) nature but the ineluctability of
technology and technological revolution.
1) New ICT (particularly, railways) allow better connections inside landmasses and access to and
mobilize natural and human resources.
2) This explains the emergence of land powers (as opposed to sea powers) – in particular the
threat of the German Empire.
MacKinder introduced the concept of pivot area. The pivot area (Heartland) is an area impenetrable to sea
power, of continental dimensions and rich of resources and population, which gives to its ruler an
overwhelming power. Mackinder had in mind Eurasia and in particular the, then, Russian Empire, from the
icy northern sea to the Caspian Sea area and the north of India. Land connections (railways) allow easy
circulation of resources and military power and make this area much more dangerous than in the past.
MacKinder however didn’t seen Russia as a real threat. The problem was if Germany allied with Russia.
According to his view the World geopolitical system (and equilibrium) rotated around the ”pivot” and the
attempt to dominate it in order to dominate the World:
"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island;
Who rules the World Island commands the World."
This took MacKinder to theorize a strategy for the British Empire: a strategy of containment of the “Pivot”
through encirclement by the establishment of a sphere of political influence ranging from the Middle East,
Persia, India and even China.
MacKinder really transformed geopolitics by different points of view:
1) It moves from biological and racial concepts to politics.
2) It moves from abstract concepts to the reality of international politics.
3) It shifts the attention from old (sea) to new technologies’ role in geopolitics.
4) It sets “geopolitics” (a term which Mackinder never uses) as a new way to interpret international
politics as a unified and unique worldwide scenario of interdependencies.
Lecture 5 – Interwar Multipolarity
During the Geopolitical World Order of the British Succession, the shape of interwar geopolitical strategy
was deeply influenced by the events following the WWI. The Great War and the interwar years
revolutionized the European and World’s balance of power. In particular, we had:
- The annihilation of the Second Reich, the redrawing of German border (geographic shrinking)
- The annihilation of two “old” empires (Austria-Hungary and Ottomans) and the new map of the
Middle East (in favor of France and Great Britain)
- The rise of three non-European World powers: the Soviet Union, the US and Japan.
The interwar period can be divided into 2 different phases:
- Phase 1: 1920-1930
o In this phase we had a situation of multi-polarity but with equilibrium and “vacuum of
power” (not a clear geopolitical leader). The overall picture was that of a progressive
decline of the British geopolitical power at global level in favor of the US and Japan outside
Continental Europe.
o MacKinder theory became true as sea power was less and less important.
o Inside Continental Europe, France was only apparently the geopolitical leader.
In a situation of multipolarity and emerging powers the power vacuum was going to implode and
that happened during the 1930s.
- Phase 2: 1930 – 1939
During these years the situation was geopolitical instable (authoritarian government, populist and
stuff like that everything brought a time of non-cooperation), the results are assertiveness states.
This situation could have been put under control, and that is why the league of nations was created
after WWI and the Versailles conference from the idea of the US president W. Wilson.
Anyway, the league of Nations had 2 problems:
o Veto Power. Too many states had the possibility to use veto powers, making it impossible
to pass anything.
o None wanted to be the “policemen” of the world since everyone had more important
problems inside and didn’t have the economic and military capacity to do so.
The League of Nations was doomed to fail. The clearest example was the fact that a member of the
League of Nations invaded without any purposes but just for imperialism reason another member
of the League of Nations: Italy and Ethiopia. League of Nations applied sanctions, but Germany
didn’t and that helped Italy.
Similar to what is happening today with Russia and Ukraine, we have sanctions, but China is really
important for Russia and isn’t applying sanctions.
o America suffered the great depression and Roosevelt launched his new deal.
o Different authoritarian government were born.
o Japan starts to add geopolitical primacy over geoeconomic power.
o This multi polarity precipitates into a multipolarity with great powers’ overlapping
interests. When a country wants to extend its sphere of influence for internal regions,
there’s the possibility that this interest overlaps with others.
o There’s the start of communism Soviet Union
o There’s the quick re-emergence of German leadership in Europe.
