Geopolitics Midterm Review

the 'fan of the future'

A visual model showing how uncertainty branches outward from the present into possible, plausible, probable, and preferable futures.

the terrapolitan debates

- focuses on how human identity, governance, loyalty should be structured in reaction to growing interconnectedness and ecological vulnerability; contains cosmopolitanism, politanism, and terrapolitanism

global village

a technologically contracted current state of Planetary Earth Era characterized by mega-scale intense violence interdependence and tight system coupling where the current nuclear, missile, and orbital capabilities leave the Earth susceptible to high states of vulnerability and instantaneous destruction

contemporary colloquial 'geopolitics' (CCG)

popularized by Henry Kissinger in 1960s and 70s; broadly used as a synonym to international power politics; applies to macro-scale great power rivalries for competitions for resources (oil, food supplies, minerals) and domains or places; evokes “realist” perspective centered on conflict and power but lacks distinct theoretical meaning (no focus on physical geography or material environmental constraints)

Aristotle

Classical Greek philosopher; analyzed how climate and geography shape human virtue and national character; pre-cursor for “nature-directed” pre-modern thinking

Montesquieu

Author of 'The Spirit of the Laws' (1748); termed climate the 'first and greatest empire'; French Enlightenment Thinker; argued physical environment shapes laws and institutions; pivotal in the development of Western political science and republican constitutional theory

physiopolitics

one of the earliest political theories of nature-directed political thought that views how natural environments direct human structures and practices; dominant form of early political science from Aristotle, Montesquieu, and Machiavelli

natural-social science

Branch of social science investigating influences of the natural and physical environment on human social and political arrangements (regimes, customs, and patterns of conflict and cooperation); formed original foundation of Western political science from antiquity through the Enlightenment showing how authority structures vary across geographic space (Aristotle, Motesquieu)

social-social science

Dominant 20th century approach that seeks to explain political outcomes purely through social, cultural, or ideational factors (physiopoitical crisis of geography not changing but human history exhibiting significant variations across time); reaction to crisis of Naturalism was towards the social-social sciences

Historical Materialisms

Frameworks holding that changes in the material base drive changes in political superstructures; coined by Karl Marx; includes technology and human artifacts within the material context operated by the agency of humans and institutions

classical global geopolitics

Major International Relations theory; Late 19th/early 20th-century tradition analyzing how industrial revolution technologies interacted with global geography; discerns implications of technological advances for the shape of the world political order (human politics + geography)

Darwinian biopolitics

Late 19th century and early 20th Century approach applying of natural selection, struggle, and organic growth to human polities, viewing states as biological entities competing for survival; Most influential Geopolitik application emerged in Germany (Ratzel and Kjellen)

Mein Kampf

Adolf Hitler's 1925 autobiographical manifesto, heavily co-opting German Geopolitik concepts (Lebensraum, organic state theory) to legitimize aggressive territorial expansion and racial hierarchy.

material context

In Deudney's practical naturalism, the nonhuman physical environment composed of geography and technology. It presents constraints and opportunities that determine which sociospheric practices are functionally viable (components are violence interdependence, accessibility, distinctiveness, and distribution)

possibilism

The geopolitical view that physical geography and technology create a spectrum of possibilities and boundaries for human action, but human choice, agency, and policy ultimately select among those possibilities; rejection of Hitler’s philosophy

determinism

The theory that physical environmental factors (climate, topography) directly and rigidly compel specific human, social, or political outcomes without significant human agency.

critical geography

A post-WWII geographic approach arguing that early 20th-century geopolitical constructs were not objective science, but ideological tools used to legitimize imperialist, colonial, and racist power projects.

postmodernism & constructivism

IR and geographic theories holding that political reality, borders, and spatial meanings are entirely socially constructed through ideas, discourses, and power relations, treating material nature as secondary.

actants

In New Materialism, nonhuman physical entities (both living objects and inanimate technology) that exercise agency and shape social outcomes alongside human actors.

space vs place

Space is abstract, geometric, uniform, and interchangeable (associated with cosmopolitanism). Place is concrete, geomorphically contoured, bounded, and experienced through lived human perception (associated with topophilia).

