Transcript TYPES OF BOUNDARIES

TYPES OF BOUNDARIES
• ANTECEDENT BOUNDARY – drawn before area
is populated
• SUBSEQUENT BOUNDARIES – drawn after a
population is established – respects existing
spatial patterns of certain social, cultural, and
ethnic groups.
• SUPERIMPOSED BOUNDARY – drawn up after
an area is population and do not respect
cultural patterns.
8.4
How do Geopolitics and Critical
Geopolitics Help us Understand
the World?
Geopolitics
• Geopolitics – the interplay among geography, power,
politics, and international relations.
Classical Geopolitics
• TWO SCHOOLS of Thought:
– German School
• Why and how are countries powerful?
• Ratzel’s organic state theory
– State resembles a biological organism whose life cycle extends from
birth through maturity & ultimately decline & death
– “Feeding” the state comes through territorial gain
– Theory would be used to support Nazi expansion
• Jared Diamond: “guns germs steel”
– British / American School
• Evaluated the organization of power in the
world, looking at most strategic locations.
• Mackinder’s Heartland Theory
Mackinder’s Heartland Theory:
--land (not sea) based power will rule the world
--“pivot area” most important (heartland)
Post WWI:
--Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland
--Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island [Eurasia]
--Who rules the World Island commands the world
•The Heartland Theory is based on Land Power!
•Not valid today since we can attack with Air Power and ICBM’s
(Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles)
•But think of History - Think of Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf
Hitler. They both went after Eastern Europe first.
•Think of the U.S.S.R. and their attempt to expand by taking over
Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc.)
•Think of Vietnam, think of North Korea. Think of Cold War battles
of communism vs capitalism. The USA used a plan called
Containment. When the Soviets moved to North Korea the US
contained them by moving into South Korea. The Soviets moved to
North Vietnam and the US moved into South Vietnam
Rimland Theory
•Developed by Nicholas Spykman (1894-1943)
•Eurasia was the key to world domination, but the coastal regions
were more important than the interior (heartland)
•The Coastal regions had a large population, resources, ports and
access and control over the seas.
•Control the coast and your control the interior - this was the
Rimland Theory.
•Again the Soviet Union has always been desperate to have control
over land that has access to water, especially a warm water port.
That is why they tried Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and Afghanistan. They
want Eastern Europe to get access to the Black Sea.
Rimland Theory
Critical Geopolitics
• The idea that intellectuals of a statecraft
(politicians) construct ideas about places
• These ideas influence and reinforce their
political behaviors and policy choices
(therefore the choices of the people)
• These ideas affect how we, the people,
process our own sense of places and politics
(perceptual regions)
US Critical Geopolitics: Us vs. Them
Terrorists “come from
diverse places but share a
hatred for democracy, a
fanatical glorification of
violence, and a horrible
distortion of their religion,
to justify the murder of
innocents. They have
made the United States
their adversary precisely
because of what we stand
for and what we stand
against.”
“They [the terrorists] stand
against us because we stand
in their way.”
President George W. Bush
“I’ve said in the past that
nations are either with us or
against us in the war on
terror.”
President George W. Bush
President William J. Clinton
• “Evil Empire”: Soviet Union
• “freedom fries”: France
Geopolitical World Order
Throughout history, there have been temporary
periods of stability in how politics are
conducted at the global scale.
• OLD ORDER: bi-polar
– Soviet Union v. the US during Cold War
• NEW ORDER: Unilateralism
– US dominance w allies following, not jointly
deciding, political decisions
Will the United States remain the dominant actor in a
future geopolitical world order?