During those times, Karl Haushofer theorized a new way of seeing the world. Haushofer’s geopolitical
thought was basically a “mix” between the biologic-Darwinist antecedents (Ratzel), Kjellén, and
Mackinder’s idea of the “pivot area”. In synthesis:
1. After Versailles Germany needed Lebensraum, vital space of which it was deprived in order to
survive (Ratzel) – this could be only Eastwards.
2. The easiest way to achieve this goal was to consolidate an alliance with Soviet Union (aiming at the
Pivot)
3. The emerging geo-economic and geopolitical powers (and the definitive decline of the British
power) induced the idea of Pan-regions: Pan-America (dominated by the Us.), Pan-Eurafrica
(Germany), Pan-Central Asia (Soviet Union), Pan Southeast Asia (Japan)
This Pan-regional structure influenced heavily both the nazi vision of political geography and the pre-WW2
system of alliances (non-aggression pact with Soviet Union and alliance with Japan) but had contradictions,
mainly the overlapping interest in many areas, and particularly in Eastern Europe. The multipolar
equilibrium was fatally broken by the German invasion of Soviet Union.
What does interwar geopolitics suggest?
1) The Great War eliminated the previous World geopolitical order based upon the Western
dominance and in particular the British pivotal role.
2) For about a decade after the War, a steady state followed. Great Britain declined but no clear
leadership emerged. The sole emerging power (USA) focused on the American continent and the
Pacific.
3) In the following decade simultaneously four leaders emerged willing to consolidate leadership in
different areas: Japan, USA, Soviet Union, and Germany. They had overlapping spheres of influence
in the so-called Pan-regions.
4) The growth in geopolitical risk is therefore proportional to the number of leaders and to geographic
overlapping(s)
Lecture 6 – Cold War
The multi-polar geopolitical equilibrium lasted for two decades, after that it ended and reshuffled due to a
new global conflict.
At the end of the WWII, the Cold War started.
The Cold War is a period that followed the WWII going roughly from 1946 to 1991 (Dissolution of USSR).
The Cold War is a period characterized by a shift from a multipolar to a bi-polar new World Order. We can
see the Cold War as a phase of stagnation and crystallization in the geography of World power.
Cold war period had different features:
1. In this period equilibrium prevails, the main reason that made possible this equilibrium was MAD
(Mutual Assured Destruction) in other words the fact that if a war started both parts would have
been destroyed. Only proxy wars where possibles. That’s why the Cold War period is a phase in
which a series of events took place simultaneously everywhere in the world but never involving
directly the two major powers: USA and USSR.
2. The Cold War phase basically coincides with the definitive end of the old imperial order and the rise
of new structures of power which were going to stably dominate the World’s international
equilibria. The symbol of the decline of imperial geopolitics is the Suez crisis in October 1956.
3. Another characteristic of the Cold War period is the fact that for the first time in history it included
two superpowers, great powers that were also able to:
o Score in the first/second place in al the dimension of power (size, population, economy,
technology…)
o Were able to afford alone a global conflict.
o Stand alone in the first positions of the ranking, surpassing the third and fourth power by
far.
4. The Cold War since its very beginning condensed into geographically determined “blocks” and
spheres of influence, starting in Europe and expanding globally.
5. The Cold War order was very different from the previous one because of the role played by
ideology. The Cold War was deliberately, from both the “combatants”, carefully labeled first of all
as a fight of values and visions of the World (“good” vs “bad”), which in turn had a direct impact on
the design of spheres of influence, geopolitical codes (the “free World”, the “Imperialists”) and
strategies.
The Cold War in the end created also two different geostrategic orientation between the two blocks:
encirclement and containment.
US Geostrategy: Containment
Mackinder’s geostrategic framework influenced the immediate postwar visions in US. and British
leadership.
The Iron Curtain speech by Churchill (1946) was followed in 1947 by Truman Doctrine of containment in
which the split between the two blocks first of all took an ideological twist fought by cultural means, in
Mackinder’s shadow.