Lebensraum

German geopolitical term meaning 'living space,' popularized by Ratzel and Haushofer, asserting that states are living organisms requiring physical territorial expansion to sustain their populations

Geopolitik

coined by Kjellen; The German school of geopolitics (Ratzel, Kjellén, Haushofer) that viewed states as biological organisms engaged in an intense Darwinian struggle for space and survival.

exosomatic mapping

‘outside the body’; The uniquely human practice of creating representational maps on external inanimate materials (paper, digital screens), extending spatial cognition beyond internal bodily memory.

technology vs technics

Technology is intangible scientific knowledge and engineering 'know-how' (nearly impossible to eradicate once discovered). Technics are the physical machines, tools, and weapons built from that know-how.

The Copernican Revolution

The scientific revolution (Copernicus to Newton) establishing that Earth is not the stationary center of the cosmos, but a planet orbiting the sun, revolutionizing human spatial awareness

practical geography

Vernacular, applied geographic knowledge used by human agents to navigate physical landscapes, conduct statecraft, and solve real-world survival problems (Mackinder)

technography

The systematic description and mapping of technological apparatuses, engineering systems, and physical infrastructures across geographic space.

outer (macro) space vs inner (micro) space

Outer space refers to the astronomical domain beyond Earth's atmosphere (astrosphere/orbital space); inner space refers to the atomic/subatomic or cellular realm harnessed by modern technics.

habitat

the environment that organisms depend on for survival for basic biological needs (food, water, shelter); Only ~25% of Earth's surface is viable human habitat.

temperate zones vs tropics

Geographic climatic zones. Pre-modern and early 20th-century thinkers (such as Aristotle, Montesquieu, Ellsworth Huntington, and Clarence Mills) argued that temperate zones—characterized by seasonal, "energizing" weather—fostered physical vigor and conditions suited for constitutional or republican governance. Conversely, they posited that tropical climates (high heat and humidity) depressed human energy and initiative, leaving populations more vulnerable to autocratic rule or despotism

The 'Columbian Exchange'

The vast post-1492 global transfer of plants, animals, human populations, and communicable diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres following European oceanic contact.

astrosphere

The orbital and outer space environment surrounding Earth, utilized in the Planetary Era for satellite reconnaissance, telecommunications, and rocket transit.

Earth system science (ESS)

An interdisciplinary scientific approach that unifies traditionally separate fields like geology, oceanography, aeronomy, and biology as one complex, highly coupled, self-regulating system marked by emergence and non-linear dynamics.

topophilia

Literally 'love of place'—the deep emotional, affective, and cultural attachment that human individuals and communities feel toward a specific physical landscape or home territory; foundational part of terrapolitan

planetary topophilia

The expansion of topophilia to a global scale—feeling patriotism and emotional attachment toward the entire Earth as humanity's shared home country as a shared place('My home country is the Earth').

Lebenswelt (life world)

The phenomenological concept of the 'lived world'—the intuitive, directly experienced environment of human perception are within the parameters of the human body

phenomenology

A theory of knowledge (Husserl) studying human consciousness and lived experience examines how human beings subjectively experience and perceive physical reality through their bodies in specific places, rather than through abstract geometric space, map projections, or scientific modelin

consilience

Halford Mackinder's vision of geography as the ultimate interdisciplinary bridge unifying the natural sciences and social sciences into a synthesis as a body of knowledge

Mackinder's vision of geography

The view that geography should serve as an integrative discipline combining physical environment and human history to guide grand strategic policy and foster global spatial awareness.

