Geopolitics Flashcards

This is a set of flashcards based on the student's lecture notes about the end of the cold was and the globalized world.

What is Geopolitics?

The scholarly analysis of the geographical factors underlying international relations and guiding political interactions.

What does Geopolitics suggest?

It suggests that geographical features determine how countries behave towards one another.

What is the objective of Geopolitics?

Observing evolutions and making evaluations of what they may result in

What does Geopolitics focus on?

A set of conditions/events that enable certain situations.

What are the sources of power in Geopolitics?

Military force and willingness to use it; Economic capacity and Resources; Political strength - leadership; Population; Territory Size; Physiography.

What are examples of external influence?

Soft power, diplomacy, coercion; capacity to influence other countries to act as we want.

What is political leadership in terms of political strength?

To what degree is a country leading other country

What is internal cohesion?

Refers to how unified a country is : political cohesiveness

What are examples of Physiography used as a geographical source of power?

Mountains, desert, sea.

What is a simple definition of Power?

The ability to impose one’s will on others.

What are the different types of world order?

Bipolar, Unipolar, Multipolar, Regional Power.

Who are the founders of modern geopolitics?

Ratzel, Mackinger, Kjellen, Bowman and Mahan

What factors did the vision and theories on geopolitics have in common?

Imperial hegemonism, intense nationalism, social Darwinism.

What is the Concept of Lebensraum?

The state as a living organism, tied to the land.

Which founder of modern geopolitics studied the influence of sea power?

Alfred Thayer Mahan

Which founder of modern geopolitics created the concept of Lebensraum?

Friedrich Ratzel

Which founder of modern geopolitics established geography as a university discipline in Britain?

Halford Mackinder

Which founder of modern geopolitics created the idea of the pan-regions?

Karl Haushofer

What type of physiography offered Switzerland a natural defense in WWII?

Mountains

Which two revolutions changed how much you produce and the size of your population?

Financial revolution and industrial revolution.

What were the two phases of the Russian Revolution?

February 1917 and October 1917.

What did Russia lose in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty?

Land territory with resources; Baltic states and Ukraine.

Why did the allied powers want to end the war quickly?

To end the war quickly; fear of social unrest.

Why did Germany allow Lenin to cross their land?

To weaken Russia; had pledged to end the war.

What was the first accomplishment of the Treaty of Versailles?

To establish the League of Nations.

What accelerated the breakdown of the Vienna System?

Nationalism, rigidity of the coalitions.

What happened July 23rd?

Austria-Hungary sets an ultimatum to Serbia, which is declined.

What happened July 28th?

Austria-Hungary decides to attack Belgrade, the Serb capital.

What happened August 1st?

Germany declares war on Russia in support of their Austrian ally.

What happened August 3rd?

Belgium refuses to grant Germany free passage, so the Germans invaded Belgium.

What happened August 12th?

Britain and France declare war on Austria Hungary.

What was the impact of WWI on the European map?

The Austro-Hungarian empire completely collapsed creating new countries; Germany lost territory in the East; Russia, now the Soviet Union, also lost a lot of its territory.

What events of WWII will turn out to be decisive for what?

The world order; the division of power among great powers; how Europe will be shaped.

What happened March 13, 1938?

Germany annexes Austria.

What happened September 30, 1938?

The Munich Agreement recognizes the German annexation of the Sudetenland.

What happened March 14, 1939?

Czechoslovakia disintegrates, and Germany annexes the Czech part (Bohemia and Moravia).

What happened August 23, 1939?

The German and Soviet ministers of foreign affairs, Molotov, and von Ribbentrop, sign a neutrality pact.

What happened September 1st?

Germany Invades Poland.

What happened September 17th?

The Soviets invasion the eastern part of Poland

What country did Germany invade in March 1941?

Yugoslavia

Why did Hitler engage in Operation Barbarossa?

Strategic move towards Britain; for resources and supplies; Hitler wanted to attack the Soviets before the Red army become too strong.

What was going on in the Pacific?

Japan had invaded and tried to conquer important parts of China since 1937.

What happened in July 1943?

The allies invade Sicily and Italy from the South moving up.

What were the names of the conferences during WWII that were preparing for a post time?

Casablanca, Yalta and Postdam.