Containment had another intellectual point of reference in Nicholas Spykman’s theories developed in the
late 1940s. According to Spykman, the key to the World dominance was not Mackinder’s HEARTLAND but
the densely populated, resources endowed (oil!), connected by land and sea lanes RIMLAND, which de
facto coincided with the US geopolitical puzzle of the Cold War and once it stalled in Europe, with its
“eurasianization”.
Lecture 7 – Cold War pt. 2
In 1949 a radical change in the geopolitical structure took place since Chinese Communist Party gained
power in China. This made the Cold War global. On one hand, for the soviets, that was a really good news,
since it reinforced the pivot area eastwards, on the other hand, the Americans started to feel the need to
change their geostrategic orientation. The containment shifted from selective to total.
The 1950 Korean war is the first outcome of this new strategy.
The 1950s are also characterized by a decolonization process that, after the Suez crisis, started the decline
of the European colonialism. Africa and Southeast Asia became more and more relevant in the geopolitical
scenario. In particular, the decolonization process:
- Created a high number of new independent countries, an alteration in the established geopolitical
structure.
- Revolutionary/anticolonial movements were of Marxist-Leninist orientation, this further
emphasized the US. containment strategy, even though not all the former colonies passively
“accepted” the Cold War polarization. In fact, in 1955 30 countries from the “South” gathered in
Bandung and created the “non aligned countries movement”. This movement started to impose
other values instead of the ideological opposition between the two blocks.
Between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s the bipolar World Order of the Cold War remained basically
intact notwithstanding a number of relevant events which deeply altered the geopolitical map of the
World, as:
1972 – Rapprochement of US. with China. The US. interested in the dialogue with Asian
socialist/communist government given the negative outcome of the Vietnam War (ended 1975). The
rapprochement followed a decade after the “Sino-Soviet Split”.
1979 – The Revolution in Iran deprives the US. of a strategic outpost in the containment strategy in the
Rimland.
1979 - The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan further destabilizes the Cold War equilibrium
in the area.
Officially, the Cold War ends in November 1989 with the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall. The reasons which
brought the post World War 2 World Order to an end were many, among which:
- The fragility of the Soviet economy (a sort of oil-based Dutch Disease), increasingly unable to
manage the relationships with its “satellites” in order to control the growing dissent in the
peripheries (the case of Poland, 1984), together with a pervasive (and tolerated) internal dissent
inside the Union and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary (1985)
- An aggressive attitude by the US under the Reagan presidencies (1981-1988), embarking in a policy
of communist global containment (the “Evil Empire”) and of military build-up.
Lecture 8 – After Cold War
The 1990s saw a revolution in the World Order since there’s been the first geopolitical shift from the WWII.
The components that led to this shift were so many and developed separately, but then merged into a new
geopolitical structure. These components were:
- The dissolving of USSR in 1991 with the emerging of autocratic powers in central Asia and the
transition from EEC to EU.
- The beginning of a civil war in Yugoslavia.
- Japan economy collapse into a recession.
- China progressively accelerated its path to economic reforms. Shanghai and Shenzhen stock
exchanges open.
- The EU become a geo-economic power.
The Soviet “implosion” had other impactful consequences which permanently contributed to the alteration
of the World’s geopolitical equilibrium of the Cold War among which:
- The emergence of Central Asian autocracies
-
The centrifugal movement of EEC and some former CIS members from East to West (the EU
attraction)
- Even if not a direct consequence of the Soviet break-up the implosion of the Yugoslav federation
during the 1990s added further geopolitical turmoil to the general framework in the Balkans and in
the former Soviet bloc.
In the east Asia, China and Japan had different paths:
- Japan had his lost decade, following the collapse of the asset-price bubble.
- China started to consolidate its economic rise after the opening.