'empire of climate'

‘climate is the 1st and greatest empire’; Montesquieu's famous physiopolitical assertion that atmospheric and climatic conditions constitute the primary force shaping human physical character, social habits, and regime types.

extraterritorial media

The broad physical domains outside sovereign land territories—the high seas, atmosphere, orbital space, and electromagnetic spectrum—that require special international legal regimes.

res communis

Roman law concept meaning property owned by all humanity collectively (e.g., the high seas, outer space), prohibiting exclusive sovereign territorial annexation

Ibn Khaldun

14th century Arab historian and author of the Muqaddimah; famous for his cyclical theory of dynastic rise and fall based on fertile and infertile lands and the growth of martial values conquering those with more arable land between nomadic desert groups and sedentary arable societies.

ephemeralization

Buckminster Fuller's concept of 'doing more with less' through technological innovation, allowing greater functional performance from fewer raw material inputs

age of substitution

period of time in response to rising industrialization where advanced chemistry and materials science replace scarce natural minerals with synthetic substitutes, shifting power from resource possession to technological capacity and weakening resource-determinst theories of power

soft power vs hard power

Hard power: The capacity to compel or dictate another actor's behavior through tangible, coercive means—primarily military violence, weaponization, economic blockades, or explicit threats^[1][2]. Under the Real-State Mode of Protection, hard power centers on concentrating, mobilizing, and employing destructive force to destroy, dominate, defend, or deter opponents

Hard Power: The capacity to shape preferences, win compliance, and attract allies through non-coercive means—such as cultural appeal, political deference, economic incentives, and prestige

composition of power

The specific mixture and structural balance of power assets (military technics, economic wealth, institutional legitimacy, technology) available to a polity

choke points

Narrow, strategic geographic passages (straits, canals, mountain passes) where maritime transit is constricted, allowing a controlling power to disrupt trade or military movement (Dover, Gibraltar, Suez Canal, Malacca, Cape of Good Hope, Falkland, Panama Canal)

the 'seven keys to the world'

The primary maritime chokepoints historically identified by British naval strategy (e.g., Gibraltar, Dover, Suez, Malacca, Cape of Good Hope, Falkland, Panama Canal) that enabled command of the seas and dominance over maritime trade

steppe

The vast Eurasian grassland belt stretching from Eastern Europe to Manchuria, historically enabling high mobility for nomadic horse-archers and spawning massive land empires (e.g., Mongols).

violence interdependence (VI)

The master variable in Republican Security Theory: the capacity of actors to inflict violent harm on one another across space, determined by technological destructive power and reach.

nuclear one worldism

The post-WWII argument (Morgenthau, Herz) that nuclear weapons created intense planetary violence interdependence, rendering sovereign state anarchies obsolete and making world government necessary.

John Herz

Coined the term 'security dilemma' and argued in the 1950s that nuclear weapons and airpower breached the physical permeability of the territorial state, demanding new global order.

Hans Morgenthau

A foundational Classical Realist thinker who conceptualized international politics as a continuous struggle for power among sovereign states under conditions of global anarchy. Following the deployment of atomic weapons, he recognized that nuclear technology generated intense planetary violence interdependence, leading him to advocate Nuclear One Worldism (NOW)—the proposition that interstate anarchy was no longer security-viable and required a world government to prevent total civilizational destructio

first anarchy vs second anarchy

both created from an absence of central government; First anarchy (State of Nature) combines anarchy with intense violence interdependence, making life “nasty, brutish, and short” as said by Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan; makes countries marked by existential vulnerability and imperative to exist 1st Anarchy through an authoritative political order to gain security; Second anarchy (State of War) has weak/strong VI, where states coexist through war preparation but do not inflict total destruction

Corcyran civil war

Thucydides' famous account of internal factional collapse (stasis) as a result of internal anarchy during the Peloponnesian War, illustrating how hyper-partisanship and violence erode democratic norms and rule of law.

Thomas Hobbes

17th century English political theorist (Leviathan) that is a foundational figure in classical political realism; posed State of Nature-characterized by intense violence interdependence and acute vulnerability (nasty, brutish, and short) and State of War (states face less acute vulnerability and engage in continuous war preparation punctuated by episodic conflict

structural penetration

The extent to which central state or imperial political authority reaches into domestic society to control local institutions, taxation, law, and civil life.

structural coupling

The degree of density, speed, and tight interconnection of physical, technological, or security feedback loops across an international or ecological system.

totalitarian state vs empire

A totalitarian state exercises hyper-penetration over its own domestic society (example of hierarchy in Deudney’s historical security theory; (compound hierarchy); an empire exercises political control over the effective sovereignty of foreign, peripheral societies.