What were the questions that arose on how to deal with during the end of WWII?

Coordination between allies; prevent another global war; avoid the mistakes of the past; preventing a Soviet takeover of Europe; reconstruct or rebuild Europe.

What was the principal aim of the Casablanca Conference?

To establish a coordinated strategy among the allies.

What are the 2 types of power did the Soviet obtain after WWII?

A military force; a copy of an American bomb.

Which country suffered the most deaths during WWII?

The SU suffered most: +25 million deaths.

What caused growing divergences between the major powers during WWII?

Ideological differences, different perspectives on how to manage the new world order, great divergences of interest.

What are the differences between the Cold War vs Hot War?

The main characteristic of Cold War, as opposed to “Hot War” (meaning a global nuclear war) is that the behavior of the two main powers is everything short of international armed conflict –.

What are the features of the cold war?

Importance of nuclear weapons; the fight by proxies, geographic position, competition for new adherents or members to one or the other economic and social systems, economic competition, importance of ideologies.

What are the different interpretations of The Debate on the Origins of the Cold War?

Orthodox, revisionist, post-revisionist.

Which revolution sparked the citizens needed to demand more from their government after WWI?

The Russian Revolution

Great Britain

It was very hard to balance their interests. One of the largest trading countries, so it was needed to promote liberal ideas and principles

Which side saw the losing the world would entail the loss of territories close to borders?

The Soviet Union

What is liberalism (capitalism)

The core foundational idea underlying liberalism, as its name suggests, is freedom, or liberty for each individual, based in (and protected by) law, and rooted in property .

United States

By the end of WWII, the US was the greatest military and economic power in the world.

Soviet Union

World War II had been a triumph for the Soviet Union, which had suffered through the first part of the 20th century, but emerged from the second WW as having made an important contribution to world history by defeating nazi-Germany.

What was the Soviet conclusion behind the Cuban Missle Crisis?

They would need to bridge the missile gap with the Americans

What is the nuclear timeline?

1945-US atomic bomb; 1949-USSR atomic bomb; 1952-US hydrogen bomb; 1955-USSR hydrogen bomb.

What do you need for a fully developed weapons program?

You need the nuclear technology, then the technology to turn it into a weapon, but you also need missile technology that enables you to launch a missile over long distance even today, not many countries have that!

What access route the soviets wished to control the the the sea power?

The Bosporus and the Dardanelles.

Truman Containment Doctrine

Truman Formulated his Containment doctrine during a congressional address where he was seeking financial assistance

What requirement was instilled with The Marshall Plan, What did Countries need for the loans?

An important requirement was the cooperation among European countries. They needed to provide a plan for recovery to get the money.

The Soviet Plan create the COMECON

The COMECON (the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, 1949) and the Cominform (the Communist Information Bureau, September)

The United States

The US saw German economic recovery as necessary for the revival of the European economy.

Reparations for the end of WW2 perspective from Soviet Union

The SU (whose industries west of Moscow were destroyed by the Germans) was determined not only to bring about a massive dismantlement of German factories in the Soviet zone of occupation, but also to secure large quantities of reparations from the western zones.

What were the names of the two countries that Germany divided into?

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic.

Which declaration is at the basis of European integration?

The Schuman declaration.

What consisted the goal of the soviets.

tightening their grip on Eastern and Central Europa, out of fear of losing them to the West

Which country the West lost an important country to its ideological rival.?

Communist China

Conclusion for Korea

Korea was much more than just a local, civil, war between North and South Koreans; It was the first military confrontation of the Cold War; signified the interplay between domestic and international politics.

NSC 68 Claim

The Korean War of the same year provided additional credibility to this thesis

What event would khrustev desalinzate

That had occurred under Stalin’s rule. Khrushchev Was Ukranian Born

Event that Sparked the Hungarian Revolution if 1956?

Protest in Solidarity to the Polish Turn into Battle in Hungary.

What made the Revolution in International Pilitics

That if Russia was threatened could be invaded without out Condemnation for west

Which Countrys Economy Grew so rapidly that to world was a threat

China

What Were the United power and China Doing In Yugoslaivica

As They Had Before The USSR

Who And What Was Promoting Change Within Each Oth Country?

They Where Actively Promoting Change in Other Countries.