In the Europe, EU played the role of an “unwilling” pivot, without a clear geopolitical strategy of expansion
but benefiting of the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The EU privileged economic objectives (integration),
and its role of geo-economic pivot over geopolitical issues and political integration. However, the
enlargement was traded in exchange of the adoption by new members of the values of global transnational
liberalism.
The most evident consequence of the geopolitical transformations of the early 1990s was the emergence of
the US. as the “sole superpower” with an unlimited influence over World politics. This was made clear
starting from the 1991 Gulf War after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which prompted a US.-led international
reaction. This established two precedents which were applied throughout the 1990s to
international affairs:
- The United States would be regarded as the world's policeman, or at least as a kind of authority-oflast-resort when nations attacked each other or collapsed.
- The US would equate its own interests with the interests of the “international community, seeking
to confirm this congruence of purpose through the United Nations and other international bodies.
Lecture 9 – 21st century and possible scenarios
As we saw, after 1989, with the end of Cold War, the World Order entered into a new phase, an unipolar
World Order with US hegemony. This phase lasted until 2010, when a series of new great powers, called
revisionist started challenging the US hegemony, since then, the geopolitical risk started to rise.
Every state has different scenarios for the future, in particular I they could be the following:
- USA. A problematic hegemony. During this period 1989-2023 we are in a unipolar order with the
us, without any doubt. This has been interpreted in different ways by the US leadership.
o Obama. Moral multilateralism Partnerships. He accepted the fact that he was going to be
an hegemon and the policemen of the world order. Under Obama this was something like
“we accept this role and directly intervene when the US has some interest, but our general
orientation will be multilateral (we are going to move all together with support)
o Trump. The summary could be maximize US returns pressuring everybody: adversaries and
allies.
o Biden. ???
- China. With Xi at the power, China is willing to rise as Asian hegemon but still need to catch up.
How much time China still need is going to be the key for them.
- EU. The EU is starting to realize an unwelcome truth, that it is not sufficient to be a geoeconomics
power in order to be considered a superpower. It still needs military power and has not a clear
geopolitical strategy.
- Japan. Japan still needs to find a clear role for itself since it is place in such a big stage like the
Pacific Ocean. Japan needs to understand if he wants to remain an US outpost or become a
regional hegemon.
In particular, Joseph Nye (What new order), believe a series of things are going through right now:
- The unipolar moment is not over, and no structural shifts are under way, even if unipolarity hides a
dangerous situation.
- Someone believe that a new multipolarity is replacing unipolarity. Great Powers, old and new, need
to consider a new concert similar to the Wien Congress.
- The future is going to be bipolar (USA and China).
If the current scenario is that of “multipolarity” the similarity with the interwar years is only apparent,
since there is a much lower degree of homogeneity among great powers today (and hence a higher risk of
instability).
If the current scenario is of bipolarity, the similarity with the Cold War bipolarity is only apparent given the
high degree of economic interdependence between the two poles due to the global integration. The
similarity is the relatively high potential stability without major clashes between superpowers (but with
possible limited local confrontation).
China is now capable of being considered the second superpower:
- Economic Capability:
o GDP convergence is impressing.
o China leads the world in trading and manufacturing powerhouses.
o Differently from the Soviet Union, the Chinese company is market oriented and integrated
in the global system.
- Military capability:
o China is increasingly able to sustain military operations abroad.
o Since 2015 it is developing an high seas navy.
o China now has a clear standalone capability, aka the non-necessity of alliances.
- Demography and geography
o China has still a population 4 times larger than the US
o China borders with 20 states and none of them is actually dangerous.
- Natural Resources:
o During the last decade China has secured a lot of important resources since it isn’t born
with any (Fossil fuels, Renewables, Rare earth, and Food)
- Political Stability:
o China has a quite stable political system even if it is threatened by:
 Internal unrest.
 Religious turmoil (Islam).
 Crackdown on the private sector.
- Competence and Innovation:
o During the last decade China has been quickly climbing up the technology ladder.
o Production is no longer limited to low-tech or low-end manufacturing and all the scientific
indicators are rising.