'universal monarchy'

The early modern European term for a single hegemon (e.g., Habsburg Spain, Napoleonic France) attempting to conquer the continent and extinguish the state system into an empire

The 'Natural Republic' of Europe

The Enlightenment concept describing Europe as an international system structured like a macro-republic, where geography and balancing coalitions prevented universal empire.

'Iron Triangle' of War Statism

The self-reinforcing institutional loop connecting centralized states, militarized national identities, and war preparation under the Real-State Mode of Protection. (war, nation, state)

limited monarchy

A constitutional monarchical regime where executive royal authority is bounded by legislative assemblies, laws, and traditional rights (e.g., post-1688 Britain).

garrison state

Harold Lasswell's concept of a state where perpetual external security threats elevate military specialists in violence to domestic supreme political dominance, eroding civil liberties (USA).

compound hierarchy

An imperial structure marked by multi-tiered, top-down asymmetrical control exercised by a dominant metropole over diverse peripheral polities (empire).

scale effect

The principle that quantitative changes in a polity's size (territory, population) alter its qualitative political character, often causing small republics to collapse into autocracy if expanded.

the collective action problem

The structural difficulty independent actors face in coordinating for public goods due to free-riding, which increases exponentially with scale and population size (task of coordinating is easier when there are fewer people that need ot be coordinated)

Spirit of the Laws

Montesquieu's 1748 treatise introducing climate theory, regime typology based on territorial scale, the two iron laws of polis republicanism, and the separation of powers.

crash vs crush

The twin perils in Deudney's framework: 'crash' is civilizational annihilation in total war under misfitted sociosphere to material context not allowing for human interests to be achieved; 'crush' is total despotic/totalitarian tyranny under unchecked hierarchy.

compound republic

James Madison's term for a federal republic (e.g., US) where power is divided between central and regional governments and dispersed across branches, solving scale effects without tyranny.

Venice

An ancient maritime republic whose insular geography provided physical security without a standing army, enabling commercial prosperity and long-term constitutional stability.

checks-and-balances

The institutional mechanisms in republican negarchies that pit power against power to prevent any single faction or branch from achieving autocratic dominance.

balance of power

A structural distribution of capabilities across multiple states that prevents any single power from achieving universal hegemony, preserving systemic pluralism.

distribution of power

The relative proportion of material capabilities (military, economic, technological) possessed by different states in an international system.

naval balancer

An insular or maritime sea power (e.g., Venice, Great Britain, US) that uses naval supremacy to intervene on the continent against aspiring hegemons to preserve systemic equilibrium; important to the survival of Europe as a ‘republic by nature’

Maritime Whiggery

early modern European tradition of republican and liberal political thought—developed primarily around Venice, Holland, and Great Britain—that highlights the geopolitical role of sea power, commercial trade, and water barriers in fostering liberty, capitalism, and non-hierarchical governance

The federal-republican security hypothesis

Deudney's proposition that federated republican unions using symmetrical co-binding are the uniquely fitted security structure for high violence-interdependence eras; can only be achieved by adopting a Republican-Federal Mode of Protection a system of power-restraint architectures, mutual co-binding, and interstate arms control that replaces raw international anarchy with a non-hierarchical, federated structure of authority (negarchy) aimed at the non-employment of violent force; utlizes de-concentration, accountability, de-mobilization, deacceleration, de-weaponization, symmetrical cobinding, and transparency

axial regions

Geographic core areas (e.g., Mackinder's Heartland) whose location and spatial features offer strategic advantages for land or sea power projection.

integral tendencies

Political and technological forces that drive consolidation, centralization, and unification across geographic regions.

electric telegraph

The 19th-century innovation that decoupled communication speed from physical transportation speed, enabling real-time imperial administrative control over vast continental distances;

Frederick Jackson Turner

19th-century American historian famous for the 'Frontier Thesis,' arguing that open westward expansion shaped American democracy, individualism, and egalitarianism.