The rise of China will generate different effects.
The first effect will be about the “balancing strategy” of the incumbent (US), in fact, the US will re-define
their strategies:
- US will start focusing more on the pacific.
- China will try to control the Eurasian mass through BRI.
The second effect will touch the World’s overall Political Geography, since:
- There’s going to be a reshaping of the Asia-Pacific system of alliances.
- A reorientation of EU and NATO, since the US will start looking westwards to the pacific and EU will
start looking to China.
- Overall, there’s going to be a power change but not a power transition.
There are 4 possible outcomes instead of an hegemonic war:
1) Accommodation. The hegemon accept the rise of the challenger without putting any
conditions.
a. Ad Hoc. Accepting that the challenger is stronger than the incumbent. Just like the UK
accepted to give room to the US as an emerging power in the interwar period.
b. Negotiation. The incumbent can negotiate an equilibrium in which you don’t try to
smash them. The example is what happened in Yalta. Most likely to happen with the us
and China (?)
2) Undermining. The most obvious way is to provoke a change in the political regime. This is not
possible with China.
3) Negotiating a long peace. A sort of “wait tot years and then we’ll see”. During those years ill try
to grow as much as possible in very field. Are the US ready to do that? Probably not because
China is surpassing them everywhere.
4) Redefine the relationship. Can we define an alternative future instead of going to war? From
assertiveness to cooperation. XI ji ping proposed that to Obama in 2012. The incumbent (US) by
doing so, recognizes China as a superpower and China sphere of influence. Is the US ready to do
that? Rn no.
Right now anything of that isn’t on the table for the US. Because there are based on liberalism or the
acceptation of the challenging power. The alternative is realism and realism is back.
Compulsory readings
The new geopolitical epoch
At this moment we are facing the start of a post-post-cold-war epoch in which American shaped world may
be violently undone by Russia and China. Even though there’s the Ukrainian war going on, America sees
China as the greater threat to the world order, and also, what if Russia and China become allies? Is America
ready to a three-way nuclear deterrence?
Looking at Spykman theory, USA has indeed allies in the western part of the rimland but hasn’t got none on
the eastern part of it to constrain China. For example, even the promised “defense” of Taiwan it’s too
ambiguous. USA in fact, don’t say precisely when they will intervene and what they are going to do to
protect Taiwan.
In the middle of the rimland, Biden administration is working hard, but for the most part those states do
not want to choose between China and USA. India remains the big prize for the American strategists, even
if it has a tradition of non-alignment and pro-soviet leanings, nowadays it’s moving slowly towards America,
starting to condemn Putin aggression for example.
The big hole in Biden’s strategy is the lack of an appealing economic and trade policy to bind allies and
friends closer.
The Return of Geopolitics
US and EU believes that all of those trends and wars going on right now and in 2014 are really disturbing.
Both would rather move past geopolitical questions of territory and military power to focus on world order
and global governance and on creating a world where only win-win situations existed. But westerners
should have never expected old-fashioned geopolitics to go away.
In fact, when the Cold War ended, many Americans and Europeans seemed to think that most of the
geopolitical questions had been settled with the exception of minor problems. This conclusion looks a lot
like what Fukuyama said and also what Hegel said about war of ideas. After the Cold War, the only way to
keep up the pace of the world was to adopt the principles of liberal capitalism. Thus, former communist
states faced a choice:
- Jump on the modernization bandwagon and become liberal, open and pacifist countries.
- Cling bitterly to their guns and their culture as the world passed them by.
The problem was that Iran, Russia and China didn’t accept this new world order and even if in different
ways, they all were seeking to revise the status quo. Everyone agreed that the US power was the chief
obstacle to achieving their revisionist goals.
The revisionist powers have such varied agendas and capabilities that none can provide the kind of
systematic and global opposition that the Soviet Union did. As a result, Americans have been slow to realize
that these states have undermined the Eurasian geopolitical order in ways that complicate U.S. and
European efforts to construct a post-historical, win-win world.