Science: the Endless Frontier

Vannevar Bush's seminal 1945 report establishing US federal science funding, framing scientific research as the modern unlimited frontier replacing physical land expansion

strategic neutralization regime

IAn international legal agreement that removes a specific geographic territory or extraterritorial medium (e.g., Antarctica, outer space) from military competition.

res nullius vs res communis

Res nullius is unowned property open to sovereign claim/annexation; res communis is common heritage property owned by all humanity that cannot be privately annexed

res privata vs res publica

Res privata refers to private, individual affairs and property; res publica refers to public affairs, common wealth, and the shared governance of the citizen body.

Liberal International Order (LIO)

The post-1945 rules-based international framework built on Westphalian sovereignty, multilateral institutions (UN, WTO), free trade, and American security guarantees.

benign vs predatory hegemon

A benign hegemon provides global public goods and respects alliance autonomy; a predatory hegemon uses dominant power for unilateral exploitation and territorial coercion.

'the arsenal of democracy'

FDR's phrase describing America's industrial commitment to supply military matériel to Allied nations fighting totalitarianism before and during WWII.

'the American Century'

Henry Luce's 1941 concept designating the 20th century as an era of dominant US economic, military, and ideological leadership in shaping global order.

What, according to Deudney, are the main features of, and differences between, Archipelago Earth, Global Earth and Planetary Earth?

Deudney delineates human history into three distinct geopolitical macro-epochs based on spatial scope, transportation/communication speed, and the level of violence interdependence:

• Archipelago Earth (Pre-modern): Characterized by isolated human habitats separated by vast physical barriers (oceans, deserts, mountains). Interactions were localized, communication was slow (bound to biological or wind power), and violence interdependence was low and localized. Shocks in one region had minimal impact elsewhere.

• Global Earth (c. 1500–1945): Initiated by European oceanic circumnavigation and accelerated by industrial technologies (steamships, transcontinental railways, telegraphs, high explosives). The planet became a closed, finite, and tightly connected system. Spatial reach became global, and states engaged in intense global-scale military competition (State of War anarchy), though physical distance still provided some defensive buffering.

• Planetary Earth (Post-mid-20th century): Defined by vertical expansion into Earth orbit (satellites, rocketry), planet-wide intense violence interdependence (thermonuclear weapons, ICBMs), and Earth System precarity in the Anthropocene. Distance is effectively eliminated as a protective buffer, making security tightly coupled and requiring planetary-scale governance (negarchy) to prevent civilizational crash.

What five developments between the middle of the 1940s and the middle of the 1950s mark the shift from Global Earth to Planetary Earth?

Five pivotal technological and geopolitical breakthroughs marked the transition from Global to Planetary Earth:
1. Nuclear Explosives (1945): The creation and detonation of atomic (and later thermonuclear) weapons, producing unprecedented, instantaneous destructive power.
2. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles & Long-Range Aviation (1940s–50s): German V-2 rocketry evolved into ICBMs and strategic bombers, eliminating spatial distance and physical defensive barriers.
3. Orbital Spaceflight / Satellites (Sputnik, 1957): Vertical expansion into Earth orbit, enabling real-time global satellite surveillance, navigation, and telecommunications.
4. Earth System Environmental Awareness (1950s): Early scientific recognition of global anthropogenic ecological impacts, such as nuclear fallout monitoring and greenhouse gas measurements.
5. The Bipolar Superpower System (1940s–50s): Consolidation of world power into two planetary-scale superpowers (US and USSR) possessing global force projection capabilities.

What are the four main novel features of the human relationship to nature and technology in the Planetary Earth era?

In the Planetary Earth era, human interactions with nature and technology exhibit four novel characteristics:
1. Hyper-Abundant Violence Interdependence: Destructive capabilities approach the absolute and velocities approach the instantaneous, rendering traditional physical defenses obsolete.
2. Anthropogenic Earth System Vulnerability: Human industrial and technological activity operates at planetary scales, disrupting Earth System processes (climate change, ozone depletion, biodiversity loss).
3. Vertical Spatial Expansion: Operational space expanded beyond terrestrial land/sea into the astrosphere (orbital space) and electromagnetic spectrum.
4. Tight Systemic Coupling: The Earth System and global security environment are densely interconnected, meaning local shocks produce immediate, unmediated, cascading global impacts.

In what ways does the ‘Global Village’ (GV) construct accurately capture important features of the contemporary situation? In what ways is it misleading or inaccurate?

Accuracy: The Global Village construct rightly highlights how electronic communications, jet travel, and media technologies have collapsed spatial and temporal distances, creating real-time global awareness, economic interdependence, and shared planetary vulnerability.

Inaccuracy/Shortcomings: It is deeply misleading because it evokes a peaceful, harmonious, intimate community. In reality, planetary technological contraction creates intense violence interdependence and tight security coupling. Without federated institutions, an unmanaged Global Village operates as a dangerous mega-scale First Anarchy, where nuclear weapons and bioweapons leave the entire population mutually vulnerable to near-instantaneous destruction.

Why are humans prone to be lost on Planetary Earth?

Humans are prone to be lost on Planetary Earth because human sensory perception and cognitive evolution occurred within local, geomorphically contoured places (the life-world or Lebenswelt). The massive spatial scale, abstract geometry, vertical orbital expansion, and complex, non-linear dynamics of Earth System Science exceed direct bodily experience. Without universal geographic education and planetary topophilia, inherited parochial identities (nationalism, regionalism) cause political choices to lag dangerously behind planetary material realities.

Why, according to Harold and Margaret Sprout, are theories of ‘geopolitics’ always actually theories of geographic and technological politics?

The Sprouts argue that pure geographic determinism is impossible because physical geography (landforms, climate, distance) never interacts with political actors in a vacuum. Geography's political significance is always mediated by available technology (technics and engineering know-how). A ocean or mountain range that serves as an impassable barrier under one technological regime becomes a routine highway under steam navigation or aviation. Therefore, all geopolitical hypotheses are inherently theories of geographic-technological interaction.

In what ways have geography and astronomy been historically connected?

Geography and astronomy were intimately linked for millennia through the practical challenge of navigation and mapping. Determining position on Earth (latitude and longitude address systems) required precise astronomical observations of stars, the sun, and planets alongside accurate clocks. Furthermore, European astronomy's Copernican Revolution transformed geography by proving that Earth is not the stationary cosmic center, but a moving planet within a larger solar system.

Almost no one doubts that the Earth is global in shape, or that the scope of human activities is global. But great disagreement exists over the claims of political globalists. What do they claim about the contemporary human situation? Why are their views widely resisted?

Claims of Political Globalists: Globalists argue that technological, economic, and ecological interdependences have expanded so far beyond national borders that sovereign nation-states can no longer solve critical problems (climate change, nuclear proliferation, financial crises) independently, requiring new forms of global governance and shared sovereignty.

Why Resisted: Their views face intense resistance from nationalists and realists because global governance threatens state sovereignty, national self-determination, local cultural identities, and domestic democratic accountability, raising fears of global bureaucratic tyranny ('crush').

Over the last several decades there has been a great revolution in scientific approaches to the study of the Earth, marked by the emergence of Earth System Science (ESS). What major changes has this approach entailed? What are its implications for the predictability of natural phenomena and their potential control by humans?

Major Changes: ESS unified previously isolated fields (geology, oceanography, atmospheric science, ecology) into the study of a single, highly integrated Earth System, recognizing that biological life actively shapes planetary chemical and physical cycles.

Implications for Predictability and Control: ESS demonstrates that the Earth System is defined by non-linear dynamics, feedback loops, and emergent properties. This implies that human industrial interventions can trigger sudden, unpredictable tipping points, undermining engineering notions of total human control and highlighting planetary vulnerability.

What main claims did physiopolitical thinkers make about the influence of climate, arable land, topography, land-sea patterns and resource availability? (choose two of five).

1. Climate (Montesquieu): Montesquieu claimed that climate is the 'first and greatest empire,' arguing that cold climates produce vigor, courage, and a preference for liberty, whereas hot climates induce passivity, lethargy, and acceptance of despotic rule.

2. Topography & Land-Sea Patterns (Aristotle & Montesquieu): Physiopoliticians argued that fragmented topography (mountains, islands, rivers) impedes military conquest, preserving state pluralism and liberty, whereas vast, flat, unbroken landmasses facilitate military sweep and foster large continental autocracies.